Rhymes might seem frivolous, but there's scientific evidence for why we like them so much.
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Why do we rhyme? Like, why do we take the time? Rhymes require more work. But they also come with a perk. And science is showing us why. Okay, in all seriousness, people love rhymes. They help us remember things, make us feel
emotional, and can even connect us to others. And scientists have discovered why rhymes have that unique hold on us. Researchers have found ways to quantify the
joy, relatability, and memorability of rhymes for people across
cultures and ages. So you’ll leave this video kno
wing why rhymes
fill so many… pages. [♫ INTRO] Rhymes can be found all over poetry and song
lyrics. You know, the things we enjoy in our free
time. So if we’re choosing to surround ourselves
with rhymes at every opportunity, they must do something
for us. And, naturally, when researchers tried to
figure out what that something is, they looked to our brains
for the answers. By that I mean that a couple of neuroscientists
in the UK took brain scans using a functional magnetic resonance
imaging mac
hine, or fMRI, while participants in their study
read stuff. The participants read rhyming poetry that they found particularly moving, some unfamiliar
sonnets, the beginning of an emotionally-charged novel, and a heating system installation manual. So, hey, at least they gained some practical knowledge during the study. The researchers wanted to know how people’s
brains worked when reading these different texts. And it’s not surprising that when the participants
read stuff, they used the parts o
f their brains devoted
to visually processing words, like the occipital and temporal
lobes. But they didn’t use those reading parts
of their brains nearly as much when reading their favorite
poems. Which the authors suggested might have been because the participants already knew the
poems by heart. So they might have entered the study with a connection to those words. And that mental connection translates into an emotional and physical response. The emotionally resonant stuff was found to
be mor
e moving. Literally. It activated motor centers in the brain, like
the cerebellum and the premotor cortex, which also give you
shivers when listening to powerful music. And between rhyming poems and the novel, the poetry was rated by the participants as
more emotional to read. This was true even for poems that weren’t chosen by the participants for being especially
emotional. So there’s definitely something about rhymes
that makes our brains react differently than it does with prose,
even though
in both cases, we’re just reading words on a page. And those brain scans make it look like the special sauce is introspection. Specific parts of the brain, like the hippocampus,
cingulate gyrus, and temporal lobe, are more activated by rhyming
poetry than prose. Those parts have been linked to autobiographical
memory and other forms of inward thinking and emotion. So we naturally relate more to rhymes. But we don’t just rhyme because we enjoy
them. They also have a purpose. Like, rhyming can he
lp you grasp new information. One study published in 2020 found that rhymes
make us more willing to re-read passages and actually comprehend
what we’re reading. In this study, researchers used software that
tracks where participants’ eyes moved while they read
rhymes laid out in verse and in prose format. So both formats contained some rhyming words, but they were only obvious in the verse format where they were at the end of lines. And the researchers found that we spend more time with rhymes w
hen they’re presented
like that, and they help us understand the text. Now, it’s not clear whether re-reading passages
was the reason participants were able to comprehend them. And this study didn’t test whether we re-read
rhymes more because we see the value in them or because
they’re more confusing. But the correlation was there either way. So regardless of why or how it all works, we’re more willing to re-read rhymes in
poetry than prose, and it helps us take in the material. And those findin
gs would have been enough to make this a cool study. But it’s an even bigger deal because these participants were reading the famous French poem, “Les Chats.” They saw similar trends to what’s been observed when people read poetry in English. So, while that doesn’t mean these principles are true for all languages, it’s definitely
a cross-cultural or at least cross-linguistic thing. And the utilitarian use of rhymes doesn’t
stop at putting information into our heads. It extends to helping us keep
it there. Rhymes can help us hold onto information, especially when they’re at the end of a
statement. For example, several studies in English have
found that children could remember the names of things like made
up monsters better when they were rhymed at the end of
a sentence. When they were rhymed at the beginning of
the sentence or put somewhere they didn't rhyme at all, kids didn’t remember the monsters’ names
as well. So scientists looked for something to explain
that result. And they not
iced that putting the rhyme at
the end of the sentence added emphasis to the monster’s name, which might be what helped the kids remember
it. Now, these kids were 2-4 year olds, so they weren’t reading poetry all by themselves. Instead, this study had caregivers read the
poems to children. When their caregivers paused to add emphasis
to the rhyme, its memory effect was stronger, probably because the child’s attention was more directed
toward it. And that means that the power of rhyming poetry sp
ans both reading and listening. One paper, published in 2016, compared a reading
adult, a listening kid, and a listening adult on
their ability to remember rhymed words that were read out
loud. And the kid remembered the rhymes better than
everyone, including the person who read them. So children are particularly susceptible to
rhymes. But some reports suggest that adults can also use rhymes to help them remember. The implications of that would be huge for
adult populations that have trouble hol
ding onto memories, like people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. A report from The Alzheimer’s Poetry Project, published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association, tells the story of how their poetry workshop
has affected people in a dementia care setting. One participant seemed disconnected from what
was going on around him until the workshop facilitator started reading a rhyming poem. That’s when the participant suddenly recited the next line from memory. If poetry can help people access t
heir memories
at a point in life when they often aren’t able to, poetry therapy
could be life changing. The authors of this report suggested that
rhymes help people use neglected memory centers in their brains and
re-engage socially. Right now, we can’t quite hang all of those
hopes on rhymes alone. Without studies that follow up over time, we can’t draw too many conclusions yet. But wouldn't it be cool if rhyming really
did provide those benefits? There are practically no drawbacks to reading
a
poem. Because of the way our brains respond to rhymes, we just get them better than non-rhymes. Which is awesome because we can tap into that
to connect with our emotions, memories, and each other. So, I will leave you with that, Or should I say, “See you later, alligator?” But if you like rhymes, you might enjoy our biweekly podcast SciShow Tangents. In every episode, our hosts Hank Green, Ceri
Riley, and Sam Schultz begin by sharing a little poem on some theme
in science. Then the group riffs
and competes on topics ranging from lasers to slime. So lovers of science and lovers of rhyme, can both check it out in the links below. [♫ OUTRO]
Comments
As a Japanese friend told me, rhyming in her language would be utterly useless and boring because they have only 3 or 5 different word endings. This is why Japanese poetry is done differently, e.g. haikus have a certain number of syllables in each line. I wonder if these syllable patterns would have the same effect as our rhymes.
The human mind is a pattern recognition machine that is obsessed with taking shortcuts, so adding rhymes to words are like adding fat to carbs, we can't get enough.
🎶Mary had a little lamb, it's fleece was white as snow... And everywhere that Mary went.. the lamb was sure to accompany her. 🎶
At 74 I still use those rhyming couplets (generally) to remember. Most frequently "Righty-tighty Lefty-loosey" when dealing with a frustrating screw...
"Anybody want a peanut?"
I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday but I can remember 50 or 60 years worth of songs.
When my mother was in school, they taught many things in rhymes. Years later, she could immediately remember many of these when we (as children) asked her questions. The one I most remember is: "A pint is a pound the world around".
I love reading heating system installation manuals.
When I was studying languages in university, one of the most challenging things I ever did was translate poetry from Spanish to English, and English to Spanish, and have it rhyme in both languages. What makes it particularly difficult is that you have to retain the meaning in translation, and rhyming restricts the vocabulary at your disposal. However, once it was finished, it proved very easy to memorize and recite.
6:29 "See you later, alligator" After while, crocodile!
A turner of phrases quite pleasin’, Had a penchant for trick’ry and teasin’. In his songs, the last line Might seem sans design; What I mean is, without why or wherefore.
I suspect that rhythm might play a large part too. I noticed in the video of elderly people they were clapping, and using music has long been a useful memory tool for all age groups. Thinking of poetry in most modern songs, it's always rhythmical. Children's nursery rhymes generally have simple rhythms that help to emphasise the rhyming words. In pop songs (in particular, rather than other genre songs) generally both rhythm and rhyme are straightforward and words are relatively easy to remember. I think the combination is more powerful than rhyming alone.
There once was a man from Nantucket.
I think it’s a bit of a stretch to attribute the effects in the described studies to rhyme as opposed to, say, meter. or the fact that culturally we assume that poetry has a deeper meaning than is necessarily immediately obvious, but prose is expected to convey its content more directly. English and French are slightly unusual among world languages for their emphasis on rhyme as opposed to other forms of assonance; in fact in old english rhyme was not an important feature of poetry and alliteration was considered more valuable!
I got shivers from learning about why I get shivers
Structured poetry often has more than rhymes at the ends of lines (that's a slant rhyme, BTW), though. They also have repeating patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables. I wonder how much scansion and rhythm plays in helping us learn and remember.
When rhyming words you make an additional connection which helps saving them, I guess. Like with the monster names: They get connected with an already known word. And by having a rhythm you also specify the word length and syllables. So additional connected information. Even if you don't remember the word at first, you might remember the rhyme or its length. And that assists you completing the information and remembering the actual name. Like using mnemonic to remember stuff. If you can add a picture to a rhyme it's even better.
School House rock is the first thing I thought of and I am 62. 🤣🤣
Impressive that they were able to concentrate enough to read in that study, given how loud mris are, even with the earplugs and headphones they give you. I wouldn’t have been able to do it, and I can usually tune out anything when I read.
I'm a bit surprised that none of the studies mentioned at least the possibility that the rhymes "helped with memory" because it gave "larger context". And by that I mean that, at least to me remembering "disparate facts", i.e. facts that have no connection to other "facts" that I already know are very hard to remember. And conversely remembering facts that are "surrounded by connections" almost needs no repetition. It just "fits in". And so when a word "rhymes" You no longer only have that one single "new word" to try to "grasp", You also have the fact that it rhymes with another word, and that word in turn might have it's own "web of connections" which then will help the new word to "fit in" and become "connected"(i.e. remembered) Don't know if it makes any sense, but it "sounded good when I wrote it" ;) Best regards.