Could ancient annotations unlock new secrets of learning?

But what are paratexts?

According to Prof Allen, they are “everything around a text itself”, such as titles, illustrations, references and even hand-written annotations. He says that these ubiquitous features are “constantly changing the way we read and understand the text itself”, but that their effects are often completely overlooked.

He compares the influence of paratexts to walking around a city and using the constant stream of signs and signals to find our way around, arguing that similar processes take place when we read texts in the context of the additional information and suggestions being presented to us. These processes could also be understood by thinking about the way in which a different cover or introduction might alter the way in which a reader interacts with a novel.

Fundamentally, we’re talking about the ways in which we read and engage with the written word, how additional context around the text itself influences how we act and think, and how this process ultimately shapes our understanding of a text, the world around us, and ourselves.

But trying to actually understand all of this, and the implications for humans more generally, is a task that goes way beyond Prof Allen’s own discipline and expertise, meaning that a collaboration with other experts is necessary.

One of those joining him as a project leader is Dr Christoph Scheepers, who has a background in psycholinguistics – also referred to as the ‘psychology of language’. His research incorporates techniques such as eye-tracking and brain-imaging to help shine new light on the ways in which humans process, understand and engage with language.

Prof Allen believes that the new research could provide insights into how our minds engage with the written word (Image: University of Glasgow)

The other leader is Dr Kelsie Rodenbiker, an expert in Jewish and Christian scripture with a particular interest in pseudepigraphy, which refers to the process by which texts can be falsely attributed to historical figures rather than their true authors. This phenomenon is regularly seen in religious texts, and raises complex questions about authorial control and readers’ responses.

A range of others are also contributing to the research, bringing their own perspectives and expertise from areas such as theology, philology and cognitive neuroscience, and ensuring that material from a range of faiths is also considered. The team even includes an artist in residence.

Much of the research is focused on the collection of sacred texts held by the Chester Beatty Museum in Dublin, but work is also being carried out on other collections from around the UK and material from further afield, such as the Megisti Lavra monastery on Mount Athos, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and the Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria di Torino.

Prof Allen says that putting together a diverse group of experts, and exploring a wide range of sources, is key to properly understanding the impact of ‘paratextuality’ on sacred texts and, perhaps, beyond. The hope is that this approach can open up new knowledge not just about the ancient religious manuscripts in question, but about a whole range behaviours that are crucial to our development as human beings.

“It was really important for us to work with empirical scientists,” he says. “As people who work with manuscripts, you can read them and then sort of reconstruct in your mind how ancient people might have gone about understanding these texts, but we're also using the tools of psychology.” This means using various techniques, from surveys to eye-tracking studies, on visitors to the Chester Beatty collection, turning the museum into a live exhibition and experimental space.

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Innovative approaches using modern technology are an important part of the process because “ancient people may not have read like modern people, they didn't have the same linguistic competencies or cultural contexts, but if we understand how modern people are engaging these exact same objects that ancient and mediaeval people were using, that's a new set of evidence for thinking about how those ancient people might have worked with these materials, how they might have read and understood them.”

The link between the past and the present, and across academic disciplines, opens up the tantalising possibility of paradigm-shifting discoveries.

Prof Allan says that, for biblical scholars like him, the new research “gives us a way to rethink what these sacred texts are and how they worked for ancient people.”

“We have all of these assumptions about the unchanged of scriptural texts and the authority that they have - but this is just not the case.

“So when we stop pretending that sacred texts don't change, but accept that they change a lot, what does that mean for how people use them, what they are, and how they work?”

Some of the implications of the new, and apparently niche, research even extend to how we think about, plan, deliver and improve upon the school experiences of children, and may raise questions not just about what we teach in schools, but how we go about the processes of education, and how we cope with a world in which our sources of information continue to expand so rapidly.

What happens in the mind when we read? How do we process information? Are these processes changing in the digital age? These are the sorts of questions that Prof Garrick and his team might help to answer.

“It’s really a new set of evidence for us to understand how ancient people worked,” he says, “and it's a new set of stimuli or new set of texts for psychologists to work with to understand how people read, how perception works, how interpretation happens, how connections are made, how memory works, and a whole range of other questions.”

Learn more about this research on the project website.