No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Fiction: Simulation of Social Worlds
Abstract
Fiction is the simulation of selves in interaction. People who read it improve their understanding of others. This effect is especially marked with literary fiction, which also enables people to change themselves. These effects are due partly to the process of engagement in stories, which includes making inferences and becoming emotionally involved, and partly to the contents of fiction, which include complex characters and circumstances that we might not encounter in daily life. Fiction can be thought of as a form of consciousness of selves and others that can be passed from an author to a reader or spectator, and can be internalized to augment everyday cognition. In long-term associations and shorter-term experiments, engagement in fiction, especially literary fiction, has been found to prompt improvements in empathy and theory-of-mind.Improvements of empathy and theory-of-mind derive both from practice in processes such as inference and transportation that occur during literary reading, and from the content of fiction, which typically is about human characters and their interactions in the social world.Comprehension of stories shares areas of brain activation with the processing of understandings of other people.Both fiction and everyday consciousness are based on simulations of the social world; thus, reading a work of fiction can be thought of as taking in a piece of consciousness.The study of fiction helps us understand how imagination works to create possible worlds, and how mental models are formed of others and ourselves.
... Narrative fiction can reflect the social world we live in (Oatley, 2016), and fiction books often depict characters' emotions, motivations and intentions (Bruner, 1986), providing insights into their inner worlds and opportunities to foster empathy (Burke et al., 2016;Denham, 2024). Further, fiction books are said to have potential to support readers' real-world social and inference skills by describing characters' intentions and interactions (Mar, 2018;Oatley, 2016). ...
... Narrative fiction can reflect the social world we live in (Oatley, 2016), and fiction books often depict characters' emotions, motivations and intentions (Bruner, 1986), providing insights into their inner worlds and opportunities to foster empathy (Burke et al., 2016;Denham, 2024). Further, fiction books are said to have potential to support readers' real-world social and inference skills by describing characters' intentions and interactions (Mar, 2018;Oatley, 2016). Indeed, fiction often adopts narrative techniques (e.g., present tense and first-person point of view), which can encourage emotional connections between a reader and fictional character(s), thus enhancing the potential for feelings of empathy (Black et al., 2021;Nikolajeva, 2014). ...
... Indeed, research conducted by Nomura and Akai (2012) with university students indicates that empathy for characters and real-life people are similar. Further, Oatley (2016) argues that fiction is the simulation of real-life social worlds, and that books can extend readers' life experiences, introducing them to more varied and complex social contexts, and people, than they would encounter in their real-life. Therefore, fiction books offer readers' opportunities to develop their empathy skills beyond what would be possible within their own lives. ...
Fiction books offer opportunities for readers to gain insight into fictional characters' perspectives, lives, and experiences, and in doing so, have the potential to support their empathy. This article provides novel insights from semi-structured interviews with 37 (27 female, 10 male, aged 12–14 years) regular readers of fiction from two high schools in Scotland. A data-driven inductive thematic analysis approach illustrated the cognitive and affective ways in which adolescents empathise with fictional characters; how feelings of empathy can transfer beyond fiction to real-life others; how feelings of empathy can personally enrich readers and support their social relationships; and how book content and writing style can facilitate readers' empathy. However, while many adolescent readers shared examples of how reading had supported their empathy, others did not, suggesting that adolescent readers' may read for different purposes. Implications for teachers, librarians and others interested in supporting adolescents' literacy practices, experiences and empathy are discussed, in addition to future research directions.
... To explain the interaction between fictionality and story emotional valence, it was suggested that fictional stories may involve a higher degree of mental simulation of the events, characters, and actions in the story. The idea that fiction involves mental simulation has previously been suggested by several researchers (Altmann et al., 2014;Mar & Oatley, 2008;Nissel & Woolley, 2022;Oatley, 1999Oatley, , 2016. According to the fiction-simulation hypothesis, the explanation of the clarity difference is that mental simulation, through the use of more imagery processing, leads to increased memory clarity. ...
... Mental simulation was measured through a novel scale consisting of the mean of five items (see Appendix, Table A2). We constructed the items to reflect perspective taking and reflection about the events in the story, based on accounts of mental simulation in fiction (Oatley, 1999;Mar & Oatley, 2008;Altmann et al., 2014;Oatley, 2016). Scale properties are reported in the Results section. ...
... We did not find support for the fiction-simulation hypothesis in either of the two studies. The fiction-simulation hypothesis is based on ideas on mental simulation and fiction reading by Oatley (1999), Mar and Oatley (2008), Altmann et al. (2014), Oatley (2016), and Nissel and Woolley (2022). The idea is that reading fiction, opposed to fact, involves mental simulation of the events, characters, and actions to a higher degree. ...
Remembered experienced events are associated with memory qualities, such as clarity and visual details. Recent findings by Gander and Lowe suggest that reading about negative fictional, as opposed to factual, events results in memories with higher clarity. Here, we attempted to replicate these previous findings. We consider the fiction-simulation hypothesis as an explanation: engaging with fiction involves a higher degree of mental simulation and through increased imagery leads to memories with higher clarity. In two preregistered studies (N = 131 and N = 254) we labelled stories as either fact or fiction and measured participants’ experienced memory qualities and mental simulation. The results indicated that the earlier finding was not replicated and no differences in memory qualities or mental simulation were found comparing fact and fiction. The results align with previous research which has not found differences in memory qualities between fact and fiction, and we conclude that the finding from the original study does not hold.
... It is everything that helps us to navigate the social world, and to understand and connect with others [23]. Some scholars suggest that engagement with art, through unique components of art experiences, can enhance social cognitive skills [24,25]. These components relate to the content of the artworks and the processes that characterize art engagement. ...
... These components relate to the content of the artworks and the processes that characterize art engagement. Accordingly, potential benefits on social cognitive skills are explained in terms of these two routes, as well as their interplay during art engagement [25]. ...
... The process route suggests that art engagement offers a kind of exercise that strengthens our social cognitive skills through the repeated engagement of social cognitive processes [24][25][26]. Specifically, encounters with characters through art prompts social information processing, as viewers engage in perspective taking and simulate others' experiences and emotions [24,26]. According to theories of embodied cognition, people represent the experiences of others by engaging the same neural structures involved in acting, feeling, and sensing in the self [27,28]. ...
Engaging with art can move individuals through a myriad of emotions, provoke reflective thoughts, and lead to new ideas. Could art also influence interpersonal outcomes pertaining to the ways we interact with others and navigate the social world, that is, our suite of social cognitive skills? Here, we focus on visual art to explore the effect of art engagement on personal aesthetic experience and social cognitive skills. Across two studies, using veridical paintings and matched non-art photos, we examined the effect of art engagement on emotional (e.g., awe, being moved) and eudaimonic experiences (e.g., reflective thoughts), as well as social cognitive skills pertaining to Theory of Mind (ToM) and recognition of other’s emotions. Further, we varied the depth with which participants engaged with the experiences of the characters in the artworks, to assess whether deep social information processing could boost the effect of art engagement on social cognitive skills. Our findings showed that art engagement altered personal aesthetic experience through changes in emotional and eudaimonic outcomes. However, we did not find any support for the effect of art engagement on social cognitive skills: Neither engaging with art, nor art in combination with deep social information processing, influenced performance on social cognitive skills of ToM and emotion recognition. The effect of art engagement on personal aesthetic experience and the absence of effect on social cognitive skills highlight the nuanced nature of individuals’ interactions with art. We discuss these results considering the varied ways of engagement with different artforms and in relation to different operationalizations of social cognitive skills.
... Reading literature can have a positive impact on cognitive, social, and emotional competencies (Mar et al., 2009;Oatley, 2016;Wolf, 2018). However, reading literary texts is an activity that is under pressure in today's technology-driven society (Cole, 2009), and the motivation among Norwegian adolescents to read literature seems to be declining (Roe, 2020). ...
... «Det blir jo som å se en film i kvart fart, da blir det fort tragisk» -yrkesfagelevers motivasjon for lesing av skjønnlitteraere tekster Sammendrag Å lese skjønnlitteraere tekster kan ha en positiv innvirkning på kognitive, sosiale og emosjonelle kompetanser (Mar et al., 2009;Oatley, 2016;Wolf, 2018). Lesing av skjønnlitteratur er imidlertid en aktivitet som er under press i dagens teknologibaserte samfunn (Cole, 2009), og motivasjonen blant norske ungdommer for å lese skjønnlitteratur ser ut til å vaere minkende (Roe, 2020). ...
... Forskere har vist at lesing av skjønnlitteraere tekster og sosial kognisjon involverer nokså like prosesser i hjernen; forskning innen nevrovitenskap viser at aktiviteten i hjernens standardmodusnettverk øker når man leser litteraere passasjer med sosialt innhold (Tamir et al., 2016). Å lese skjønnlitteratur kan altså gi oss ekstra øvelse i de samme sosiale prosessene som vi engasjerer oss i under sosial kognisjon i den virkelige verden (Oatley, 2016). Man inviteres til å leve seg inn i og forstå andre fiktive menneskers indre liv (Kidd & Castano, 2013), der man må bruke fantasien for å visualisere scener, karakterer og hendelser. ...
Å lese skjønnlitterære tekster kan ha en positiv innvirkning på kognitive, sosiale og emosjonelle kompetanser (Mar et al., 2009; Oatley, 2016; Wolf, 2018). Lesing av skjønnlitteratur er imidlertid en aktivitet som er under press i dagens teknologibaserte samfunn (Cole, 2009), og motivasjonen blant norske ungdommer for å lese skjønnlitteratur ser ut til å være minkende (Roe, 2020). Samtidig foreligger det lite forskning som gir dypere innsikt i elevenes lesemotivasjon, spesielt blant yrkesfaglige elever. I denne studien undersøker vi derfor yrkesfagelevers motivasjon for lesing av skjønnlitteratur i norskfaget. Gjennom dybdeintervjuer av åtte elever ved barne- og ungdomsarbeiderfag (vg2) undersøker vi 1) hvilken oppfatning elevene har av seg selv som lesere av skjønnlitteratur, og 2) hvilken verdi de tillegger lesing av skjønnlitteratur. Et hovedfunn i studien er at elevene i liten grad oppfatter seg selv som lesere, og de erfarer et klassemiljø som gjennom en kollektiv identitetsfølelse av å være «ikke-lesere» forsterker deres negative selvoppfatning. I tillegg anser de at kostnaden forbundet med lesing av skjønnlitteratur– som kognitive krav og tidsbruk – er høy. Et annet hovedfunn er at elevene gir uttrykk for lav verdsetting av lesing av skjønnlitterære tekster, særlig knyttet til gjentatte møter med uinteressant litteratur og uinspirerende litteraturundervisning. Funnene antyder at det er viktig å styrke et positivt læringsmiljø for å støtte elevenes syn på seg selv som lesere og deres verdsetting av lesing. Samtidig er det et potensial for flere didaktiske strategier for å styrke elevenes lesemotivasjon, slik som å benytte støttestrukturer, fremme elevautonomi og sikre relevans.
... Niz njihovih eksperimentalnih i drugih istraživanja koja kombinuju znanja iz oblasti psihologije, književnosti i neurologije pomogao je u rasvetljavanju veza između književnosti, kognitivnih procesa i emocionalnog razvoja (Djikic et al., 2009;2012;Oatley, 1999). Način na koji književnost, pre svega, ostvaruje uticaj na čitaoce, prema njihovom mišljenju nije kroz književne opise, već kroz proces simulacije (Oatley, 2016). ...
... Ovakvi čitaoci su pre podstaknuti da razmišljaju kritički o temama, moralnim pitanjima i idejama predstavljenim u tekstu, što može voditi dubokim introspektivnim uvidima, kao i da bolje razumeju likove i saosećaju s njima, što dovodi do povećanja empatije i u stvarnom životu. Konačno, ovakvi čitaoci će verovatnije formirati bogate mentalne reprezentacije sveta i likova priče, čime mogu poboljšati svoju kreativnost i maštovitost (Oatley, 2016). ...
This paper aims to illuminate certain aspects of the intersection between literature and psychology, particularly highlighting how literary works can be a significant source of data for psychological research and of deeper understanding of the dispositions and behaviours of oneself, others, and the society as a whole. Literature, as an integral part of cultural heritage, serves as one of the key sources of socialization, contributing to the formation of individual and group identities, as well as personal values and dispositions. The paper particularly emphasizes the contribution of the research group from Toronto, which has pointed to the active process of mind simulation in the readers of fiction through experimental and other studies. This process AIDS in the development of empathy, interpersonal skills, and emotional growth. The interaction between literary works, which, as an art form, are non-dogmatic and open to interpretation, and the reader's dispositions and values, always yields new and unique effects and understandings of the text. Readers possess numerous interpersonal differences: intelligence, openness, immersion, the desire to confirm their own views etc., all leading to different understandings of and benefits from the same novel. Literature plays a crucial role in shaping, maintaining or challenging collective identities, especially in the societies undergoing crises and rapid changes, such as ours in recent decades. Attention is paid to illustrating these processes in contemporary Serbian literature. The connections between literature and psychology are numerous and complex, and this paper presents a selection and overview of some of the most important aspects of these connections, highlighting their significance in the contemporary context.
... Characters' psychological depth adds realism and relatability, creating a stronger bond between the audience and the story. Scholars such as McAdams (1995) and Oatley (2016) have argued that characters' psychological dimensions are instrumental in driving plotlines and shaping narrative arcs. Using the Big Five model (Costa & McCrae, 1992) as the analytical framework, this study bridges the gap between psychological theory and narrative storytelling.It has long been utilized to explore character traits in literature and media. ...
... By using established personality assessment frameworks, the study will offer insights into how personality traits influence behavioral patterns and decision-making, both in the fictional context of the series and as a reflection of broader psychological principles. The analysis will employ a qualitative research methodology, focusing on the behaviors, dialogues, and interpersonal dynamics of key characters (Oatley, 2016). The findings will contribute to media studies by demonstrating the application of psychological theories in character analysis and storytelling, while also reinforcing the relevance of the Big Five model in understanding human behavior across various contexts. ...
This study examines the psychological profiling of characters in the first heist of the critically acclaimed series 'Money Heist' (La Casa de Papel) using the Big Five personality traits model-openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. By analyzing the behaviors, decision-making patterns, and interpersonal dynamics of central characters such as the Professor, Tokyo, Berlin, Nairobi, Denver, Raquel, Monica, and Arturo, the research explores the influence of psychological traits on narrative development and audience engagement. The study also highlights the significant role of past experiences in shaping present behaviors, as exemplified by the Professor's disciplined approach resulting from his father's failed heist and Tokyo's impulsive actions stemming from personal trauma. Through a qualitative content analysis, the research applies the Big Five framework to systematically categorize character traits, offering insights into how psychological dimensions enhance the realism and complexity of character arcs. The research concludes that psychological profiling not only enriches the narrative structure but also deepens audience engagement by creating relatable and multidimensional characters. Future research could expand on this foundation by exploring character psychology in subsequent heists and investigating the audience's emotional and cognitive responses to these portrayals.
... Understanding fictional stories requires not only comprehending the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences but also the ability to infer the behaviors, feelings, and mental states of fictional characters, as well as predict upcoming characters and plot developments 31,38 . Variations in a reader's social cognition can influence the process of reading novels 4,31,39 . ...
... Understanding fictional stories requires not only comprehending the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences but also the ability to infer the behaviors, feelings, and mental states of fictional characters, as well as predict upcoming characters and plot developments 31,38 . Variations in a reader's social cognition can influence the process of reading novels 4,31,39 . In this study, we explored how individual differences in social cognition affect novel reading and simulation. ...
This study used fNIRS (functional near-infrared spectroscopy) to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying the processing of supernatural fiction, featuring either fictional or realistic characters, compared to real-world stories. Participants’ brain activations were recorded while they read supernatural/realistic scenarios. Results showed that reading supernatural scenarios activated sensorimotor and the related frontal regions, compared to reading realistic scenarios. Furthermore, reading supernatural texts with unexpected realistic characters resulted in additional brain activity in the left IFG, compared to reading supernatural texts with expected fictional characters. Mediation analyses indicated that the activation of the left sensorimotor cortex during the reading of supernatural scenarios is mediated by readers’ social cognition. Moreover, there was increased functional connectivity among different brain regions within the simulation network, and between the simulation network and the social cognition network, during the understanding of supernatural narratives. These findings suggest that simulation is crucial for readers to comprehend and interpret supernatural stories.
... Mental simulation is regarded as an important prerequisite for enjoying literature (Oatley, 2016). Often, the term is used synonymously with "mental imagery, " defined as accessing, combining, and modifying perceptual information in the absence of stimuli (Kosslyn et al., 2001). ...
... This omission is especially surprising in the case of poetry, as one of its distinguishing features is the abundant use of sound similarities and recurrences (e.g., alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme, meter, etc.). If strongly patterned language translates into strongly patterned auditory images, poetry could engage mechanisms analogous to music to elicit emotions (Johnson-Laird and Oatley, 2022), in addition to empathizing with the authors or the characters (Oatley, 2016). ...
Silent reading evokes auditory images of the written text, and there is emerging evidence that these images increase emotional arousal when reading poetry. A novel approach to studying their relevance to poetry-elicited emotions is to explore them in hard of hearing individuals, who may have difficulties generating mental images in this modality. In the present study, we investigated differences in auditory imagery, both as a dispositional trait and as a process that occurs during reading, and the intensity of poetry-elicited emotions between hard of hearing individuals and controls. We also explored whether the effect of hearing loss on arousal can be partially explained by the vividness of the auditory images evoked during reading. For this purpose, participants completed two sessions. First, they filled in a set of questionnaires concerning reading experience and dispositional traits. Second, they read poetry for 30 min, retrospectively rated their emotional responses to the poems and answered questions about socio-affective and cognitive processes during reading. Results showed that, although participants in the hard of hearing group scored significantly lower than controls on every measure of auditory imagery (i.e., trait auditory imagery, auditory imagery for words, and other sounds while reading), their emotions were no less intense. The hard of hearing group also reported lower levels of other dispositional traits (i.e., visual imagery and proneness to fantasizing), but not of any psychological processes during reading. Not much is known about the effects of mental imagery on poetry-elicited emotions, and our findings open a new and promising line of research for exploring their relevance and specificity.
... presented as non-factual), literary (i.e. with aesthetic, canonical qualities) [19], and these aspects point out the complexity of a text's situations and expressions, thus to the mentalizating efforts it elicits [20], and this definition makes it possible to scientifically study a text, to see its effects in mind. Reading literary fiction can thus reduce cognitive biases [20][21][22][23] and improve social [24][25] and emotional cognition [26][27], but what emerges is that instead of engaging a verification process, deconstructing narrative elements like a non-fiction [28], it opens a mind's flight simulator [24], a mental role-taking, adopting another point of view, and defamiliarization, alternative-troubling view on experience [19]. By reading literary fictions, we use « processes of engagement in literature » related to its neural correlates; the inferential-semantic making of situational models linked to the narrative, within which a sense of immersion and imagined representations take place [29]. ...
... presented as non-factual), literary (i.e. with aesthetic, canonical qualities) [19], and these aspects point out the complexity of a text's situations and expressions, thus to the mentalizating efforts it elicits [20], and this definition makes it possible to scientifically study a text, to see its effects in mind. Reading literary fiction can thus reduce cognitive biases [20][21][22][23] and improve social [24][25] and emotional cognition [26][27], but what emerges is that instead of engaging a verification process, deconstructing narrative elements like a non-fiction [28], it opens a mind's flight simulator [24], a mental role-taking, adopting another point of view, and defamiliarization, alternative-troubling view on experience [19]. By reading literary fictions, we use « processes of engagement in literature » related to its neural correlates; the inferential-semantic making of situational models linked to the narrative, within which a sense of immersion and imagined representations take place [29]. ...
Background:
Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder that has long been regarded as irreversibly degenerative. However, the recent improvements in treatment and prognosis and the trend towards person-centred care have reversed this fatalistic tendency, and encouraged the development of theoretical and clinical tools to support these people as closely as possible to their concerns.
Summary:
In this article, we look at how bibliotherapy, namely care assisted by the reading of literary fictions, might be conceived in relation to the classic psychotherapeutic framework. To circumscribe the definition of this approach for people with schizophrenia, we will refer to the work of Giovanni Stanghellini, and in particular to two of his works: the Phenomenology, Hermeneutics and Psychodynamics model, and his epistemological theory of Images. Thus, we shall see that the clinical particularities of bibliotherapy could assist a person-centred psychotherapy by promoting the unfolding of people's phenomenological experiences, opening them up to other ways of interpreting them, and re-establishing the dialogue between the self and its existence.
Key messages:
Bibliotherapy could hence participate in the contemporary movements of clinical hermeneutic phenomenology, medical humanities, and personal recovery.
... This body of work is aligned with the premise that it is the unfamiliar world of children's storybooks that emotionally and cognitively involve the child, and through the simulation of new, imaginary situations, brings to fore social interactions that are simulated, and better absorbed as lessons from real life (Dodell-Feder & Tamir, 2018;Oatley, 2016). The reason that readers can put themselves into the shoes of story characters is because these are fictional and not their own and it is through a vicarious experience of self, that the true benefit of children's fiction can be derived (Oatley, 2016). ...
... This body of work is aligned with the premise that it is the unfamiliar world of children's storybooks that emotionally and cognitively involve the child, and through the simulation of new, imaginary situations, brings to fore social interactions that are simulated, and better absorbed as lessons from real life (Dodell-Feder & Tamir, 2018;Oatley, 2016). The reason that readers can put themselves into the shoes of story characters is because these are fictional and not their own and it is through a vicarious experience of self, that the true benefit of children's fiction can be derived (Oatley, 2016). This opposing evidence, contrasting the significance of familiarity with evidence of fantasy, prompts inquiries into the extent of the explanatory scope of familiarity. ...
... In the next section, we start out by discussing previous analytical and experimental research on death in movies. We then explain how narratives function as a flight simulator by enabling audience members to virtually experience unknown, socially complex or threatening situations in a risk-free environment (e.g., Oatley, 2016). This will be followed by a discussion of the structure of narratives and research on the role of death in the narrative structure of movies, after which we will introduce our study. ...
... This simulation can be seen as a preparation for when these scenarios might occur in real life (Van Krieken, 2018). Indeed, much like how a flight simulator improves flying skills, fictional stories might improve people's skills to navigate social life (Oatley, 2016). ...
A set of sixty popular movies is analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively on the role of death in the narrative structure and the portrayal of death. Results of the quantitative analysis show that death events tend to be story-terminating, which implies that death is typically depicted as meaningful in relation to the past. The qualitative thematic analysis reveals that death is also depicted as meaningful in that it can lead to growth, unification and salvation. Furthermore, most movies include explicit death portrayals, thereby inviting viewers to closely approach death and to simulate both their own mortality and the mortality of their loved ones. Finally, it was found that most movie deaths involve violent attacks, indicating that movies tend to paint an unrealistic view of how people die. These findings advance our knowledge of how movies might help people to understand the meaning of death and to cope with existential fears.
... Even as one recent writer referred somewhat pejoratively to "empathy" in health humanities scholarship as a "God term" (Charise 2019, 193), the formal analysis of literary texts develops listening, moral imagination and self-reflection. Small empirical studies as well as data from cognitive neuroscientific studies have provided support for this hypothesis, but more empirical research will be needed as highlighted in a recent systematic review (Milota et al. 2019; see also Kidd and Castano 2013;Oatley 2016). The field of narrative medicine has developed the most advanced theoretical scaffolding for the uses of literature in medical education based on the principles of "close reading" and "creative writing." ...
The aim in narrative medicine has been to develop a “narrative competence” towards patients’ illness stories in the clinic through the close reading of literary texts followed by a creative activity. In this article, we suggest adjusting our conception of close reading and enlarging the curriculum by including fairy tales, especially those written by Hans Christian Andersen. We argue on a methodological level that a more affective version of close reading which foregrounds “attunement” can be facilitated by considering enchantment. Fairy tales were, and for many, still are, the first and most important introduction to enchantment as a way of knowing about suffering, loss, and death. A narratological approach to Andersen’s fairy tales that stresses their critique of normative social and gender roles, their interest in symbolic narrative structures, and their focus on universal human suffering and awe, will be of benefit to practitioners, students, and patients.
... There are also studies that show that certain hobbies and learning, such as reading, enhance empathy for others and cognitive ability (Kidd and Castano 2013). This is because when readers begin to empathize with a character, they begin to think about the character's goals and desires, rather than their own (Oatley 2016). Thus, with training, we can intentionally change our attention to the emotions of others (Weisz and Zaki 2018). ...
Introduction
Cultural intelligence (CQ) has been attracting increasing attention in recent years as a necessary caability for adapting to a different culture and improving expatriate performance (EP). However, the methods for improving this intelligence have not been fully elucidated, and in particular, the relationship with lifestyle (LS) has hardly been clarified.
Methods
In this paper, we therefore conducted a cross‐sectional analysis using questionnaire response data obtained from 184 Japanese expatriates working for Japanese subsidiaries overseas in Study 1, and in Study 2, we measured changes in 15 of them as an exploratory pilot study after using a smartphone app with health promotion functions for two weeks.
Results
The results showed that CQ mediated the relationship between LS and EP in both Study 1 and Study 2.
Conclusion
The results of this study suggest that a health science approach that improves LS can be effective in improving the EP of businesspeople working in different cultural environments through improving their CQ.
... Computer simulations have become ubiquitous in science due to the path laid by the exponential increase in computational resources [1], [2]. Previously limited to traditional sciences like physics [3]- [5], chemistry [6], [7], and biology [8]- [10], computer simulations are now commonplace in materials science, various engineering disciplines [11], [12], robotics [13] and social sciences [14], [15]. Recently their use has spread to simulating almost every aspect of reality, from transportation and network traffic [16], [17] to social interactions [18], epidemiology [19], manufacturing industry [20], [21], logistics [22], unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) [23] and many more. ...
Computer simulations are ubiquitous in many scientific communities analyzing complex phenomena, such as physics, material science, medicine, and others. For simulations to yield credible insight, they must accurately represent key aspects of their real-world counterparts, making the calibration of simulation parameters crucial. Often, manual calibration is time-consuming, error-prone, and dependent on expert knowledge. Therefore, many algorithmic approaches have been explored, from heuristic-based and Bayesian methods to search and genetic algorithms. Such attempts often obtain good parameters, though at a high computational cost, as they require running the simulation many times to explore the parameter space. In contrast, the recently proposed model-bridge framework significantly speeds up this process by machine learning on a set of previous observations. In model-bridge framework, a complex simulation is represented by a simpler, uninterpretable surrogate; then, using past simulation data, a bridge model is trained to map predictions of the uninterpretable surrogate model to calibrated, interpretable simulation parameters. However, this approach introduces another problem: designing surrogate models and choosing their parameters. In this paper, we evaluate cross-validation and information theory-based model selection strategies for choosing the optimal surrogate models. Through experiments on synthetic signal and fluid dynamics simulations based on the finite element method, we show that model selection and the choice of the surrogate are essential to enabling high model-bridge performance, comparable to and surpassing established calibration approaches, at a fraction of the computational cost and time. Further, our experiments show that information theory-based methods such as Akaike information criterion (AIC) can obtain close to optimal models several orders of magnitude faster than cross-validation strategies. Finally, we discuss theoretical requirements which a surrogate model should satisfy to allow the use of information theory-based methods.
... The simulation of social experience theory suggests that simulated experiences generated through literary reading can enhance the empathic experiences of readers, thereby fostering the development of social cognitive abilities (Mar, 2011;Oatley, 2016). For preschool children, picture books are a primary reading material, effectively conveying rich emotions through vivid illustrations and concise text. ...
Introduction
There is a need for an effective and low-cost approach to promote prosocial behavior in preschool children. This study examines the effectiveness of parent-child shared reading of socially themed picture books on prosocial behavior in preschoolers, and explores the mediating role of empathy.
Methods
Sixty children (aged 4-5 years) and their parents were randomly assigned to either the intervention group, which read socially themed picture books, or the control group, which read books on other topics. Shared reading sessions took place twice a week for eight weeks. Prosocial behavior tasks and the Empathy Questionnaire (EmQue) were administered pre- and post-intervention.
Results
Children in the intervention group scored significantly higher on prosocial behavior and empathy than those in the control group. Mediation analysis further revealed that empathy fully mediated the relationship between shared reading of socially themed picture books and prosocial behavior.
Discussion
These findings highlight the role of empathy as a key mechanism through which socially themed picture books promote prosocial behavior. This research provides valuable insights for family education, highlighting a low-cost approach that promotes children’s social development through everyday storytelling without the need for specialized training.
... Le regioni cerebrali comuni includono diverse aree del modello IPN, come la MPFC bilateralmente e il pSTS/ TPJ, insieme all'IFG sinistro, il nostro gateway linguistico all'IPN. Evidenze di questo tipo sembrano indicare come processi simili siano coinvolti nella comprensione degli stati mentali di persone reali e fittizie (quali i personaggi di un romanzo o di un film) indipendentemente dalla loro descrizione in forma orale o scritta (Black e Barnes, 2021;Mar e Oatley, 2008;Oatley, 2016). ...
Circa venticinque anni fa Bruno Bara coniava il termine Neuropragmatica, un neologismo utile a richiamare l’attenzione su un’area di studi allora non ancora consolidata e finalizzata a indagare le correlazioni tra i processi mentali coinvolti nella comunicazione, in particolare nell’attribuzione di intenzioni comunicative, e le aree cerebrali associate a tali processi. Il presente lavoro intende delineare le ricerche condotte con Bruno in questo ambito, discutendo in particolare il modello dell’Intention Processing Network proposto dal nostro gruppo di ricerca, secondo il quale un insieme di aree cerebrali è coinvolto in modo specifico e differenziato nella comprensione di diversi tipi di intenzione, comprese le intenzioni comunicative. Verranno inoltre analizzate prove indipendenti e convergenti con il modello proposto provenienti da diversi paradigmi sperimentali, tra cui gli studi di neuroimaging (in particolare gli studi sull’elaborazione narrativa, sull’elaborazione pragmatica e sulle interazioni unidirezionali), lesionali, neurodegenerativi e di stimolazione cerebrale. Le ricadute di tali risultati verranno in ultimo discusse alla luce di un approccio pragmatico alla comprensione delle azioni e in relazione al ruolo chiave delle abilità di Teoria della Mente nell’elaborazione di intenzioni comunicative.
... To return to consideration of meaning-making, the novels illustrate how fictions provide an avenue for imaginative introspection which help us better understand what it means to be an entrepreneur without experiencing it first-hand (Beyes, Costas, and Ortmann 2019;Oatley 2016;N. Phillips 1995;Savage, Cornelissen, and Franck 2018). ...
... A narrative is a carefully structured depiction of events, experiences, or stories, frequently organized chronologically or in a cause-and-effect sequence. Due to their inherent ability to intriguingly and effectively convey information (Bruner, 1986;Oatley, 2016), narratives often serve as the transportation for the transmission of both individual and group knowledge and values (Hirst et al., 2018;Willems et al., 2020), and these social functions are further pivotal in human cultural accumulation and evolution (Acerbi et al., 2017;Kashima et al., 2019;Mesoudi, 2016;Wald, 2008). ...
Narrative transmission serves multiple crucial functions, such as cultural preservation, knowledge accumulation, and consensus building, in human society. However, our understanding of its neurocognitive mechanisms remains limited. In this study, we combined a social transmission chain design with fMRI to investigate the dynamic changes of different narrative components occurring throughout transmission chains and to uncover the factors driving fidelity and distortion. A total of 58 participants were scanned as they listened to and subsequently recalled a story within a social transmission chain. We distinguished two types of transmission modes: schematic transmission, which prioritizes preserving the structural framework of the information, and paraphrastic transmission, which entails rephrasing the content while conveying its meaning. Behavioral results revealed a pattern in which paraphrastic transmission led to distortion and divergence, whereas schematic transmission remained more stable and convergent. Neural findings indicated that the transmission of story structure and content involved subsystems of the Default Mode Network (DMN) and specific subregions of the Hippocampus (HPC). While neural reinstatement between narrative listening and speaking failed to predict across-generation fidelity of content and structure, functional connectivity pattern similarity analysis showed that the DMN and HPC work as an episodic memory system supporting transmission performance. These findings highlight that narrative transmission is supported by distinct neurocognitive representations within episodic memory subsystems, which work collaboratively to sustain the transmission of narratives.
... The challenge of studying ecological mate selection choices-with their obvious ethical constraints about manipulation or controlled observation-finds a valuable, and possibly surprising, alternative empirical pathway through fictional narratives. This apparently paradoxical approach derives its validity from fiction's demonstrated capacity to function as a sophisticated simulation with significant social cognition content (Elster, 1999), a phenomenon increasingly validated by cognitive psychology research (Oatley, 2016;Mar, 2018). While fictional narratives present imagined scenarios and characters (even when adapting historical events or figures), cognitive science has investigated fiction's remarkable ability to serve as a social simulation laboratory, enhancing readers' capacity to interpret and understand others' intentions, desires, and beliefs in real-world contexts (Barnes, 2018;. ...
This paper analyzes Carlos Saura’s film Tango through the theoretical lens of the Tie-Up Theory to explore how fictional narratives can serve as laboratories for investigating the embodied social cognition of romantic relationships. The study shows how dance, particularly tango, functions both as subject matter and cognitive metaphor in representing the complex dynamics of couple formation and maintenance. The film’s meta-representational structure, combining the creation of a dance performance with the exploration of actual relationships, reveals how cultural forms serve as cognitive scaffolds for understanding complex social dynamics. The study contributes to our understanding of how artistic representation can reveal typically implicit aspects of relationship cognition by demonstrating the value of integrating multidisciplinary perspectives of cognitive theory, psychology of mating, and cultural theory.
... Inoltre, la possibilità di vivere vicariamente esperienze emotive e morali attraverso le storie dei personaggi favorisce la riflessione sulle proprie scelte e sul proprio mondo valoriale. La narrativa, infatti, agisce come una simulazione del mondo reale, consentendo di esplorare dilemmi e conseguenze in un ambiente sicuro (Oatley, 2016) e invita alla riflessione morale, sviluppando la capacità di ragionare su questioni etiche (Nussbaum,1997). ...
Shared read-aloud programs rooted in action research and training frameworks demonstrate the transformative potential of reading as a pedagogical and educational tool. These initiatives engage diverse stakeholders – students, educators, families, and vulnerable populations – emphasizing quantitative and qualitative assessment of their impacts. Research highlights the cognitive, emotional, and social benefits of reading, including enhanced critical thinking, empathy, and language skills. Shared read-aloud sessions uniquely foster relationships, belonging, and democratic practices by promoting collective interpretation and collaborative problem-solving. Grounded in deliberate planning and evidence-based methodologies, these practices create inclusive and reflective learning environments, fostering empathy, emotional intelligence, and lifelong democratic habits.
... It has been shown that literary fiction, compared to other genres (e.g., nonfiction, popular fiction, comics), represents a privileged context for stimulating social cognitions in children and adolescents (Kumschick et al., 2014;Lenhart et al., 2023). Literary fiction is often characterized by complex characters, gaps and ambiguities in the story line, and outstanding language which support immersion experiences and invite readers to actively engage with the text (Kidd & Castano, 2013;Oatley, 2016). ...
... El arte y la literatura digitales tienen un potencial transformador innegable, por lo que abren muchas posibilidades educativas. Según Oatley (2016), las narraciones pueden simular mundos sociales y cuestionar patrones de género. Las herramientas digitales permiten superar límites formales y, junto con la reconfiguración de las identidades de género, repensar las disciplinas desde una perspectiva feminista y promover la igualdad con estrategias inclusivas. ...
... Empirically, with evidence from several research groups, the influence of stories, as compared with explanations, has been found to include a greater sense of empathy and better understanding of other people whom we know (Oatley, 2016;Mar, 2018). ...
Sijilmassi et al. argue that myths serve to gain coalitional support by detailing shared histories of ancestry and cooperation. They overlook the emotional influences of stories, which include myths of human origin. We suggest that influential myths do not promote cooperation principally by signaling common ancestry, but by prompting human emotions of interdependence and connection.
... With these premises, it is likely that readers-even those who do not have direct experience with depression-will not easily disregard the possibility that one day they might find themselves in a situation that is (at least partially) similar to the one by the story character. After all, one of the functions of reading fiction is to be able to safely simulate a wide range of social situations that could happen to us in reality, including undesired and tragic ones (Oatley, 2016). In the Boca Raton story, the activation of feared possible self SPSs was particularly common, with scores on this item settling just barely below those on the present self SPS. ...
This study presents an experimental approach to storyworld possible selves (SPSs, Martínez, 2014), a construct that describes how individuals activate the temporal dimensions of their self-concept (past selves, present self, and possible selves) when engaging with narratives. This study analyzes how the content of a narrative influences the generation of SPSs by using depression stories as a case study. The core aims are to investigate whether the activation of SPSs is facilitated by (a) certain linguistic features in the text (SPS linguistic anchors), (b) personal relevance (measured by reader–character similarity), and (c) the narrative experience in terms of absorption (Kuijpers et al., 2014) and identification (Scapin et al., 2024). In a between-subjects design with four conditions (N = 235), participants were randomly assigned to read one of two stories. In addition to the original versions, the stories were manipulated either to decrease (in Perec’s A man asleep) or to increase (in Groff’s Boca Raton) the presence of SPS linguistic anchors. Results showed no significant relationships between the presence of SPS linguistic anchors and the readers’ activation of SPSs. Personal relevance predicted SPSs, and a positive relationship was found between SPSs, two facets of absorption (transportation and emotional engagement), and one facet of identification (affective empathy). Conversely, a negative relationship was observed with the remaining facets of absorption (mental imagery and attention). Path analyses investigated the directions of causality, with reader’s personal relevance facilitating the activation of SPSs, which, in turn, led to experiencing higher levels of transportation, emotional engagement, and affective empathy.
... This outcome is heightened if the reader has prior personal experiences aligned with the depicted events or emotions. The reader constructs situational models that represent settings, characters, and situations from the text with the knowledge they already possess from real life or previous fictional narratives (Gerrig, 1993;Oatley, 2016;Zwaan, 1999). Here, NT relates closely to narrative engagement (NE) theory, which suggests that a narrative's effectiveness depends on its ability to engage an audience by providing mental or situational models (Bilandzic et al., 2019;Keen, 2013). ...
Interactive stories for learning (ISL) are a powerful pedagogical approach, well supported by learning theory and scholarly research. Learners traverse a story which reflects their real-life environment, make decisions and explore diverse narrative paths, learning from the consequences of their actions. It is a safe space for learners to practice, where failures function as learning opportunities. Despite their potential, ISL often fail to engage learners effectively due to poor execution. Learning designers face the challenge of ensuring narrative engagement while enhancing learner capability, but may lack the necessary skills to craft high-quality interactive stories. This gap is particularly clear when the ISL deals with intricate human interactions, such as healthcare provider-patient conversations. Scholars advocate for better narratives to enhance the potential of ISL in healthcare-referred to as virtual patients-for teaching non-technical skills, including empathy and compassionate care. However, crafting advice is scarce and fragmented, and too focused on learning from linear, not interactive storytelling. This study endeavoured to enhance ISL by learning the craft from narrative design in video games, where expertise and innovation in producing high-quality interactive narratives has been fostered since the earliest games, more than 50 years ago. In the first phase of this research, disseminations from narrative design experts were collected, analysed and synthesised. The expert advice emphasised the pivotal role of emotions and player self-expression in crafting interactive narrative, along with the importance of designing believable characters and meaningful choices. A comprehensive heuristics framework to craft ISL was developed based on the insights from this phase. Through iterative prototyping and reflection, the heuristics framework was evaluated and refined, and subsequently applied to the recrafting of a virtual patient for compassion training. The recrafted and original version were presented to nurses in the final phase of this study. An online survey measured the participants' narrative transportation in the virtual patient story and asked about their learner experience. Additionally, their decision-making during playthroughs was recorded. While no statistically significant differences for narrative transportation were found, the results from the playthrough data and open-ended questions demonstrated that incorporating emotional depth into virtual patient design significantly impacted learner engagement and empathy. Participants exhibited more compassionate care when interacting with the recrafted virtual patient, showing highly improved decision-making to promote patient outcomes. This study contributes valuable insights into leveraging game narrative techniques to enhance the crafting of virtual patients for compassionate care training. By bridging the gap between learning design and game narrative expertise, educators can create more immersive and effective ISL experiences, ultimately enhancing learner outcomes and experiences. 3
... Through simple narratives, children learn the explicit language for thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, and they learn this in the context of a story and storybook characters, which drives children to learn how to decode thoughts and intentions. In this way, unsurprisingly, research continues to show the importance of books for developing children's ToM (Ebert, 2020) and the link between high ToM abilities and a lifelong love of reading fiction (Oatley, 2016). ...
... Several studies suggest that when consuming media, we use the same mechanisms as in real life to construct event representations 55 and interpret characters' emotional states 56 . To this extent, fiction has been considered a simulation of social worlds 23,57 . One interpretation of our results is that cardiac synchrony between audience members reflects generation, maintenance, and updating of these mental representations. ...
Audio-visual media possesses a remarkable ability to synchronise audiences’ neural, behavioural, and physiological responses. This synchronisation is considered to reflect some dimension of collective attention or engagement with the stimulus. But what is it about these stimuli that drives such strong engagement? There are several properties of media stimuli which may lead to synchronous audience response: from low-level audio-visual features, to the story itself. Here, we present a study which separates low-level features from narrative by presenting participants with the same content but in separate modalities. In this way, the presentations shared no low-level features, but participants experienced the same narrative. We show that synchrony in participants’ heart rate can be driven by the narrative information alone. We computed both visual and auditory perceptual saliency for the content and found that narrative was approximately 10 times as predictive of heart rate as low-level saliency, but that low-level audio-visual saliency has a small additive effect towards heart rate. Further, heart rate synchrony was related to a separate cohorts’ continuous ratings of immersion, and that synchrony is likely to be higher at moments of increased narrative importance. Our findings demonstrate that high-level narrative dominates in the alignment of physiology across viewers.
... In this work, we study how much people empathize with stories created by AI compared with stories created by other humans as well as how author disclosure affects perceived empathy. Humans can breathe life into inanimate or artificial systems [9,[14][15][16] and are able to relate to fictional experiences when they are human-like or realistic in the scope of one's own life [17,18]. As such, this work calls for ethical and philosophical concerns about differences in empathy toward humans and AI-machines have no lived experiences yet can produce stories as their "own" [19,20]. ...
Background
Empathy is a driving force in our connection to others, our mental well-being, and resilience to challenges. With the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems, mental health chatbots, and AI social support companions, it is important to understand how empathy unfolds toward stories from human versus AI narrators and how transparency plays a role in user emotions.
Objective
We aim to understand how empathy shifts across human-written versus AI-written stories, and how these findings inform ethical implications and human-centered design of using mental health chatbots as objects of empathy.
Methods
We conducted crowd-sourced studies with 985 participants who each wrote a personal story and then rated empathy toward 2 retrieved stories, where one was written by a language model, and another was written by a human. Our studies varied disclosing whether a story was written by a human or an AI system to see how transparent author information affects empathy toward the narrator. We conducted mixed methods analyses: through statistical tests, we compared user’s self-reported state empathy toward the stories across different conditions. In addition, we qualitatively coded open-ended feedback about reactions to the stories to understand how and why transparency affects empathy toward human versus AI storytellers.
Results
We found that participants significantly empathized with human-written over AI-written stories in almost all conditions, regardless of whether they are aware (t196=7.07, P<.001, Cohen d=0.60) or not aware (t298=3.46, P<.001, Cohen d=0.24) that an AI system wrote the story. We also found that participants reported greater willingness to empathize with AI-written stories when there was transparency about the story author (t494=–5.49, P<.001, Cohen d=0.36).
Conclusions
Our work sheds light on how empathy toward AI or human narrators is tied to the way the text is presented, thus informing ethical considerations of empathetic artificial social support or mental health chatbots.
... As we listen to a story or read a work of fiction we are actively simulating what is going on in the minds of the participants and considering what else might have happened or could happen. Such simulation underlies our felt immersion in the world of the story (Oatley 2016). And, fortunately, we do know that a listener's degree of immersion in the world of the story or movie significantly affects their neural response as they listen to it (e.g., Song et al. 2021;Vaccaro et al. 2021; see also Dini et al. 2023 with respect to film clips). ...
We tell one another stories of our lives. Sharing subjective experience is part of what it means to be an embodied, languaging being. In order to explore this aspect of our nature we need to relate our phenomenal experience to its neural bases as we talk. I describe a three-step procedure to do so as a person recounts a personal story. The first step characterizes their subjective experience. I describe two complementary ways to do so. The second step infers the attentional and attributional processes that compose that experience. I suppose that telling a personal story is a form of reliving it. The process of mental simulation involved recruits other attributional processes and is itself nested under one that sustains attention to the goal of telling the story. The third step identifies these processes with their possible neural bases expressed through the language network. I take the mapping from the phenomenal to the neural to be the neurophenomenal space and offer a visualization of it. I illustrate the procedure using the hypothetical example of a bilingual speaker who tells of a recent experience walking in a new city.
... Cognitive psychologists have found that reading literature increases empathy and social understanding (Oatley 2016). Additionally, the structure of book clubs differs from the traditional models of educational exchanges. ...
Political tensions, racial reckoning, and rising book challenges have led to deeper polarization in the United States, especially in Pennsylvania, where there is already an even divide between liberals and conservatives. The increasing division led two librarians from the Susquehanna University Blough-Weis Library (2021) to initiate a Social Justice Book Club. This club aimed to unite the campus and local communities to grapple with social justice issues in a safe environment. Librarians had concerns when starting the club due to the regional tensions. Still, they were determined to find a way to safely allow everyone involved to learn more about social justice topics. In addition to safety concerns, the librarians had to consider the best way to gain interest and participation in a group intended for these different audiences, such as what type of material to read, where to meet, and more. There was initial success followed by hurdles that shaped the future of the book club. We hope sharing these challenges will inform others how to implement similar book clubs at their institutions.
... In order to follow the flow of events, recipients need to understand the inner workings of the protagonists. Stories therefore serve as simulations of real-world social encounters; by engaging with these simulations, recipients can practice social interactions in story worlds, which ultimately improves their social cognitive skills (Koopman & Hakemulder, 2015;Mar & Oatley, 2008;Mar, 2018aMar, , 2018bOatley, 2016). Second, according to Mar (2018a), stories present content about social relations and the social world that is encoded and can be fruitfully applied in real-world situations. ...
Scientific interest in the processing and effects of narrative information has substantially increased in recent years. The focus of this chapter is on narrative transportation, an experiential state of immersion in which all mental processes are concentrated on the events occurring in the narrative. We describe and integrate interdisciplinary advances in the study of narrative transportation. After an introduction of the concept and related approaches, we outline antecedents in terms of story factors, individual differences, situational variables, and related interactions. In the following sections, we introduce processes and effects that are facilitated by stories and narrative transportation. This includes research on persuasion, misinformation and its correction, self and identity, social cognitive skills, and on the fulfillment of belongingness needs. We close with an outlook on the role of technology and artificial intelligence, meaning making, and climate change communication as emerging and future directions.
Coming‐of‐age novels are an important genre, often assigned in schools, that adolescents draw on as they develop their identity and future expectations. Mapping gender stereotypical patterns in coming‐of‐age novels is critical to understanding how gendered information may be learned during development. In 303 American coming‐of‐age novels, we used word embeddings to capture evidence of gender stereotypes in the attributes and occupations associated with feminine and masculine characters. Further, we capture dynamic change across 100 years to show that language in coming‐of‐age novels is becoming more gender‐equal (e.g., feminine representation became more agentic). We situate results in historical context to highlight that coming‐of‐age novels reflect trends in societal values, making them symbols of progress and symptoms of problems.
Not supplied by the author. This Element surveys how a number of major disciplines − psychology, neuroscience, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, history, linguistics, and literary/cultural studies − have addressed the long-standing research question of whether human emotions should be thought of as meaningfully 'universal.' The Element presents both the universalist and anti-universalist positions, and concludes by considering attempts to move beyond this increasingly unhelpful binary.
This chapter explores the intersection of heutagogy and emotional experience in the evolution of learning design practices. Through a historical lens, it scrutinises the transition of learning methodologies, highlighting the pivotal role of technology and societal shifts. Furthermore, it scrutinises the future landscape of learning design, forecasting trends and emerging paradigms. Central to this exploration is the significance of emotional experience in the learning process. By synthesising heutagogical principles with emotional intelligence, novel learning design practices emerge, tailored to individual needs and preferences. Drawing on psychological insights, this section explores the complex connection between hormones and self-directed learning, revealing the physiological foundations of effective learning. Finally, it offers practical recommendations for educators and instructional designers, advocating for the integration of emotional engagement and self-directed learning strategies in the development of innovative learning models.
Despite increasing interest in creative aging, little connection has been made between creative aging research and research and theory on creativity. In part 1 of this paper, we will explain why 20th century psychological concepts of creativity were inadequate to describe the impact of creative participation for older adults, and how those theories promoted stereotypes of aging. In part 2, we discuss theory and research from gerontologists on why creative activities are important, and how more inclusive theories of creativity can guide researchers in their quest to determine how creative participation can benefit older adults, and the culture at large. Sociocultural theories of creativity highlight the importance of culture and context as essential components of creativity. For example, sociocultural creativity theory argues that the cultural artifacts called crafts deserve to be considered “creative” even if they do not seem particularly novel. Crafts, which are frequently created by older people, especially women, are cultural artifacts or heirlooms that can hold meaning for generations. Sociocultural theory can guide the study of late life creativity to expand the possibilities for meaningful engagement in creativity across the lifespan.
College reading instruction warrants recognition as a necessary and actionable means of teaching for social justice. Faculty who teach students how to read course texts—and who guide and support them in doing so—advance social justice and equity via three separate mechanisms of action. These processes preferentially benefit marginalized and underserved students while more broadly fostering conceptual and perspective-taking skills essential for social justice.
This article explored the utilisation of counter-narratives in tertiary education settings with
regard to pseudo-events connected to big world events. The occurrence that this article
focused on was the pseudo-events connected to the Israel–Hamas war that started in October
2023. These pseudo-events refer to a surge in Islamophobic and anti-Semitic hate crimes in
countries outside the warzone. Two narrative examples are given that can be utilised within
education settings; however, educators can look beyond the given examples and utilise other
counter-narratives. Creating awareness of surges in discriminatory occurrences with the
use of counter-narratives may increase humanisation and intersectional awareness in students.
Este artigo aborda os desafios da educação para os direitos humanos diante do problema da violência verbal nas interações digitais. Seu objetivo é analisar a complexidade da tecnologia e da linguagem em con-textos virtuais, propondo alternativas educacionais focadas em empatia e diálogo. O referencial teórico inclui Feenberg, que discute a não neutralidade da tecnologia; Fiorin, que examina a ambiguidade da linguagem; e Rorty, que sugere uma educação senti-mental para promover os direitos humanos. Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa e bibliográfica que en-volve uma análise crítica da tecnologia (Feenberg) e da linguagem (Fiorin), além de uma abordagem de educação em direitos humanos que incorpora a di-mensão afetiva, baseada nas ideias de Chust e Rorty. O artigo examina a tensão entre a ambivalência da tecnologia e a ambiguidade da linguagem, reconhe-cendo o papel das emoções e sentimentos na con-strução de uma cultura de paz e na promoção dos direitos humanos. Como resultado da análise, propõe-se que a educação sentimental, apoiada por narrati-vas que despertam empatia, pode ser uma resposta eficaz à violência verbal e à violação dos direitos hu-manos nos meios digitais. Argumenta-se que tanto a linguagem quanto a tecnologia devem ser utilizadas de forma a favorecer a compreensão, o diálogo e a cooperação, propondo uma abordagem educacional que valoriza a dimensão afetiva e emocional para além da cognitiva, visando formar cidadãos compro-metidos com os direitos humanos.
In this article, we introduce a neurocognitive model as a useful analytical approach to a wide range of representations (written, oral, and/or visual) of a comprehensive and dramatic collapse of the world order (cosmic, social, and/or moral). We gather these variegated representations under the term End Time Narratives ( ETN ). The widespread reception of ETN s, and their popularity and variability across different periods and cultures, is evidence that these representations continually affect us and hold power over us. Prominent and well-known examples of ETN s are the Jewish and Christian apocalypses from antiquity, which have been widely influential through the centuries. This prevalence raises the question of why ETN s exercise such an influence. The reasons, we suggest, are based on the following hypotheses: (1) that the efficacy and attraction of ETN s can be traced to identifiable cognitive mechanisms, (2) that these underlying mechanisms are linked to certain emotional reactions activated by the particular structure and design of these narratives, and (3) ETN s – as cultural products – seem to be designed and structured to elicit cognitive and emotional responses through effects on the brain. To investigate the possible neurocognitive and psychological mechanisms that are simulated and enacted in recipients by ETN s, we apply the model through an “enactive reading” of a classical ETN , the Book of Revelation 14–16.
Indigenous small fish (ISF) species, along with other fish, are abundantly found in various natural resources such as beels, floodplains, open water ponds, ditches, rivers, canals, and rice fields. In rural communities, ISF have been traditionally consumed due to their availability and nutritional richness. These fish species, reaching a length of approximately 25 cm or 6 inches, offer high nutritional value as they are commonly consumed whole, including the head, bones, and eyes, ensuring the utilization of all available nutrients, including micronutrients. ISF are valued for their high protein, fatty acid, vitamin, and mineral content. The proximate composition analysis of ISF, including moisture, protein, fat, and ash contents, reveals that these constituents constitute a significant portion (96–98%) of the total composition of the fish body. This chapter aims to highlight the importance of ISF, their nutritional value, and consumption patterns, providing insights for consumers to make informed decisions based on their dietary requirements.
The promoting effect of reading on social cognition has attracted widespread attention with the proposal of Social Processes and Content Entrained by the Narrative (SPaCEN) theory. As one of the essential social cognitive talents, a unified theoretical model of empathy's processing mechanism and influencing factors in text reading has not yet been established. The processing mechanism of empathy in text reading can be analyzed from three aspects: the diversity of empathy-evoking pathways, the influencing factors of empathic experience and its aftereffects, and the brain areas shared by empathy and text reading. Future multidimensional study at the fundamental processing and application level is urgently required to encourage the readers' healthy personality growth.
When individuals read literary fiction, contemplate philosophical arguments, view art, or listen to music, they experience emotions that vary in both valence and intensity. Engagement with the humanities can enhance individual emotional intelligence (EI) and well-being. This narrative review proposes links between engagement with literary fiction, moral philosophy, visual art, and music with EI and well-being. The work details the mechanisms by which (i) literary fiction increases the ability to perceive emotions, (ii) moral philosophy improves the use of emotions for ethical decision-making, (iii) visual art elevates the ability to understand emotion, and (iv) music enhances the ability to manage emotions. The concluding section presents theoretical implications and practical suggestions for designing interventions that promote EI and flourishing.
Our ability to infer and understand others’ thoughts and feelings, known as theory of mind (ToM), has important consequences across the life span, supporting empathy, pro-social behavior, and coordination in groups. Socialization practices and interpersonal interactions help develop this capacity, and so does engaging with fiction. Research suggests that lifetime exposure to fiction predicts performance on ToM tests, but little evidence speaks to the type of fiction most responsible for this effect. We draw from literary theory and empirical work to propose that literary fiction is more likely than genre fiction to foster ToM, describe the development of a new method for assessing exposure to literary and popular genre fiction, and report findings from 3 samples testing the specificity of the relation between exposure to literary fiction and ToM. Results indicate that exposure to literary but not genre fiction positively predicts performance on a test of ToM, even when accounting for demographic variables including age, gender, educational attainment, undergraduate major (in 2 samples), and self-reported empathy (in 1 sample). These findings offer further evidence that habitual engagement with others’ minds, even fictional ones, may improve the psychological processes supporting intersubjectivity. We discuss their implications for understanding the impacts of fiction, and for models of culture more generally.
A novel is based on suggestions from which readers construct characters and events in an imagined story world. In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s suggestions derive from 3 sets of cues: (a) characters’ utterances; (b) thoughts of characters, of the narrator, and even of readers; and (c) narrated depictions of settings, characters, actions and events. Tracing people’s simulations of stories offers a route into the psychology of imagination, in which readers make inferences about what happens in a story. Austen invites intimacy with readers by metonymy, playfulness, and irony. Her novel does not seek to persuade; it communicates indirectly and with ambiguity. Among psychological effects of literary art such as Pride and Prejudice, readers can become better able to empathize and understand other people, and better able to understand and change themselves. For psychology, imaginative engagement in the simulations of fiction may be as important as empirical findings of causes of behavior.
A long tradition of research including classical rhetoric, esthetics and poetics theory, formalism and structuralism, as well as current perspectives in (neuro)cognitive poetics has investigated structural and functional aspects of literature reception. Despite a wealth of literature published in specialized journals like Poetics, however, still little is known about how the brain processes and creates literary and poetic texts. Still, such stimulus material might be suited better than other genres for demonstrating the complexities with which our brain constructs the world in and around us, because it unifies thought and language, music and imagery in a clear, manageable way, most often with play, pleasure, and emotion (Schrott and Jacobs, 2011). In this paper, I discuss methods and models for investigating the neuronal and cognitive-affective bases of literary reading together with pertinent results from studies on poetics, text processing, emotion, or neuroaesthetics, and outline current challenges and future perspectives.
This study investigated the effects of foregrounding on affective responses (i.e., emotions) during reading, and on empathy and reflection after reading, using both quantitative and qualitative measures. In addition, the influence of personal factors (trait empathy, personal experience, exposure to literature) on empathy and reflection was explored. Participants (N = 142) were randomly assigned to read 1 of 3 versions of an excerpt from a literary novel about the loss of a child. Versions differed in the level of foregrounded textual features: the "original" version possessed a high level of semantic, phonetic, and grammatical foregrounding; semantic foregrounding was removed in the manipulated version "without imagery"; and semantic, phonetic and grammatical foregrounding were removed in the manipulated version "without foregrounding." Results showed that readers who had read the "original" version scored higher on empathy after reading than those who had read the version "without foregrounding." A quantitative analysis of qualitative data showed that participants reading the original version experienced significantly more ambivalent emotions than those in the version without foregrounding. Reflection did not seem to be influenced by foregrounding. Results suggest that personal factors may be more important in evoking reflection. (PsycINFO Database Record
Previous research has shown that reading award-winning literary fiction leads to increases in performance on tests of theory of mind (Kidd & Castano, 2013). Here, we extend this research to another medium, exploring the effect of viewing award-winning TV dramas on subsequent performance on a test of theory of mind ability, the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Hill, Raste, & Plumb, 2001). In 2 separate studies, participants were randomly assigned to watch either an award-winning TV drama (Mad Men or West Wing for Study 1; The Good Wife or Lost for Study 2) or a TV documentary (Shark Week or How the Universe Works for Study 1; NOVA Colosseum or Through the Wormhole for Study 2). In both studies, participants who viewed a TV drama performed significantly higher on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test than did those who viewed a documentary. These results suggest that film narratives, as well as written narratives, may facilitate the understanding of others’ minds.
This study investigated the effects of text genre (expository, life narrative, literary narrative) on reflection (direct thoughts on various subjects and thinking back after one week), using both quantitative and qualitative measures. In addition, the interactive effect of personal factors (personal experience, trait empathy, exposure to literature) and affective responses during reading (narrative feelings, aesthetic feelings, empathic distress) on direct thoughts when reading stories was explored using AMOS. Respondents (N = 210) read two texts within the same genre, one about grief and one about depression, with one week between texts. Each week, they completed a questionnaire. In the short run, the expository texts evoked most "personal" thoughts, but after a week, respondents had thought back to the narrative texts more frequently than to the expository. A small percentage of participants showed a tendency to deeper reflection, predominantly in the literary condition. Direct thoughts were predicted by personal experience with the subject matter, empathic distress, sympathy/empathy with the character, and perceived foregrounding. These results suggest a confirmation of earlier evidence: for narrative texts, emotional reading experiences may be more likely to lead to reflection.
Although reading is known to be an important contributor to language abilities, it is not yet well established whether different text genres are uniquely associated with verbal abilities. We examined how exposure to narrative fiction and expository nonfiction predict language ability among university students. Exposure was measured both with self-report and with recognition tests of print exposure. Verbal ability was measured in the form of synonym knowledge, analogies, sentence completion, and reading comprehension in 4 different studies. Across all studies, narrative fiction was a better predictor of verbal abilities relative to expository nonfiction. When examining unique associations, controlling for demographic variables and the other genre, fiction remained a robust predictor, whereas nonfiction became a null or weak negative predictor. In light of this evidence, it appears that what we read plays an important role in how reading contributes to language development.
There is a paucity of neuroaesthetic studies on prose fiction. This is in contrast to the very many impressive studies that have been conducted in recent times on the neuroaesthetics of sister arts such as painting, music and dance. Why might this be the case, what are its causes and, of greatest importance, how can it best be resolved? In this article, the pitfalls, parameters and prospects of a neuroaesthetics of prose fiction will be explored. The article itself is part critical review, part methodological proposal and part opinion paper. Its aim is simple: to stimulate, excite and energize thinking in the discipline as to how prose fiction might be fully integrated in the canon of neuroaesthetics and to point to opportunities where neuroimaging studies on literary discourse processing might be conducted in collaborative work bringing humanists and scientists together.
To communicate effectively, people must have a reasonably accurate idea about what specific other people know. An obvious starting point for building a model of what another knows is what one oneself knows, or thinks one knows. This article reviews evidence that people impute their own knowledge to others and that, although this serves them well in general, they often do so uncritically, with the result of erroneously assuming that other people have the same knowledge. Overimputation of one's own knowledge can contribute to communication difficulties. Corrective approaches are considered. A conceptualization of where own-knowledge imputation fits in the process of developing models of other people's knowledge is proposed.
The ability to think in abstractions depends on the imagination. An important evolutionary change was the installation of a suite of six imaginative activities that emerge at first in childhood, which include empathy, symbolic play, and theory-of-mind. These abilities can be built upon in adulthood to enable the production of oral and written stories. As a technology, writing has three aspects: material, skill based, and societal. It is in fiction that expertise in writing is most strikingly attained; imagination is put to use to create simulations of the social world that can usefully be offered to others. Fiction is best conceived as an externalization of consciousness, which not only enables us to understand others but also to transform ourselves so that we can reach beyond the immediate.
A long tradition of research including classical rhetoric, aesthetics and poetics theory, formalism and structuralism, as well as current perspectives in (neuro)cognitive poetics has investigated structural and functional aspects of literature reception. Despite a wealth of literature published in specialised journals like Poetics, however, still little is known about how the brain processes and creates literary and poetic texts. Still, such stimulus material might be suited better than other genres for demonstrating the complexities with which our brain constructs the world in and around us, because it unifies thought and language, music and imagery in a clear, manageable way, most often with play, pleasure, and emotion (Schrott & Jacobs, 2011). In this paper, I discuss methods and models for investigating the neuronal and cognitive-affective bases of literary reading together with pertinent results from studies on poetics, text processing, emotion, or neuroaesthetics, and outline current challenges and future perspectives.
Various scholars have made claims about literature’s potential to evoke empathy and self-reflection, which would eventually lead to more pro-social behavior. But is it indeed the case that a seemingly idle pass-time activity like literary reading can do all that? And if so, how can we explain such an influence? Would the effects be particular to unique literary text qualities or to other aspects that literary texts share with other genres (e. g., narrativity)? Empirical research is necessary to answer these questions. This article presents an overview of empirical studies investigating the relationship between reading and empathy, and reading and self-reflection. We reveal those questions in the research that are not addressed as of yet, and synthesize the available approaches to literary effects. Based on theory as well as empirical work, a multi-factor model of literary reading is constructed.
With regard to reading and empathy, the metaphor of the moral laboratory (cf. Hakemulder 2000) comes close to a concise summary of the research and theory. Being absorbed in a narrative can stimulate empathic imagination. Readers go along with the author/narrator in a (fictional) thought-experiment, imagining how it would be to be in the shoes of a particular character, with certain motives, under certain circumstances, meeting with certain events. That would explain why narrativity can result in a broadening of readers’ consciousness, in particular so that it encompasses fellow human beings. Fictionality might stimulate readers to consider the narrative they read as a thought experiment, creating distance between them and the events, allowing them to experiment more freely with taking the position of a character different from themselves, also in moral respects. Literary features, like gaps and ambiguous characterization, may stimulate readers to make more mental inferences, thus training their theory of mind. However, apart from literature possibly being able to train basic cognitive ability, we have little indication for the importance of
Regarding self-reflection, while there is no convincing evidence that literary texts are generally more thought-provoking than non-literary texts (either narrative or expository), there is tentative indication for a relation between reading literary texts and self-reflection. However, as was the case for the studies on empathy, there is a lack of systematic comparisons between literary narratives and non-literary narratives. There are some suggestions regarding the processes that can lead to self-reflection. Empirical and theoretical work indicates that the combination of experiencing narrative and aesthetic emotions tends to trigger self-reflection. Personal and reading experience may influence narrative and aesthetic emotions.
By proposing a multi-factor model of literary reading, we hope to give an impulse to current reader response research, which too often conflates narrativity, fictionality and literariness. The multi-factor model of literary reading contains (our simplified versions of) two theoretical positions within the field of reader response studies on underlying processes that lead to empathy and reflection: the idea of reading literature as a form of role-taking proposed by Oatley (e. g., 1994; 1999) and the idea of defamiliarization through deviating textual and narrative features proposed by Miall and Kuiken (1994; 1999). We argue that these positions are in fact complementary. While the role-taking concept seems most adequate to explain empathic responses, the defamiliarization concept seems most adequate in explaining reflective responses. The discussion of these two theoretical explanations leads to the construction of a theoretical framework (and model) that offers useful suggestions which texts could be considered to have which effects on empathy and reflection.
In our multi-factor model of literary reading, an important addition to the previously mentioned theories is the concept »stillness«. We borrow this term from the Canadian author Yann Martel (2009), who suggests reading certain literary texts will help to stimulate self-contemplation (and appreciation for art), moments that are especially valuable in times that life seems to be racing by, and we are enveloped by work and a multitude of other activities. Other literary authors have proposed similar ideas. Stillness is related to, or overlaps with the more commonly used term »aesthetic distance«, an attitude of detachment, allowing for contemplation to take place (cf. Cupchik 2001). Stillness, we propose, allows a space in which slow thinking (Kahneman 2011) can take place. Stillness is not reflection itself, but a precondition for reflection. In our model, stillness is an empty space or time that is created as a result of reading processes: the slowing down of readers’ perceptions of the fictional world, caused by defamiliarization. Our multi-factor model suggests that while role-taking can take place for all types of narratives, literary and fictional narratives may evoke the type of aesthetic distance (stillness) that leads to a suspension of judgment, adding to a stronger experience of role-taking and narrative empathy.
When we read literary fiction, we are transported to fictional places, and we feel and think along with the characters. Despite the importance of narrative in adult life and during development, the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying fiction comprehension are unclear. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how individuals differently employ neural networks important for understanding others' beliefs and intentions (mentalizing), and for sensori-motor simulation while listening to excerpts from literary novels. Localizer tasks were used to localize both the cortical motor network and the mentalizing network in participants after they listened to excerpts from literary novels. Results show that participants who had high activation in anterior medial prefrontal cortex (aMPFC; part of the mentalizing network) when listening to mentalizing content of literary fiction, had lower motor cortex activity when they listened to action-related content of the story, and vice versa. This qualifies how people differ in their engagement with fiction: some people are mostly drawn into a story by mentalizing about the thoughts and beliefs of others, whereas others engage in literature by simulating more concrete events such as actions. This study provides on-line neural evidence for the existence of qualitatively different styles of moving into literary worlds, and adds to a growing body of literature showing the potential to study narrative comprehension with neuroimaging methods.
Recent studies have shown that reading literary fiction can prompt personality changes that include improvements in abilities in empathy and theory-of-mind. We review these studies and propose a psychological conception of artistic literature as having 3 aspects that contribute to such changes. These are that literary fiction is simulation of selves with others in the social world; that taking part in this type of simulation can produce fluctuations that are precursors to personality changes; and that the changes occur in readers' own ways, being based not on persuasion but on indirect communication.
Objective
The Big Five personality dimension Openness/Intellect is the trait most closely associated with creativity and creative achievement. Little is known, however, regarding the discriminant validity of its two aspects— Openness to Experience (reflecting cognitive engagement with sensory and perceptual information) and Intellect (reflecting cognitive engagement with abstract and semantic information, primarily through reasoning)— in relation to creativity.Method
In four demographically diverse samples totaling 1035 participants, we investigated the independent predictive validity of Openness and Intellect by assessing the relations among cognitive ability, divergent thinking, personality, and creative achievement across the arts and sciences.Results and Conclusions
We confirmed the hypothesis that whereas Openness predicts creative achievement in the arts, Intellect predicts creative achievement in the sciences. Inclusion of performance measures of general cognitive ability and divergent thinking indicated that the relation of Intellect to scientific creativity may be due at least in part to these abilities. Lastly, we found that Extraversion additionally predicted creative achievement in the arts, independently of Openness. Results are discussed in the context of dual-process theory.
Psychonarratology is an approach to the empirical study of literary response and the processing of narrative. It draws on the empirical methodology of cognitive psychology and discourse processing as well as the theoretical insights and conceptual analysis of literary studies, particularly narratology. The present work provides a conceptual and empirical basis for this interdisciplinary approach that is accessible to researchers from either disciplinary background. An integrative review is presented of the classic problems in narratology: the status of the narrator, events and plot, characters and characterization, speech and thought, and focalization. For each area, Bortolussi and Dixon critique the state of the art in narratology and literary studies, discuss relevant work in cognitive psychology, and provide a new analytical framework based on the insight that readers treat the narrator as a conversational participant. Empirical evidence is presented on each problem, much of it previously unpublished.
Immersion in reading, described as a feeling of 'getting lost in a book', is a ubiquitous phenomenon widely appreciated by readers. However, it has been largely ignored in cognitive neuroscience. According to the fiction feeling hypothesis, narratives with emotional contents invite readers more to be empathic with the protagonists and thus engage the affective empathy network of the brain, the anterior insula and mid-cingulate cortex, than do stories with neutral contents. To test the hypothesis, we presented participants with text passages from the Harry Potter series in a functional MRI experiment and collected post-hoc immersion ratings, comparing the neural correlates of passage mean immersion ratings when reading fear-inducing versus neutral contents. Results for the conjunction contrast of baseline brain activity of reading irrespective of emotional content against baseline were in line with previous studies on text comprehension. In line with the fiction feeling hypothesis, immersion ratings were significantly higher for fear-inducing than for neutral passages, and activity in the mid-cingulate cortex correlated more strongly with immersion ratings of fear-inducing than of neutral passages. Descriptions of protagonists' pain or personal distress featured in the fear-inducing passages apparently caused increasing involvement of the core structure of pain and affective empathy the more readers immersed in the text. The predominant locus of effects in the mid-cingulate cortex seems to reflect that the immersive experience was particularly facilitated by the motor component of affective empathy for our stimuli from the Harry Potter series featuring particularly vivid descriptions of the behavioural aspects of emotion.
Fiction might be dismissed as observations that lack reliability and validity, but this would be a misunderstanding. Works of fiction are simulations that run on minds. They were the first kinds of simulation. All art has a metaphorical quality: a painting can be both pigments on canvas and a person. In literary art, this quality extends to readers who can be both themselves and, by empathetic processes within a simulation, also literary characters. On the basis of this hypothesis, it was found that the more fiction people read the better were their skills of empathy and theory-of-mind; the inference from several studies is that reading fiction improves social skills. In functional magnetic resonance imaging meta-analyses, brain areas concerned with understanding narrative stories were found to overlap with those concerned with theory-of-mind. In an orthogonal effect, reading artistic literature was found to enable people to change their personality by small increments, not by a writer's persuasion, but in their own way. This effect was due to artistic merit of a text, irrespective of whether it was fiction or non-fiction. An empirically based conception of literary art might be carefully constructed verbal material that enables self-directed personal change. WIREs Cogn Sci 2012, 3:425–430. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1185
For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.
Recent research shows that extended contact via story reading is a powerful strategy to improve out-group attitudes. We conducted three studies to test whether extended contact through reading the popular best-selling books of Harry Potter improves attitudes toward stigmatized groups (immigrants, homosexuals, refugees). Results from one experimental intervention with elementary school children and from two cross-sectional studies with high school and university students (in Italy and United Kingdom) supported our main hypothesis. Identification with the main character (i.e., Harry Potter) and disidentification from the negative character (i.e., Voldemort) moderated the effect. Perspective taking emerged as the process allowing attitude improvement. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed in the context of extended intergroup contact and social cognitive theory.
The value of narrative fiction as a vehicle for empathic growth is touted across diverse disciplines, but these ideas have rarely undergone empirical scrutiny. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether enhancing imagery generation while reading fiction can potentiate empathy and prosocial behavior. Participants (N = 98) were randomly assigned to generate imagery across multiple sensory domains while reading (imagery-generation condition), focus on the semantic meaning of words in the story (verbal-semantic condition), or read the story as they would for leisure (leisure-reading condition). Participants who generated higher levels of imagery were significantly more transported into the story and felt significantly higher empathy for the story’s characters. Individuals in the imagery-generation condition were over 3 times more likely to exhibit prosocial behavior than individuals in the leisure-reading condition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)
Three experiments were conducted on how properties of the text control one aspect of the process of identifying with the central character in a story. In particular, we were concerned with textual determinants of character transparency, that is, the extent to which the character’s actions and attitudes are clear and understandable. In Experiment 1, we hypothesized that the narrator in first-person narratives is transparent because narratorial implicatures (analogous to Grice’s (1975) notion of conversational implicatures) lead readers to attribute their own knowledge and experience to the narrator. Consistent with our predictions, the results indicated that stating the inferred information explicitly leads readers to rate the narrator’s thoughts and actions as more difficult to understand. In Experiment 2, we assessed whether this effect could be explained by differences in style between the original and modified versions of the text. The results demonstrated that there was no effect of adding text when the material was unrelated to narratorial implicatures. In Experiment 3, we hypothesized that transparency of the central character in a third-person narrative can be produced when the consistent use of free-indirect speech produces a close association between the narrator and the character; in this case, readers may attribute knowledge and experience to the character as well as the narrator. As predicted, the central character’s thoughts and actions were rated as more difficult to understand when the markers for free-indirect speech were removed. We argue that transparency may be produced through the use of what are essential conversational processes invoked in service of understanding the narrator as a conversational participant.
The experience of reading varies markedly between differing texts which may be, for example, primarily informative, musical, or moving.We asked whether these differences would correspond to widespread contrasts in brain activity. Using fMRI, we examined brain activation in expert participants reading passages of prose and poetry. Both prose and poetry activated previously identified reading areas. Their emotional power was related to activity in regions linked to the emotional response to music. 'Literariness'was related to activity in a predominantly left-sided set of regions. Self-selected poetry activated the classical reading areas weakly, the inferior parietal lobes strongly, probably because these passages were known 'by heart'. Experimenter- chosen poetry activated brain regions that have recently been associated with introspection. The experience of reading contrasting texts is associated with differing patterns of brain activation, the emotional response to literature shares ground with the response to music, and regions of the right hemisphere are engaged by poetry.
Previous studies have found a positive relationship between exposure to fiction and interpersonal
sensitivity. However, it is unclear whether exposure to different genres of fiction may be differentially
related to these outcomes for readers. The current study investigated the role of four fiction genres (i.e.,
Domestic Fiction, Romance, Science-Fiction/Fantasy, and Suspense/Thriller) in the relationship between
fiction and interpersonal sensitivity, controlling for other individual differences. Participants completed
a survey that included a lifetime print-exposure measure along with an interpersonal sensitivity task.
Some, but not all, fiction genres were related to higher scores on our measure of interpersonal sensitivity.
Furthermore, after controlling for personality, gender, age, English fluency, and exposure to nonfiction,
only the Romance and Suspense/Thriller genres remained significant predictors of interpersonal sensitivity.
The findings of this study demonstrate that in discussing the influence of fiction print-exposure on
readers it is important to consider the genre of the literature being consumed.
The present work examined the influence of stories on the self-concept of femininity. A mixed sample of female respondents (N=689) participated in a web-based experiment. Self-reported femininity was assessed after reading a story that featured a protagonist with a traditional gender role (focused on motherhood) or a control story. The experimental story increased femininity only among readers who were more deeply transported into the story world. Moreover, the experimental story increased femininity among respondents who were unlikely to engage in social comparison (had no children of their own), whereas no such effect was observed for respondents who were demographically more similar to the protagonist (had children of their own).
What does it mean to be transported by a narrative?to create a world inside one’s head? How do experiences of narrative worlds alter our experience of the real world? In this book Richard Gerrig integrates insights from cognitive psychology and from research linguistics, philosophy, and literary criticism to provide a cohesive account of what we have most often treated as isolated aspects of narrative experience.Drawing on examples from Tolstoy to Toni Morrison, Gerrig offers new analysis of some classic problems in the study of narrative. He discusses the ways in which we are cognitively equipped to tackle fictional and nonfictional narratives; how thought and emotion interact when we experience narrative; how narrative information influences judgments in the real world; and the reasons we can feel the same excitement and suspense when we reread a book as when we read it for the first time. Gerrig also explores the ways we enhance the experience of narratives, through finding solutions to textual dilemmas, enjoying irony at the expense of characters in the narrative, and applying a wide range of interpretive techniques to discover meanings concealed by and from authors.
Preface PART 1: TWO NATURAL KINDS 1. Approaching the Literary 2. Two Modes of Thought 3. Possible Castles PART 2: LANGUAGE AND REALITY 4. The Transactional Self 5. The Inspiration of Vygotsky 6. Psychological Reality 7. Nelson Goodman's Worlds 8. Thought and Emotion PART 3: ACTING IN CONSTRUCTED WORLDS 9. The Language of Education 10. Developmental Theory as Culture Afterword Appendix: A Reader's Retelling of "Clay" by James Joyce Notes Credits Index
Conceptual integration is a basic mental operation, in which input conceptual arrays are 'blended' to produce compressed, memorable conceptual packets, congenial to human thought, often with emergent structure not available from the input conceptual arrays. The highest form of conceptual integration is 'double-scope' integration. Double-scope integration is the hallmark of the distinctively human imagination. A double-scope integration network has input conceptual arrays with different, often clashing, organizing frames and an organizing frame for the blend that includes parts of each of those organizing frames and emergent structure of its own. In such networks, both organizing frames make central contributions to the blend, and their sharp differences offer the possibility of rich clashes. Far from blocking the construction of the network, such clashes offer conceptual challenges. The resulting blends can turn out to be highly imaginative.
Should cognitive scientists and neuroscientists care about Dostoyevsky? Engaging with fiction is a natural and rich behavior, providing a unique window onto the mind and brain, particularly for mental simulation, emotion, empathy, and immersion. With advances in analysis techniques, it is time that cognitive scientists and neuroscientists embrace literature and fiction.
Mimesis is one of the oldest, most fundamental concepts in Western aesthetics. This book offers a new, searching treatment of its long history at the center of theories of representational art: above all, in the highly influential writings of Plato and Aristotle, but also in later Greco-Roman philosophy and criticism, and subsequently in many areas of aesthetic controversy from the Renaissance to the twentieth century. Combining classical scholarship, philosophical analysis, and the history of ideas--and ranging across discussion of poetry, painting, and music--Stephen Halliwell shows with a wealth of detail how mimesis, at all stages of its evolution, has been a more complex, variable concept than its conventional translation of "imitation" can now convey. Far from providing a static model of artistic representation, mimesis has generated many different models of art, encompassing a spectrum of positions from realism to idealism. Under the influence of Platonist and Aristotelian paradigms, mimesis has been a crux of debate between proponents of what Halliwell calls "world-reflecting" and "world-simulating" theories of representation in both the visual and musico-poetic arts. This debate is about not only the fraught relationship between art and reality but also the psychology and ethics of how we experience and are affected by mimetic art. Moving expertly between ancient and modern traditions, Halliwell contends that the history of mimesis hinges on problems that continue to be of urgent concern for contemporary aesthetics.
This book presents an account of the relationships among novel reading, empathy, and altruism. Though readers' and authors' empathy certainly contribute to the emotional resonance of fiction and its success in the marketplace, this book finds the case for altruistic consequences of novel reading inconclusive. It offers instead a detailed theory of narrative empathy, with proposals about its deployment by novelists and its results in readers. The book engages with neuroscience and contemporary psychological research on empathy, bringing affect to the center of cognitive literary studies' scrutiny of narrative fiction. Drawing on narrative theory, literary history, philosophy, and contemporary scholarship in discourse processing, the book brings together resources and challenges for the literary study of empathy and the psychological study of fiction reading. Empathy robustly enters into affective responses to fiction, but its proper role in shaping the behavior of emotional readers has been debated for three centuries. The book surveys these debates and offers a series of hypotheses about literary empathy, including narrative techniques inviting empathetic response. It argues that above all readers' perception of a text's fictiveness increases the likelihood of readers' empathy, by releasing readers from their guarded responses to the demands of real others. The book confirms the centrality of narrative empathy as a strategy, as well as a subject, of contemporary novelists. Despite the disrepute of putative human universals, novelists from around the world endorse the notion of shared human emotions when they overtly call upon their readers' empathy. Consequently, the book suggests, if narrative empathy is to be better understood, women's reading and popular fiction must be accorded the respect of experimental inquiry.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of reading material on both social and non-social cognition. Prior research supports the hypothesis that reading fiction improves theory of mind (Kidd and Castano, 2013, Mar et al., 2006 and Mar et al., 2009a); however, little has been done to test its effects on other cognitive abilities. In this study, we tested the effect of reading literary fiction vs. non-fiction on both theory of mind and intuitive physics understanding. In line with previous research, results indicate a small but significant within-subject effect of reading material on theory of mind once other variables are controlled. Although the experimental manipulation (literary fiction vs. nonfiction) had no effect on intuitive physics understanding, we found that familiarity with fiction predicted intuitive physics ability. These results are discussed in terms of theories of fiction.
Literature and personality psychology both address human nature, but they rarely address each other. We argue that the Five-Factor Model (FFM), a universal and heritable structure of enduring personality traits, provides a framework for integrating these two traditions. For the psychologist, fiction can provide illustrative examples, testable hypotheses about traits and psychological processes, and perhaps a better understanding of culture and history. For the writer and reader, an understanding of current knowledge about personality can contribute to a keener perception of human character and a deeper appreciation of its depiction. Literary critics have long been influenced by psychoanalytic theory, but they have not, by and large, kept up-to-date with developments in psychology. We argue that critics might fruitfully apply the methods and findings of contemporary trait psychology to broad questions about genres, literary periods, and individual authors, as well as to the interpretation of individual characters. We illustrate the use of FFM personality profiles in understanding the protagonists from works of Goethe, Molière, and Voltaire. The FFM should be central to an evolving consciousness about human nature.Keywords:personality;Five-Factor Model;literature;traits;literary criticism;personality theory
Higher-order mentalising is the ability to represent the beliefs and desires of other people at multiple, iterated levels — a capacity that sets humans apart from other species. However, there has not yet been a systematic attempt to determine what cognitive processes underlie this ability. Here we present three correlational studies assessing the extent to which performance on higher-order mentalising tasks relates to emotion recognition, self-reported empathy and self-inhibition. In Study 1a and 1b, examining emotion recognition and empathy, a relationship was identified between individual differences in the ability to mentalise and an emotion recognition task (the Reading the Mind in the Eyes task), but no correlation was found with the empathy quotient, a self-report scale of empathy. Study 2 investigated whether a relationship exists between individual mentalising abilities and four different forms of self-inhibition: motor inhibition, executive inhibition, automatic imitation and temporal discounting. Results demonstrate that only temporal discounting performance relates to mentalising ability; suggesting that cognitive skills relevant to representation of the minds of others' are not influenced by the ability to perform more basic inhibition. Higher-order mentalising appears to rely on the cognitive architecture that serves both low-level social cognition (emotion recognition), and complex forms of inhibition.
Past research on video game effects was often limited to explaining effects of game content and mode, leaving structural and contextual game elements scarcely investigated. The present research examined the yet unclear role of narration in video games, by adapting concepts and methodology from video game research based on self-determination theory as well as past research on the effects of literary fiction. Results provided evidence for the facilitation of immersion and an immersion-mediated enhancement of autonomy and relatedness need satisfaction through in-game storytelling, suggesting a mutual enhancement of immersion and need satisfaction. Moreover, in-game storytelling enhanced affective theory of mind. Perspectives on future research, connecting in-game storytelling and game content to complement current knowledge of video game effects on various real-world outcomes, are discussed.
Socio-cognitive skills are crucial for successful interpersonal interactions. Two particularly important socio-cognitive processes are emotion perception (EP) and theory of mind (ToM), but agreement is lacking on terminology and conceptual links between these constructs. Here we seek to clarify the relationship between the two at multiple levels, from concept to neuroanatomy. EP is often regarded as a low-level perceptual process necessary to decode affective cues, while ToM is usually seen as a higher-level cognitive process involving mental state deduction. In information processing models, EP tends to precede ToM. At the neuroanatomical level, lesion study data suggest that EP and ToM are both right-hemispheres based, but there is also evidence that ToM requires temporal-cingulate networks, whereas EP requires partially separable regions linked to distinct emotions. Common regions identified in fMRI studies of EP and ToM have included medial prefrontal cortex and temporal lobe areas, but differences emerge depending on the perceptual, cognitive and emotional demands of the EP and ToM tasks. For the future, clarity of definition of EP and ToM will be paramount to produce distinct task manipulations and inform models of socio-cognitive processing.
Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Participants read a story about a counterstereotypical Muslim woman and were then asked to determine the race of ambiguous-race Arab-Caucasian faces. Compared to a content-matched control condition, participants who read the narrative exhibited lower categorical race bias by making fewer categorical race judgments and perceiving greater genetic overlap between Arabs and Caucasians (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, participants determined the race of ambiguous-race Arab-Caucasian faces depicting low and moderate anger. Emotion-related perceptual race bias was observed in the control conditions where higher intensity anger expressions led participants to disproportionately categorize faces as Arab. This bias was eliminated in the narrative condition.
Fiction has often been viewed as requiring imaginative input on the part of the audience, but relatively little empirical work has examined the role that fictional characters and worlds play in the imaginings of adolescents and adults, outside of the text itself. Here, I provide an overview of existing research on fanfiction, or extratextual stories written for pleasure by fans, based on an existing media property. I suggest that fanfiction is a form of imaginary play that reflects both emotional engagement with and resistance to the source material. I draw comparisons between writing fanfiction, daydreaming, and childhood pretend play and argue that there is a need for research that explores this phenomenon using more rigorous psychological methods. Such research may shed light on a range of issues in the psychology of fiction and why we read for pleasure.
Something mystifying about narrative engagement, be it with novels, plays, video games, or films, is that it does not work in the same way for any two readers, audience members, or players. Each of us undergoes the narrative experience as a personally relevant enterprise that differs from individual to individual. Why do some readers find certain narratives extraordinarily relevant, while others feel indifferent about them? Why do readers find great pleasure in a narrative that years before they discarded unfinished? Or, conversely, why do people sometimes wonder at the features of a past self who could find pleasure and self-transformative potential in a narrative that their present self cannot feel carried away by at all? These are some of the questions that my article sets out to answer.
Recent contributions by the cognitive sciences to narrative theory, such as possible worlds theory, deictic shift theory, and neuro-psychological research into empathic responses, have paved the way for fresh approaches to the long-pursued issue of reader involvement in the narrative experience. This paper will discuss how, by combining these cognitive milestones with blending theory (Fauconnier and Turner), it may be possible to move one step forward in our understanding of the dynamics whereby individual narrative experiencers project themselves into storyworlds, a move necessary for literary appreciation and artistically motivated self-transformation.
Immersion is an intuitively accurate description for what is required in narrative appreciation. The most extensively used metaphors expressing this phenomenon match narrative engagement with being “transported” or “carried away”—the READING IS A JOURNEY metaphor; with being “gripped” or “engaged”—the READING IS CONTROL metaphor; and with “reward” and “value satisfaction”—the READING IS INVESTMENT metaphor (Gerrig; Stockwell). The use of these embodied metaphors, however, is just an indicator of the difficulty in explaining what narrative involvement amounts to. Some controversial issues actually seem to challenge existing theoretical paradigms, and all of them include vague references to crossings of ontological boundaries separating factuality from fictionality.
First I will review some of these controversies. Then I will briefly revise the notions of conceptual blending and of character construction. I will also review the psychological notion of the self-concept, with its constituent self-schemas (Markus) and possible selves (Markus and Nurius), and introduce the notion of storyworld possible self. The study will discuss the possibility of establishing analogical matches between readers’ self-schemas and focalizers’ character constructs within a blending paradigm yielding storyworld possible selves, or mental projections of readers inside the fictional world. As theoretical constructs, storyworld possible selves may be used both in the disambiguation of discourse reference and in the understanding of attention priming, empathic attachment, and emotional involvement in narratives.
Narratives are here understood in the broad experiential sense advocated in cognitive narratology, according to which narrativity is seen as “the result of cognitive activity rather than as a quality of verbal texts” (Olson 15). This view includes multi-modal and transgeneric instances like films, drama, songs, or video games, and does not restrict the narrative experience to readers alone, extending it to viewers, listeners, or players. Although the discussion will use the notion of focalizers in written fictional narratives, storyworld possible selves should not be restricted to readers only, but to narrative experiencers at large.
The feelings of immersion that readers experience can easily be captured by metaphorical language, as shown above, but cannot as easily be pinned down by theoretical paradigms. Some of the prickliest issues have to do with a) the ontological structure of narrative discourse and its levels of representation; b) psychological and neuro-psychological descriptions of blurrings of the self in interactive simulation environments; c) the metonymic nature of narrative immersion, as it is not the whole entity that is transported, but just a part of it; and d) ambiguous reference tokens in narrative discourse, like doubly-deictic you. Let us consider each of these in more detail.
The analysis of narrative discourse as an instance of a communicative situation (Chatman 31; Onega and García Landa 10; Rimmon-Kenan 86; Fludernik, Introduction 26) frequently includes several levels of representation, each with its corresponding addressor and addressee...
“Transportation into a narrative world” is a psychological mechanism through which narrative communication can affect beliefs (Green & Brock, 2000). Transportation, or psychological immersion into a story, entails imagery, emotionality, and attentional focus. Two studies (N = 92 and 126) suggested that when readers’ pre-reading emotional states match the emotional tone of a narrative, transportation into that narrative is increased. Low-arousal positive emotions (contentedness, thoughtful) also increase transportation. Transportation is also associated with greater story-consistent emotional response, even if the emotions evoked by the ending of the story are different from the emotional tone at the start of the story (and readers’ pre-reading emotions). Furthermore, labeling a narrative as fact versus fiction does not affect the intensity of emotional response.