Scientists behind ‘sci-fi makes you stupid’ study refute original research

It turns out only bad science fiction decreases your intelligence, according to a new paper

Scientists behind a 2017 study that found reading science fiction “makes you stupid” have conducted follow-up research and discovered that in actual fact, it is only bad sci-fi that worsens people's ability to read.

Washington and Lee University professors Chris Gavaler and Dan Johnson published a paper two years ago, in which they concluded that when readers were given a sci-fi story featuring aliens and androids on spaceships, “the science fiction setting triggered poorer overall reading”.

In the new research seen by The Guardian, 204 participants were given one of two stories to read, which were identical apart from one word.

The “literary” version begins: “My daughter is standing behind the bar, polishing a wine glass against a white cloth.” The science-fiction variant begins: “My robot is standing behind the bar, polishing a wine glass against a white cloth.”

In a “significant departure” from their previous study, Gavaler and Johnson found that readers of both texts scored the same in comprehension, “both accumulatively and when divided into the comprehension subcategories of mind, world, and plot”.

Gavaler said: “It turns out our first study didn’t reveal much about sci-fi generally but about what we would now have to call ‘non-literary sci-fi’.

"The text we used for our new study is instead ‘literary sci-fi’, and it didn’t trigger poor reading at all. Not even when it was introduced with a paragraph describing the story as non-literary.

“Readers basically ignored that intro and engaged actively with the text itself anyway.”

The paper, titled The Literary Genre Effect, will be published later this year in the journal Scientific Study of Literature.