A new study, published in the journal Brain Sciences, analysed brain activity during the reading of passages from the Divine Comedy using specific investigation methods.

The paper is the result of the scientific collaboration between the research groups of the Department of Molecular Medicine and the Department of European, American and Intercultural Studies at Sapienza University of Rome, led respectively by Fabio Babiloni and Paolo Canettieri and the Sapienza start-up BrainSigns.

The study set out to assess whether experienced subjects, i.e. university students of humanities courses and non-experienced subjects, i.e. university students of scientific subjects, showed different neurometric reactions in the literary field. The outcomes showed greater brain involvement within the expert population and greater emotional involvement in the non-expert population.

Furthermore, the researchers observed an unconscious tendency to approach the Divine Comedy, which is directly proportional to the cognitive effort expended in listening and comprehension. The results extended evidence from previous studies into the stimuli associated with observing figurative art to auditory poetry, suggesting that in experienced readers, there is both a reduction of the skill-specific emotional response and an increase in cognitive processing in response to the stimuli.

During the project, which lasted several years, research was also carried out at the Library of the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome. On this occasion, the study's preliminary results were presented to the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella and the then President of the Chamber of Deputies Laura Boldrini.

As these initial results are published, the team has already started working on a research project called Neurodante 2.0, led by Giulia Cartocci and Simone Palmieri, members, respectively of the groups of Fabio Babiloni and Paolo Canettieri.

The project, which aims to assess the emotional response to listening to passages read by a female or male voice, has involved the actress Lucilla Giagnoni. She is currently on the Italian TV channel Rai5 until March 25 in a reading and interpretation of the 100 canti of the Divine Comedy.

References:

NeuroDante: Poetry Mentally Engages More Experts but Moves More Non-Experts, and for Both the Cerebral Approach Tendency Goes Hand in Hand with the Cerebral Effort - Giulia Cartocci, Dario Rossi, Enrica Modica, Anton Giulio Maglione, Ana C. Martinez Levy, Patrizia Cherubino, Paolo Canettieri, Mariella Combi, Roberto Rea, Luca Gatti and Fabio Babiloni - Brain Sci. 2021 https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11030281

Further Information:

Fabio Babiloni
Department of Molecular Medicine
fabio.babiloni@uniroma1.it

Giulia Cartocci 
Department of Molecular Medicine
giulia.cartocci@uniroma1.it