Abstract
We examined whether readers monitored protagonists’ emotional shifts and whether reader engagement influenced situation model construction. Participants read narratives that included an emotional shift in the middle of the story. In Experiment 1, participants were instructed to read stories appreciatively and to empathize with the protagonists. In Experiment 2, readers were instructed to read the stories normally, as if they were reading novels. The results from the two experiments suggest that readers monitor temporal and causal shifts as well as protagonists’ emotional shifts in stories. Moreover, in Experiment 1 readers detected temporal and causal shifts regardless of the degree of their engagement during the empathetic reading, while in Experiment 2 the high ego involvement group detected causal shifts during the normal reading. Thus, these results show both that readers monitor protagonists’ emotional states and that reader emotional engagement can influence situation model construction with normal reading.
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We thank three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the manuscript. This study was supported by the 21st Century Centers of Excellence program (Program Number D-10 to Kyoto University), MEXT, Japan, and a research fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
Note—This article was accepted by the previous editorial team, when Colin M. MacLeod was Editor.
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Komeda, H., Kusumi, T. The effect of a protagonist’s emotional shift on situation model construction. Memory & Cognition 34, 1548–1556 (2006). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195918
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195918