LIKE many people over the past few years, I have found myself transitioning to audiobooks as my main means of devouring literature. After a day of squinting at my laptop, I find it far more comfortable to “read with my ears” while my eyes are resting. My consumption of new books has doubled as a result – but a recent paper makes me wonder if this will come at the price of my comprehension. When we listen to a text, it seems, we may engage in less deliberative thinking and rely more on our gut feelings to appraise its content.
The …