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thereaderbank.bsky.social
ReaderBank
@thereaderbank.bsky.social
The world's most ambitious study on reading, the imagination, and wellbeing.

Partnered with the Edinburgh International Book Festival | Funded by Wellcome

readerbank.org
This short quiz is designed to reveal which features of the imagination are most prominent while you read.

If you've been following us, did you sign up for ReaderBank and do all the modules? Help us with our research and join us on the journey of exploring the reading mind!

readerbank.org
August 22, 2025 at 10:48 AM
Although we tend to talk about the imagination as if it were just one 'thing', it's actually the result of a combination of several different processes.

It's possible that people vary in terms of which of these processes remain in the background, and which ones end up entering conscious awareness.
August 22, 2025 at 10:46 AM
In VoiceMatch, explore how the voices of the same fictional characters - such as Alice, Lady Macbeth, Heathcliff and many more - can sound different to different readers.
August 21, 2025 at 3:25 PM
This phenomenon is rooted in how our brains simulate fictional characters, specifically when representing their looks, behaviours, and yes, their voices too.
August 21, 2025 at 3:23 PM
For some stories, we connect with the characters in ways that can be hard to express: we might be friends for life, see the world through their eyes, or even imagine walking in their footsteps. But how and why does this process occur – and what might it say about the mind?
August 20, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Things become more complex though when we cannot make up our minds about how we feel. Do we want to stop reading? Are we intrigued? Maybe both?

This module will ask what happens when something makes us feel mixed, often contrasting, emotions - and in what ways this affects our reading experiences.
August 19, 2025 at 4:37 PM
This might help us figure out how to improve mental health across many different populations, and will enrich our idea of what it mean to, and how we can, ‘repair’.
August 18, 2025 at 11:09 AM
Repair will ask you about your inner experiences, imagination, and daydreams. With reading being an activity steeped in imagination, we want to better understand how this and our mental health are intertwined.
August 18, 2025 at 11:09 AM
The Two Roberts is a riveting love story of two passionate and brave painters from the Glasgow School of Art, and we cannot wait to find out what it does to the reading imagination!
August 14, 2025 at 1:08 PM
In this exciting endeavour, we invited readers to read @damianbarr.bsky.social‬’s latest, The Two Roberts, and tell us what’s going through their minds in real time.
August 14, 2025 at 1:03 PM
Reposted by ReaderBank
👏👏👏 Congratulations to @georgiapunton.bsky.social, Marco Bernini, John Foxwell, @nickbarley.bsky.social, & @aldersonday.bsky.social @thereaderbank.bsky.social
August 13, 2025 at 8:01 AM