What role does secondary and college education play in our ability to read other's minds? If it is fiction that sharpens this tool, what effect does the pre-medical curriculum have on future doctor's ability to read minds, specifically psychiatrists?
We all learn, whether consciously or not, that the default interpretation of behavior reflects the character's state of mind, and every fictional story that we read reinforces our tendency to make that kind of interpretation first.
-Zunshine, Why We Read Fiction Pg. 4
Reading this article I couldn't help but be concerned about the current college pre-medical curriculum. If reading fiction is an exercise in developing these tools for mind reading and this skill is fundamental to making psychiatric diagnosis, how are we preparing these future doctors with the skills necessary to succeed at this? While, the ability to read minds is an added benefit to the tool chest of a cardiologist and especially a pediatrician, the ability of a psychiatrist practically depends on it. In psychiatry, there are few biological assays, there are questionnaires yes, but a significant aspect of a psychiatric diagnosis is the interpretations of a individuals behaviors to understand their state of mind. If anything, the premedical curriculum beats the intuition out of you through forcing the repeated regurgitation of strict unequivocal facts such as knowing the enzyme that catalyzes the rate limiting step in the citric acid cycle.
Couldn't you read the Zunshine quote as saying that "the character" whose state of mind is reflect is the person doing the interpretation? Also, what if you read everything with the preconception that it is fiction? Does that change it? Or is fiction strictly defined by the form of narrative?
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