NY Times article linking literature and psychology: I love overlap

This article highlights something that I find fascinating. Looking at the world through someone else's eyes isn't an easy thing to do. Look how many people simply cannot understand each other. Great writing makes it easy. This article mixes psychology and literature, two passions of mine so I thought I would share with you.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

"They don't know that we know they know we know."

This layered process of figuring out what someone else is thinking — of mind reading — is both a common literary device and an essential survival skill. Why human beings are equipped with this capacity and what particular brain functions enable them to do it are questions that have occupied primarily cognitive psychologists.

Now English professors and graduate students are asking them too. They say they're convinced science not only offers unexpected insights into individual texts, but that it may help to answer fundamental questions about literature's very existence: Why do we read fiction? Why do we care so passionately about nonexistent characters? What underlying mental processes are activated when we read?"

Here is the article in its entirety:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/books/01lit.html?_r=1

This topic also reminds me of a widely accepted developmental psychology theory called "theory of mind" which describes children being able to distinguish that other people have their own thoughts and they are not the same as their own thoughts. Imagine what changed when you came to realize that your mind is all yours and everyone else's mind is exclusively theirs. It is a big idea to wrap your head around, it's no wonder children usually cannot understand theory of mind until age 3.