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'Sci-fi makes you stupid' study refuted by scientists behind original research

Written By Unknown on Tuesday, October 1, 2019 | 2:19 AM

After finding readers devoted less attention to science fiction than literary fiction, researchers say quality determines comprehension – not genre

Hold on to your warp-speeds; don’t exit the airlock just yet. The authors of a 2017 study which found that reading science fiction “makes you stupid” have conducted a follow-up that found that it’s only bad sci-fi that has this effect: a well-written slice of sci-fi will be read just as thoroughly as a literary story.

Two years ago, Washington and Lee University professors Chris Gavaler and Dan Johnson published a paper in which they revealed that when readers were given a sci-fi story peopled by aliens and androids and set on a space ship, as opposed to a similar one set in reality, “the science fiction setting triggered poorer overall reading” and appeared to “predispose readers to a less effortful and comprehending mode of reading – or what we might term non-literary reading”.

Related: Science fiction triggers 'poorer reading', study finds

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