There is an interesting article on the Cornell University Evidence Based Living web site entitled, “Is Listening To Audiobooks As Good As Reading?”
Here are a couple of quotes from the article:
The analysis did find that literal comprehension — recognizing explicitly stated facts — was approximately the same for reading and listening. The paper’s authors hypothesized that readers have an advantage because they can slow down, reread a tricky paragraph, or pause to reflect, while listeners must move at the narrator’s pace.”
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Divided attention consistently reduces how much we retain, which likely accounts for differences in comprehension when comparing reading and listening.
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The evidence doesn’t suggest we should avoid audiobooks altogether, but rather that we should make careful choices about when to listen and when to read. “Audiobooks come at a cognitive price and one should not substitute them for reading,” Sternberg says.The take-home message: Although the human brain interprets reading and listening in similar ways, the evidence shows that listening likely does not promote cognitive development as much as reading.
I have noticed that my experience of listening to audiobooks and reading print is quite different and serve different purposes. The more challenging the material the more I get from print. I like listening to audiobooks for pleasure and reading print for information. I notice that a lot is lost when I listen to audiobooks as compared to when I read print.
For example, most nonfiction I would rather read print while fiction is usually OK in audio unless there are unusual names and words in which case I prefer print.
When it comes to rereading, it is much easier and more satisfying to reread in print. I found this especially true when I listened to the audiobook first. I don’t find it enjoyable or satisfying to listen to an audio of a book I already read in print.
