Faculty Bookshelf: Paul Armstrong  The Neuroscience of Reading
and Art  Paul B. Armstrong   "Literature matters," says Paul B.
Armstrong, "for what it reveals about human experience, and the
very different perspective of neuroscience on how the brain
works is part of that story." In How Literature Plays with the
Brain, Armstrong examines the parallels between certain features
of literary experience and functions of the brain. His central
argument is that literature plays with the brain through
experiences of harmony and dissonance which set in motion
oppositions that are fundamental to the neurobiology of mental
functioning. These oppositions negotiate basic tensions in the
operation of the brain between the drive for pattern, synthesis,
and constancy and the need for flexibility, adaptability, and
openness to change.  The challenge, Armstrong argues, is to
account for the ability of readers to find incommensurable
meanings in the same text, for example, or to take pleasure in
art that is harmonious or disson