Empirical Study of Literature

Tagungsband zur wissenschaftlichen Fachtagung der Wissenschaftlichen Kommission Wissenschaftstheorie im Verband der Hochschullehrer für Betriebswirtschaft (VHB) e.V. am 22. und 23. September 2005 im Kompetenzzentrum für Kommunikation und Information (ComIn) Essen Essen 2005

There is a growing consensus that climate fiction might be an effective communication strategy to move the public on climate. However, empirical evidence documenting such an effect is limited, especially when it comes to climate fiction’s potential to induce emotions of hope and fear, which are of key importance to the ongoing debate about the social effects of climate messages. To address this gap, we conducted an experimental cross-cultural study (N = 2268) with participants from India and the USA. In line with the Extended Parallel Process Model, we hypothesized that climate fiction combining fear and hope appeals (“ambitopian climate fiction”) would be more effective at stimulating climate action intentions than either fear-appealing (“dystopian”) climate fiction or hope-appealing (“utopian”) climate fiction. The hypothesis was not supported. We found that, in the US sample, dystopian climate fiction was more effective at stimulating climate action intentions than ambitopian climate fiction. However, ambitopian climate fiction was found to be efficient at inducing both hope and fear in both samples and at stimulating climate action intentions indirectly, in the Indian sample, through these emotions. The practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

In this paper, we present what is to the best of our knowledge, the first deep learning pipeline to produce a synthetic graphic novel. Our method can synthesize from scratch engaging sequences of graphic novel pages, focusing on the Manga genre. To achieve this, we extract images and text from around 670 thousand Manga pages, which we use separately in order to train state-of-the-art generative architectures, such as GPT-2 for text generation and StyleGAN2 for image synthesis. Using these as sources of synthetic content, we develop a set of algorithmic aesthetic rules in order to bring together complete and continuous Manga pages.

“Does Climate Fiction Work? An Experimental Test of the Immediate and Delayed Effects of Reading Cli-Fi” is the result of a collaboration between an ecocritic, Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, and five environmental social scientists: Abel Gustafson, Anthony Leiserowitz, Matthew H. Goldberg, Seth A. Rosenthal, and Matthew Ballew. They conducted an experimental study to measure the immediate and delayed effects of climate fiction on readers via short stories by Paolo Bacigalupi and Helen Simpson. They found that whether the stimulus was a speculative dystopian story or a realist story exploring the psychological dynamics of climate change awareness and denial, reading climate fiction had small but significant
positive effects on several important beliefs and attitudes about global
warming, observed immediately after participants read the stories. Although these effects diminished to statistical nonsignificance after a one-month interval, the authors note that longer texts, such as novels, can be expected to have more significant and longer-lasting effects. Finally, they discuss the need for environmental media to not focus exclusively on threats but also promote self-efficacy and response efficacy—the
sense that one can take action, and that such an action will be effective. This book chapter is derived from the article “Environmental Literature as Persuasion: An Experimental Test of the Effects of Reading
Climate Fiction,” published in Environmental Communication in 2020,
https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2020.1814377.

In “The Reception of Radical Texts: The Complicated Case of Alice Walker’s ‘Am I Blue?,’” a team of three ecocritics, Alexa Weik von Mossner,
W. P. Malecki, and Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, and two psychologists,
Marcus Mayorga and Paul Slovic, presents the results of an experiment
conducted in the United States. The study is the latest in a series of attempts to tackle a conundrum posed by Alice Walker’s notorious story, “Am I Blue?, which was banned in 1994 by the California State Board of Education for being anti–meat eating, and which has been hailed by activists and scholars alike as a text that effectively advocates for animal rights. The authors designed an experiment to study the narrative impact of the story on American readers, seeking to replicate the results of an earlier study, conducted in Poland, while also testing new hypotheses about the cultural  situatedness of reception and the impact of two text-immanent features. Some of the results are counterintuitive, providing a reminder of the difficulty of predicting the reception of rich and complex literary texts. While partially confirming the researchers’ hypotheses about the effects of human–animal comparisons and the depiction of emotional rather than physical violence against animals, this study suggests that sociopolitically “radical texts” (Ross 2011) may fail to have the desired effect on readers who do not already share their perspective.

The spectral wave period T m − 1 , 0 at the toe of sea-dikes is a crucial parameter to predict wave overtopping discharge over sea-dikes. It is known from literature that this period quickly increases when waves reach shallow foreshores; however, sometimes the assumption is made that the wave period remains constant from offshore to near-shore, leading to an underestimation of the near-shore wave period. Several formulae have been proposed to resolve the underestimation of wave overtopping discharges for very shallow foreshores. These corrective formulations confirm the tendency of underestimating the overtopping discharges over a very gently sloping foreshore but are not validated for foreshore slopes gentler than 1:500. The “equivalent slope” method based on a recent study is inappropriate for these very gently sloping foreshores due to the breaker parameter being much smaller than seven. This study proposes an extension of the correction and finds that spectral wave periods can r...

JLT Talks offers a new format for discussing current topics in the field of literary theory. It was inspired by the focus of this special issue, which foregrounds the practice of literary theory. Although the amount of praxeological work has increased in recent years, there are only a few studies that deal specifically with literary theory. The participants in the discussion-Eva Geulen, Steffen Martus, and Carlos Spoerhase-explore the challenges facing a practical analysis of literary theory. They discuss what it might mean to move from the concept of theory to the concept of theorizing, and where the expected advantages and possible deficits of a praxeological approach and reconstruction of theorizing might lie. One focus is put on the questions of how theorizing can be conceptualized, which indicators are to be assumed, to what extent it differs from other practices in literary studies, and which forms and norms of theorizing should be analysed praxeologically. The discussion outlines a spectrum of theorizing practices, ranging from the establishment and implementation of ›grand theories‹ and the theoretical reflection of conceptual foundations to smaller-scale practices, such as abstraction and generalization. In addition, the analytical view of the activities and claims associated with ›theory‹ is distinguished from literary theorists' self-reflection (self-understanding). Various features are discussed which indicate practices of theorizing, including abstracting, generalizing, explaining and disciplining scientific exchange. In addition, the discussants consider to what extent there are different ›degrees‹ of theorizing, and emphasize the need to distinguish between theory as a result and theory as an activity or process. As proposed, theorizing can be understood as an activity that shapes processes of literary research as a whole and is determined by the subject matter. It becomes clear that practices of theorizing should not be viewed in isolation, but rather in their interplay with other practices, especially practices of interpretation. Further questions that are addressed include the following: What do ›grand theories‹ with general explanatory claims such as deconstruction or systems theory achieve, and to what extent have they changed literary studies? How can theorizing be better conveyed in university teaching? The ›standard‹ approach-reading Kontaktperson: Eva Geulen: Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur-und Kulturforschung Berlin;

This paper analyses Tomorrow (Uddin, 2021), a Cannes World Film Festival award winning Bangladeshi animated short film from an ecocritical point of view. The film highlights concerns for the existence of millions of Bangladeshi people who are under threat due to the effects of climate change. The study scrutinises the narrative of the film for identifying the representation of changing climate and its impacts on Bangladesh within the film. Tomorrow addresses the adverse effects of indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels worldwide, and envisions a future where, by adopting several strategies and taking concerted action, Bangladesh plays a leading role in inspiring other countries to take steps to mitigate the perils of climate change. The paper studies the film's affinities with the environmental justice issues which claim that the economically developed countries are pushing coastal countries like Bangladesh towards impending doom with massive emission of carbon dioxide. The research will also throw light on the importance of cli-fi movies like Tomorrow to motivate people to be emotionally attached with environmental issues and thus involve them actively in protecting the global climate.

This is a chapter in the open access book "Contemporary Ecocritical Methods," edited by Camilla Brudin Borg, Rikard Wingard, and Jorgen Bruhn (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024). In it, Wojciech Malecki and Matthew Schneider-Mayerson explain the need for empirical research into the influence of environmental literature on readers, the kinds of empirical ecocritical research that have been done already, and the possibilities for future research. This is a primer for anyone interested in empirical ecocriticism. // Access "Contemporary Ecocritical Methods" here: https://rowman.com/WebDocs/OA-ContemporaryEcocriticalMethods.pdf.

Nowadays, an important empirical turn and an increasingly concrete and systematic transdisciplinary dialogue are affecting literary studies. In the last decade of the 20th century in fact, when important discoveries were made in all that concerns human nature considered in its complex totality, the boundary between the humanities and the hard sciences was definitively crossed, and new possible perspectives opened up in every field of knowledge. Neuroscientist Vittorio Gallese and the entire Parma team that discovered mirror neurons, for example, have begun to explain the strong correlation between motor-neural processes and imagination, revealing the strong connection between two worlds that previously seemed completely unconnected: What about imagination? Mirror mechanisms are just one instantiation of embodied simulation: when mirror mechanisms are activated, the simulation process is triggered by perception, like when observing someone performing an action, expressing an emotion, or undergoing a somatosensory stimulation. However, embodied simulation can also occur when we imagine perceiving something or imagine doing something. (116)

Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697 Erstauflage und 1702 erweiterte zweite Auflage) eine wichtige Inspirationsquelle für die Denker des 18. Jahrhunderts. Voltaire als auch die Enzyklopädisten mit Diderot und D'Alembert bezogen sich auf den "philosophe de Rotterdam", wie er in der Forschungsliteratur vielsagend betitelt wird. Aber bereits zu den Lebzeiten seines Autors sorgte das Dictionnaire für Aufsehen und kontroverse Reaktionen, was bis zur heutigen Zeit andauert. Aufgrund seiner hohen Komplexität sind die Forschungsansätze hinsichtlich des bayle'schen Werks vielfältig. Vor allem theologische, historische und philosophische Betrachtungen prägen die Forschungsliteratur. Das Ziel der vorliegenden Dissertation ist es, verschiedene Perspektiven interdisziplinär zu verknüpfen. Ausgehend von der Frage, was einen Autor dazu antreibt, ein Wörterbuch zu schreiben, wird die Wechselwirkung von Form und Inhalt untersucht, um zu zeigen, dass Bayle dank der

This chapter explores what learning from literature entails and how we can come to insights about what literature can mean in the lives of readers, what they may discover about themselves and others. Reading literary stories leads to higher scores on standardized tests for social skills (e.g., 'reading' other peoples' minds) than reading non-literary stories (Kidd & Castano, 2013). The available research, however, does not inform us about what causes these effects, relevant knowledge for a variety of social contexts, including literary education and social competence trainings (e.g., for managers). We explore the methodological possibilities and limitations to test our assumptions about relevant factors, conducting interdisciplinary research by combining insights of the Humanities in textual processes with the methodological rigor of the Social Sciences.

Within the framework of 5E Cognition, emotions play a fundamental role also in the field of literature, with particular reference to the creative process enacted by the author and the receptive process enacted by the reader. This paper aims to present an original category of analysis, the Gefühlstextualität, with which to trace the author’s emotions through the elements of the text, which in turn act as triggers eliciting new emotional reactions in the reader. More specifically, taking inspiration from the most recent transdisciplinary dialogues between literature and neuroscience, the main aim is to show a possible experimental application of Gefühlstextualität in the Reader-response perspective, focusing on the case study of Sophie von La Roche’s epistolary novel Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim (1771).
This paper intends to describe the four phases of a designed experimental research, divided into offline and online tests, to measure the reader’s emotional response at a cognitive, neural, and somatic level. The most innovative aspect lies in phase 3, a laboratory test in which an electroencephalography (EEG) would be performed on participants, along with measurement of physiological parameters, refining then the results by fMRI and eye tracking tests on a smaller sample. 
The various phases of the research, one complementary to each other, are intended to prove how emotions – conveyed through Gefühlstextualität – play a central role in all aspects of the literary experience.

Dominant theoretical models of autism and resultant research enquiries have long centered upon an assumed autism-specific empathy deficit. Associated empirical research has largely relied upon cognitive tests that lack ecological validity and associate empathic skill with heuristic-based judgments from limited snapshots of social information. This artificial separation of thought and feeling fails to replicate the complexity of real-world empathy, and places socially tentative individuals at a relative disadvantage. The present study aimed to qualitatively explore how serious literary fiction, through its ability to simulate real-world empathic response, could therefore enable more ecologically valid insights into the comparative empathic experiences of autistic and non-autistic individuals. Eight autistic and seven non-autistic participants read Of Mice and Men for six days while completing a semi-structured reflective diary. On finishing the book, participants were asked to engage...

This article introduces the special issue. In it, we argue that research into reader response should be recognised as a vital aspect of contemporary stylistics, and we establish our focus on work which explicitly investigates such responses through the collection and analysis of extra-textual datasets. Reader response research in stylistics is characterised by a commitment to rigorous and evidence-based approaches to the study of readers’ interactions with and around texts, and the application of such datasets in the service of stylistic concerns, to contribute to stylistic textual analysis and/or wider discussion of stylistic theory and methods. We trace the influence of reader response criticism and reception theory on stylistics and discuss the productive dialogues which exist between stylistics and the related fields of the empirical study of literature and naturalistic study of reading. After offering an overview of methods available to reader response researchers and a context...

There is a long tradition in philosophy and literary theory defending the view that engagement with literature promotes readers' empathy. Until the last century, few of the empirical claims adduced in that tradition were investigated experimentally. Recent work in psychology and neuropsychology has now shed new light on the interplay of empathy and literature. This article surveys the experimental findings, addressing three central questions: What is it to read empathically? Does reading make us more empathic? What characteristics of literature, if any, affect readers' empathy? While experimental studies have delivered no conclusive answers to these questions, it has exposed their psychological complexity and constructed a more nuanced picture of the diverse ways in which literature interacts with our empathic capacities.

CEL NAUKOWY: Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie wyników analizy blogosfery parentingowej pod kątem sposobów prezentacji współczesnej polskiej rodziny. PROBLEM I METODY BADAWCZE: Problem badawczy został sformułowany w postaci pytań o charakterystykę polskiej blogosfery parentingowej, sylwetki autorów blogów parentingowych i ich motywacje do prowadzenia elektronicznych dzienników oraz zakres prezentowanych na nich treści, będących źródłem informacji na temat rodziny. W części empirycznej wykorzystano głównie metody jakościowe, netnografię i analizę treści oraz pomocniczo badanie ilościowe danych statystycznych. PROCES WYWODU: W pierwszej części artykułu wyjaśniono zasadność użycia wybranych metod badawczych oraz zaprezentowano dobór próby badawczej. Następnie ukazano specyfikę polskiej rodziny. Kolejno przedstawiono charakterystykę blogów parentingowych i ich autorów. Badaniom poddano również motywacje blogerów i zawartość blogów. Ostatecznie wyodrębniono najpopularniejsze modele pols...

Die Literaturwissenschaft "muß romantisirt werden". Law-and-Literature und die Poesie im Recht* For Gigi, again Unter dem Titel law-and-literature firmieren derzeit, vor allem an US-amerikanischen Bildungseinrichtungen, sehr unterschiedliche Forschungsinteressen. Eine zentrale Frage lautet, ob und inwiefern das positive Recht wie die Literatur symbolische Wirklichkeit setzt und insofern eine Kompetenz der Literaturwissenschaft begründet sein könnte. Der Beitrag versucht, im Anschluß an eine Skizze der unterschiedlichen Konjunkturen des Themas in den USA und hierzulande (I) und eine Erläuterung seiner Relevanz für die aktuelle kulturalistische Wende der Literaturwissenschaften (II), die romantischen Ursprünge in der Konjunktion von schöner Literatur und Recht herauszuarbeiten (III, IV). Abschließend werden zwei neue konzeptionelle Ressourcen für die Diskussion um Literatur und Recht aufgezeigt (V). * Der Aufsatz ist aus einem Vortrag hervorgegangen, den ich im Rahmen von Albrecht Koschorkes und Mireille Snyders Konstanzer Colloquium Literatur und Recht gehalten habe. Den Teilnehmerinnen des Colloquiums sei für Einwände und Anregungen gedankt. Mein Dank gebührt auch Günther Teubner, Frankfort a. M., für seine kritische Lektüre einer früheren Fassung des Textes, Jack Balkin, Owen Fiss, Paul Kahn und James Whitman von der Yale Law School sowie Cyrus Hamlin vom Yale German Department für anregende Gespräche zum Thema. Der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft und der Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung bin ich für die großzügige finanzielle Unterstützung dankbar, welche mir u.a. die Ausarbeitung dieses Essays ermöglicht hat. 1 Als Grundtext gilt weithin White (1973).

An experiment was run to determine the effect of critical reviews on readers' evaluation of literary works. We hypothesized that there are two mechanisms by which extratextual information can have an effect on evaluation: orienting, in which processing is directed to different aspects of the text by the extratextual information, and adjustment, in which the summary evaluation is changed based on how others have evaluated the work. Subjects either read a review of a work and then an excerpt from that work or first read the excerpt and then the review. In both experiments, the review had a substantial impact on reader evaluations, showing that readers combined textual and the extratextual, critical review information to form an evaluation of a literary work. However, when the review was read prior to the excerpt, this effect was mediated by the source of the review: the effect was found only for an expert source. In contrast, when the review was read after the excerpt, a larger effect was found for a peer source. Based on this differential effect, we suggest that expert pre-excerpt reviews orient readers to consider certain classes of information, while peer post-excerpt reviews lead readers to adjust their evaluation.

Data are crucial to the growth of e-commerce in today's world of highly demanding hyper-personalized consumer experiences, which are collected using advanced web scraping technologies. However, core data extraction engines fail because they cannot adapt to the dynamic changes in website content. This study investigates an intelligent and adaptive web data extraction system with convolutional and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks to enable automated web page detection using the You only look once (Yolo) algorithm and Tesseract LSTM to extract product details, which are detected as images from web pages. This state-of-the-art system does not need a core data extraction engine, and thus can adapt to dynamic changes in website layout. Experiments conducted on real-world retail cases demonstrate an image detection (precision) and character extraction accuracy (precision) of 97% and 99%, respectively. In addition, a mean average precision of 74%, with an input dataset of 45 objects or images, is obtained.

An experiment was run to determine the effect of critical reviews on readers' evaluation of literary works. We hypothesized that there are two mechanisms by which extratextual information can have an effect on evaluation: orienting, in which processing is directed to different aspects of the text by the extratextual information, and adjustment, in which the summary evaluation is changed based on how others have evaluated the work. Subjects either read a review of a work and then an excerpt from that work or first read the excerpt and then the review. In both experiments, the review had a substantial impact on reader evaluations, showing that readers combined textual and the extratextual, critical review information to form an evaluation of a literary work. However, when the review was read prior to the excerpt, this effect was mediated by the source of the review: the effect was found only for an expert source. In contrast, when the review was read after the excerpt, a larger effect was found for a peer source. Based on this differential effect, we suggest that expert pre-excerpt reviews orient readers to consider certain classes of information, while peer post-excerpt reviews lead readers to adjust their evaluation.

Data are crucial to the growth of e-commerce in today's world of highly demanding hyper-personalized consumer experiences, which are collected using advanced web scraping technologies. However, core data extraction engines fail because they cannot adapt to the dynamic changes in website content. This study investigates an intelligent and adaptive web data extraction system with convolutional and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks to enable automated web page detection using the You only look once (Yolo) algorithm and Tesseract LSTM to extract product details, which are detected as images from web pages. This state-of-the-art system does not need a core data extraction engine, and thus can adapt to dynamic changes in website layout. Experiments conducted on real-world retail cases demonstrate an image detection (precision) and character extraction accuracy (precision) of 97% and 99%, respectively. In addition, a mean average precision of 74%, with an input dataset of 45 objects or images, is obtained.

Based on transportation theory, research shows that reading fiction affects empathy. Also, there are studies that show how reading fiction affects theory of mind. In a similar line, some research show that playing non-violent video games that include storytelling may have prosocial benefits and also affects theory of mind. We are therefore interested in further clarification of the relationship between reading and game playing on the one hand and empathy and theory of mind on the other. Keywords Reading, gaming, theory of mind, empathy Résumé Basée sur la transportation theory, la recherche montre que la lecture de fiction affecte l'empathie. Il y a également des études démontrant comment la lecture de fiction affecte la théorie de l'esprit. De même certaines recherches montrent que jouer à des jeux-vidéos nonviolents avec des éléments narratifs peut favoriser la sociabilité et affecte également la théorie de l'esprit. Nous nous intéressons donc à un éclaircissement complémentaire de la relation entre la lecture et le jeu-vidéo d'un côté et entre l'empathie et la théorie de l'esprit de l'autre côté.

Deixis am phantasma is a linguistic device used in poetic texts to point to the uniqueness of an object of reference without directly revealing it. From a neurocognitive poetics model (NCPM) perspective, deixis am phantasma is a background element that activates existing knowledge, creates a sense of familiarity during reading, and is interrelated with text immersion. In our study, we aimed to investigate how the ability to identify the object of a deictic reference influences the processing of poetic texts. In a self-paced reading experiment, original poetic texts containing deixis am phantasma were preceded by a comment that either contained or did not contain information about the object of the deictic reference. The results showed that deixis am phantasma processing depends not only on the reader's knowledge about the imaginary referent but also on the level of text immersion. When the level of immersion is high and the reader possesses knowledge about the object of reference, there is a significant decrease in reading times of the line with the deixis. Difficulties in processing occur only when the referent of the deictic expression is unknown to the reader and the level of text immersion is low, while no slowdown is observed when there is a high level of immersion. We suggest that when the reader is fully immersed into the textual world, an inability to establish reference is interpreted as a lack of knowledge, while in a situation with incomplete immersion, it is perceived as a communication abnormality.

No research has yet experimentally evaluated the role of narrative fiction in relation to eating disorders (EDs). This study used a between-participants design to assess vulnerability to EDs before and after reading two contemporary U.S. young adult sports novels. ED vulnerability was measured using the EAT-26 and a tailored questionnaire. The experimental group (n = 32) received the books with text-specific reading guides. The control group (n = 33) received only the novels. Our hypothesis was that post-reading measures would be lower (improved) in both groups, but more markedly in the experimental group. Scores were typically lower in the experimental group and higher in the control group, but these differences were not statistically significant after correction for multiple comparisons. These findings underline the need to expand empirical evidence on the effects of narrative reading in the context of EDs, while the innovative methods trialed here open up new methodological avenues.

Beiträge zur Literaturwissenschaft Jahrgang XIX/1988 ÖSTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN bis 1972 in Kommission bei Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., Wien-Graz-Köln, ab 1973 Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, A-1010 Wien, Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz 2 brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Open Access LMU INHALTSVERZEICHNIS l.Halbband Aufsätze HAUSNER RENATE, Tempora fata gerunt ... Ein Versuch zu Paul Celans >Taglied< LINK FRANZ, Das Bild der Spinne und ihres Netztes in der amerikanischen Literatur 135 LORENZ F. CHRISTOPH, Die letzten Tagen des Herrn. Carl Einsteins dramatischer Versuch >Die Schlimme Botschaft PERRAUDIN MICHAEL, Heinrich Boll: Approaches to Kleist RUSSEGGER ARNO, >Isis und Osiris<-Zur Metafiktionalität in Musils Ästhetik-Theorie 1 SCHACHERREITER CHRISTIAN, Bertolt Brecht und Karl Korsch. Untersuchungen zur Subjekt-Objekt-Dialektik in realistischer Literatur und marxistischer Philosophie ZEYRINGER KLAUS, "Im Anfang war ... die Extraausgabee". Betrachtungen zu Karl Kraus' >Die letzten Tage der Menschheit VERZEICHNIS DER LITERATURWISSENSCHAFTLICHEN DISSER-TATIONEN AN ÖSTERREICHISCHEN UNIVERSITÄTEN (1987)

Throughout history, it has been often claimed by activists, writers, and scholars that narrative empathy for animals influences social attitudes toward other species. The problem is that there are no experimental data to support this opinion. Our study aimed to address this limitation. Involving 209 participants and three different narratives, it sought to experimentally establish whether narrative empathy for animals can improve attitudes toward animals and their welfare. The results were positive, and in the conclusion we discuss their implications, situating them in the context of research on the prosocial effects of narrative empathy.

Literary fiction has been credited with considerable power to improve attitudes toward outgroups. It was even argued that it has been an important factor behind the global decline of violence against various minorities in the last centuries. Could it also help to reduce the human-inflicted suffering of animals? To test this, we studied the attitude toward animal welfare of n = 921 (experimental group) people of both sexes who read a short fragment of an unpublished novel with a motif of the physical abuse of an animal. The control group (n = 912) read a fragment of a similar length but not related to animals. After reading the text all subjects filled out an on-line questionnaire with seven items (camouflaged among many others items) measuring attitudes toward animal welfare. The questionnaire included also demographical questions, such as whether the subject keeps pets. We found that in comparison with the control group, the experimental group was significantly more concerned about animal welfare. This result indicates that literary fiction can influence attitudes toward other species. It is also worth noting that our study is characterized by a high level of ecological validity, i.e. a relatively high extent to which its results can be generalized (or extended) to real-world settings. Due to its specific design, which involved the cooperation of a bestselling author and his publisher, the study approximated the typical conditions in which people read fiction in a remarkably accurate way. Finally, our research has potential practical implications for promoting animal welfare.

ZusammenfassungBrauchen wir eine neue Hermeneutik? – Diese Frage ist rhetorisch und scheint aktuell nur vernünftig zu sein. Doch genau dieser Anschein indiziert erneut jenes Dilemma, in dem sich die aktuelle Lektürepraxis befindet. In dem durch die Digitalisierung beschleunigten Wandel der Lektürepraxis bricht es regelrecht auf, denn in ihm erweist sich die Hermeneutik als ein für Kommunikation und Lektüre unabdingbares ethisches Projekt, das zugleich selbst von eben jener Diversifizierung betroffen ist, die durch die technologisch forcierte Rationalität in Gang gebracht wurde. So zeugt die philosophisch irritierende, germanistische bzw. allgemein literatur- und sprachwissenschaftliche Pluralisierung in vielen fach- oder teilfachspezifischen Hermeneutiken ebenso vom aktuellen Problem der Hermeneutik wie von ihrer Unabdingbarkeit. Die Forderung nach einer Neuen Hermeneutik setzt also zuerst die Diagnose voraus, wie und wo ihre Spielarten sich aktuell verorten, um danach jenen gemeins...

In the last few years, the topic of negative empathy has been highly discussed within theoretical research on narrative engagement. With regards to literary studies, negative empathy is intended as a sophisticated form of empathy with fictional characters portrayed as remarkably evil and seductive at the same time. These characters can elicit a complex, ambivalent and potentially cathartic aesthetic experience that forces readers to oscillate between emotional identification and detachment. Negative empathic reactions of readers have been recently tested in relation to fictionalization having a significant effect on moral disengagement (de Jonge et al. 2022). However, negative empathy has scarcely been investigated from linguistic perspectives, as empirical studies have rarely delved into the dynamics of construction of the text (Bonasera, forth. 2023). This proposal builds on the theoretical and empirical investigations in negative empathy to explore the effects of foregrounding on affective responses during reading, following Koopman’s (2016) investigation in narratives of grief. In particular, this study proposes a survey-based analysis of responses from real readers (N = 50) of excerpts from novels which notably feature unreliable immoral narrators that are often believed to be estranging readers rather than captivating them. The underlying hypothesis is that readers who are offered original versions of the novels, i.e., possessing a high level of semantic, phonetic, and grammatical foregrounding, are able to experience more distressing emotional reactions than those who read the version without foregrounding, thus enriching the array of features associated with the arousal of negative empathy.

In this article, we profile an empirically grounded, cognitive approach to immersion in digital fiction by combining text-driven stylistic analysis with insights from theories of cognition and reader-response research. We offer a new analytical method for immersive features in digital fiction by developing deictic shift theory for the affordances of digital media. We also provide empirically substantiated insights to show how immersion is experienced cognitively by using Andy Campbell and Judi Alston’s (2015) digital fiction piece WALLPAPER as a case study. We add ‘interactional deixis’ and ‘audible deixis’ to Stockwell’s (2002) model to account for the multimodal nature of immersion in digital fiction. We also show how extra-textual features can contribute to immersion and thus propose that they should be accounted for when analysing immersion across media. We conclude that the analytical framework and reader response protocol that we develop here can be adapted for application to ...

Krystyna Koziołekdoktor habilitowana, profesor Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, literaturoznawczyni. Jej zainteresowania badawcze koncentrują się na teorii i praktyce lektury, dydaktyce, komparatystyce, związkach nauk humanistycznych i medycznych. Wchodzi w skład Rady Naukowej serii wydawniczych ars medica ac humanitas i Nowa Edukacja. Jest autorką monografii poświęconych czytaniu: Czas lektury (2017) oraz Czytanie z innym: etyka, lektura, dydaktyka (2006). 1 K ażda książka ma swoją historię-genezę, tajniki aktu twórczego, okoliczności i miejsce wydania, historie kolejnych edycji, ingerencje wydawców, projekty okładek, liczbę sprzedanych egzemplarzy, chłostę lub lukier recenzji. Każda książka ma też mikrohistorię, historię intymną, historię swojej lektury. Aby mieć do niej dostęp, książki winny być zaopatrzone w aneksy, które stworzyłyby ogromny, nieskończony cykl, na przykład pod tytułem "Komedia czytania". Jego kompozycją rządziłby osobliwy splot łączący książkę i sytuacje jej lektury. Na razie jednak ktoś, biorąc do ręki mój egzemplarz Buszującego w zbożu, nie usłyszy fragmentu L.A. Woman, a czytając mojego Stachurę, nie będzie nucił melodii Nobody Home grupy Pink Floyd. A do tego smaki jedzenia i napojów, których ślady tkwią pewnie gdzieś między kartkami, wreszcie epopeja ciała wędrującego z fotela na sofę, z sofy na podłogę 1 Recenzja książki: R. Chartier Czy książki wywołują rewolucje? Szkice z historii książki, lektury i kultury piśmiennej, red. i posłowie P. Rodak,

The introduction to Empirical Ecocriticism: Environmental Narratives for Social Change, edited by Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Alexa Weik von Mossner, W.P. Malecki, and Frank Hakemulder. Forthcoming with the University of Minnesota Press on August 1, 2023. Find it here: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/empirical-ecocriticism.

Deixis am phantasma is a linguistic device used in poetic texts to point to the uniqueness of an object of reference without directly revealing it. From a neurocognitive poetics model (NCPM) perspective, deixis am phantasma is a background element that activates existing knowledge, creates a sense of familiarity during reading, and is interrelated with text immersion. In our study, we aimed to investigate how the ability to identify the object of a deictic reference influences the processing of poetic texts. In a self-paced reading experiment, original poetic texts containing deixis am phantasma were preceded by a comment that either contained or did not contain information about the object of the deictic reference. The results showed that deixis am phantasma processing depends not only on the reader's knowledge about the imaginary referent but also on the level of text immersion. When the level of immersion is high and the reader possesses knowledge about the object of reference, there is a significant decrease in reading times of the line with the deixis. Difficulties in processing occur only when the referent of the deictic expression is unknown to the reader and the level of text immersion is low, while no slowdown is observed when there is a high level of immersion. We suggest that when the reader is fully immersed into the textual world, an inability to establish reference is interpreted as a lack of knowledge, while in a situation with incomplete immersion, it is perceived as a communication abnormality.

View and order at the University of Minnesota Press's website, https://tinyurl.com/eecocriticism. // There is a growing consensus that environmental narratives can help catalyze the social change necessary to address today’s environmental crises; however, surprisingly little is known about their impact and effectiveness. In Empirical Ecocriticism, Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Alexa Weik von Mossner, W. P. Malecki, and Frank Hakemulder combine an environmental humanities perspective with empirical methods derived from the social sciences to study the influence of environmental stories on our affects, attitudes, and actions. //  Empirical Ecocriticism provides an approachable introduction to this growing field’s main methods and demonstrates their potential through case studies on topics ranging from the impact of climate fiction on readers’ willingness to engage in activism to the political empowerment that results from participating in environmental theater. Part manifesto, part toolkit, part proof of concept, and part dialogue, this introductory volume is divided into three sections: methods, case studies, and reflections. International in scope, it points toward a novel and fruitful synthesis of the environmental humanities and social sciences. //  Contributors: Matthew Ballew, Yale U; Helena Bilandzic, U of Augsburg; Rebecca Dirksen, Indiana U; Greg Garrard, UBC Okanagan; Matthew H. Goldberg, Yale U; Abel Gustafson, U of Cincinnati; David I. Hanauer, Indiana U of Pennsylvania; Ursula K. Heise, UCLA; Jeremy Jimenez, SUNY Cortland; Anthony Leiserowitz, Yale U; David M. Markowitz, U of Oregon; Marcus Mayorga; Jessica Gall Myrick, Penn State U; Mary Beth Oliver, Penn State U; Yan Pang, Point Park U; Mark Pedelty, U of Minnesota; Seth A. Rosenthal, Yale U; Elja Roy, U of Memphis; Nicolai Skiveren, Aarhus U; Paul Slovic, U of Oregon; Scott Slovic, U of Idaho; Nicolette Sopcak, U of Alberta; Paul Sopcak, MacEwan U; Sara Warner, Cornell U.

The presentation assesses the final outcome of the international REDES (Research and Development in Empirical Studies) project. Founded in 2002, for about a decade it functioned to promote the investigation of culture, literature, language and media from a multicultural perspective. More than stimulating research by (especially) beginning students, it aimed at helping them become autonomous researchers by way of using empirical methods. Our aim is to see how participants benefited from this experience after over a decade. To this end, 53 REDES participants from three regional groups (Brazil, Germany and Ukraine) answered a questionnaire about how they saw the project in terms of its effect over their lives and careers. The results from the data analysis indicate that not only many participants felt motivated to pursue further degrees and develop other research projects, but they acquired many skills which have been considerably influencing their careers in different fields of action

Przedstawione studium dyskusji o Weselu Wyspiańskiego i Na ustach grzechu Samozwaniec jest przykładem analizy recepcji literatury we współczesnych grupach czytelniczych. Autorkę interesuje sposób oddziałania tekstu na czy­telników i czytelniczki, co bada na drodze obserwacji uczestniczącej, poprzez analizę przebiegu dyskusji, sposobu interpretacji tekstu i negocjowania sen­sów w grupie, na podstawie wyrażonych werbalnie reakcji afektywnych (emo­cjonalnych) i stosowanych kryteriów estetycznej oceny tekstu. Autorka zadaje pytanie o metodologię badania grup czytelniczych.

This paper discusses the Foregrounding Theory and Transactional Theory of Literary Reading and their application in analysing and conceptualising literary responses of L2 readers from a secondary school in Malaysia. Exploratory in nature, this study aims to identify the response types evoked in L2 readers while reading a narrative text in addition to investigating the effect of proficiency levels on completing identification task and written comments. Twenty-four participants aged sixteen, were instructed to read a story, identify the foregrounded features in the text followed by writing comments about the story and their reading experience. In the identification task, high proficient participants performed better in identifying foregrounded features in the story (metaphor, personification, repetition). With regard to the written responses, most participants, regardless of proficiency levels, responded primarily to the story world (character, event or setting) especially through empathy with the main character and reflection on the event in the story. In sum, overall findings indicate that responses of the L2 readers were primarily motivated by the narrative aspects (empathy with the main character and reflection on the story events) rather than evoked by the aesthetic component of the text (literary devices). Hence this study conceptualises literary responses of the participants to be predominantly narrative-rather than aesthetically-oriented.

Książka w obliczu dynamicznych zmian rzeczywistości Streszczenie W artykule Autorka przedstawia miejsce książki w komunikacyjnym świecie człowieka, wskazując na dostępne czytelnikowi różnorodne formy zapisu słowa i różnorodne formy książek w obliczu dynamicznych zmian rzeczywistości. Autorka omawia funkcję komunikacyjną książki w ramach funkcji informacyjnej, autoprezentacji i wywierania wpływu. Przedstawia również papierową i elektroniczną formę książki, zwracając uwagę na znaczenie Internetu i crowdsourcingu dla kodowania i dekodowania przekazów zawartych w książkach. Przedstawiono również przykład miniaturowych książek, których gromadzenie i kolekcjonowanie może stanowić ciekawe hobby pozwalające na realizację funkcji związanej z dostarczaniem rozrywki, relaksu i rozwojem zainteresowań. W przypadku miniaturowych książek Autorka zwróciła również uwagę na traktowanie książki jako swoistego rodzaju talizmanu. Obok problematyki książki i zmian jej form wobec przeobrażeń rzeczywistości Autorka przedstawiła również wyniki badań prowadzonych systematycznie niemalże od trzech dekad przez Bibliotekę Narodową, które wskazują na poziom czytelnictwa w Polsce, w tym w okresie przed kryzysem wywołanym rozprzestrzenianiem się wirusa SARS-CoV-2 i w czasie pandemii.

The book addresses the study of reading mechanisms and visual perception using the method of eye-tracking. The authors conduct their research in the Laboratory for Cognitive Studies of Saint Petersburg State University that was the first in Russia to utilize eye-tracking in experimental studies of language more than 15 years ago. Psycholinguistic experiments aimed at analyzing reading in Russian are described; a systematic description of factors which influence reading process at different stages and linguistic levels from a single letter to a coherent text is provided. The mechanisms of separate graphemes recognition, activation and competition processes in word recognition, contextual integration processes, syntactic parsing, and anaphora resolution in eye-tracking experiments are described. The influence of the text type on its processing is demonstrated, the advantages and disadvantages of the infographics compared to verbal text are described, the relationship between visual pe...

Deixis am phantasma is a linguistic device used in poetic texts to point to the uniqueness of an object of reference without directly revealing it. From a neurocognitive poetics model (NCPM) perspective, deixis am phantasma is a background element that activates existing knowledge, creates a sense of familiarity during reading, and is interrelated with text immersion. In our study, we aimed to investigate how the ability to identify the object of a deictic reference influences the processing of poetic texts. In a self-paced reading experiment, original poetic texts containing deixis am phantasma were preceded by a comment that either contained or did not contain information about the object of the deictic reference. The results showed that deixis am phantasma processing depends not only on the reader's knowledge about the imaginary referent but also on the level of text immersion. When the level of immersion is high and the reader possesses knowledge about the object of reference, there is a significant decrease in reading times of the line with the deixis. Difficulties in processing occur only when the referent of the deictic expression is unknown to the reader and the level of text immersion is low, while no slowdown is observed when there is a high level of immersion. We suggest that when the reader is fully immersed into the textual world, an inability to establish reference is interpreted as a lack of knowledge, while in a situation with incomplete immersion, it is perceived as a communication abnormality.