"Psychologists and neuroscientists are increasingly coming to the conclusion that when we read a story and really understand it, we create a mental simulation of the events described by the story," said Jeffrey M. Zacks, co-author of a new brain-imaging study and director of the Dynamic Cognition Laboratory at Washington University in St. Louis.

In other words, when you read a book, your brain responds as if you're living through the events.

Anyone who's been left breathless by a romantic passage, or has found your heart racing after a particularly scary chapter shouldn't be too surprised by these findings, but it's always nice to be validated.

"Readers understand a story by simulating the events in the story world and updating their simulation when features of that world change," lead author Nicole Speer said.

Do you think that means that by reading about snowboarding, I could convince my boyfriend that I had actually fulfilled my promise to slide down a cold mountain on a plank of plastic?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

The study, which will be published in the journal Psychological Science, and was recently featured on NPR, had each participant read four stories of less than 1500 words. They were shown text passages on a computer screen that displayed one word at a time, while they were immoblized in the MRI device, to minimize eye movement.

With those kinds of conditions, I just hope they're not turned off from reading for the rest of their lives!

(Photo by maxbrown at stockxchng)