Literature and readers' empathy: A qualitative text manipulation study

Several quantitative studies (e.g. Kidd & Castano, 2013a; Djikic et al., 2013) have shown a positive correlation between literary reading and empathy. However, the literary nature of the stimuli used in these studies has not been defined at a more detailed, stylistic level. In order to explore the stylistic underpinnings of the hypothesized link between literariness and empathy, we conducted a qualitative experiment in which the degree of stylistic foregrounding was manipulated. Subjects (N = 37) read versions of Katherine Mansfield's 'The Fly', a short story rich in foregrounding, while marking striking and evocative passages of their choosing. Afterwards, they were asked to select three markings and elaborate on their experiences in writing. One group read the original story, while the other read a 'non-literary' version, produced by an established author of suspense fiction for young adults, where stylistic foregrounding was reduced. We found that the non-literary version elicited significantly more (p \u3c 0.05) explicitly empathic responses than the original story. This finding stands in contradiction to widely accepted assumptions in recent research, but can be assimilated in alternative models of literariness and affect in literary reading (e.g. Cupchik et al., 1998). We present an analysis of the data with a view to offering more than one interpretation of the observed effects of stylistic foregrounding

Literary Reading on Paper and Screens: Associations Between Reading Habits and Preferences and Experiencing Meaningfulness

The increasing use of digital technologies has implications for reading. Online and on-screen reading often consist of engaging with multiple, short, multimedia snippets of information, whereas longform reading is in decline. Meta-analyses have identified a screen inferiority when reading informational texts, but not narrative texts. The mode effect is explained by reference to the Shallowing Hypothesis, postulating that increased screen reading leads to a propensity to skim and scan rather than carefully read, since digital reading material is typically composed of short, decontextualized snippets of multimedia content rather than long, linear, texts. Experiments have found support for the Shallowing Hypothesis when reading expository/informational texts, but the impact of increased habituation to screens on, specifically, literary reading, is largely unknown. It is plausible that shallow modes of reading, prompted by increased screen use, may compromise one's capacity to engage deeply with literary texts and, in turn, negatively affect readers’ motivation and inclination to engage in slower, more reflective, and more effortful reading. This article presents the results from three experiments exploring associations between reading behavior, medium preferences, and the reading of a short literary text on paper versus screen. Although mixed, the results revealed an overall pattern for the role of medium: more frequent reading of short texts on screen predicted less inclination to muster the cognitive persistence required for reading a longer text, and engage in contemplation on the deeper and personally relevant meaning of the literary text. Educational implications of these findings are discussed.publishedVersio

A Joker in the class: Teenage readers attitudes and preferences to reading on different devices

A comparison of 10th graders' reading of a narrative, literary text on a Sony e-reader and in print showed that preferences for reading devices are related to gender and to general reading habits. One hundred forty-three students participated in the study. In a school setting, students were asked to begin reading a novel on one device and then continue reading the same novel on the other device. A survey was administered before and after the reading session, measuring reading habits in general, device preferences, and experiences with screen and paper reading. Results showed that, overall, most students preferred reading on the e-reader. This preference was particularly strong among boys and reluctant readers, whereas avid readers were more in favor of print. Implications of these findings to library policies and priorities are discussed

Digitizing Literacy: Reflections on the Haptics of Writing

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«Deep reading» i biblioteket: et kritisk lys på håndteringen av e-bøker i fag- og folkebibliotek

Bibliotekene ivrer etter å kunne tilby e-bøker til lånerne. I Norge har de fleste fagbibliotekene lenge hatt store samlinger av e-bøker, mens folkebibliotekene først fra 2013 kunne tilby norskspråklige titler. I denne artikkelen undersøker vi hvordan bibliotekenes e-boktilbud understøtter deep reading, som betegner konsentrert og sammenhengende lesing av lineær og hovedsakelig skriftbasert tekst. Denne typen lesing blir ansett som truet av leseadferden på Internett, som kjennetegnes av multitasking og hyppige avbrudd. I artikkelen presenteres tverrfaglig empirisk forskning på digital lesing med spesiell vekt på ulike leseteknologiers affordanser, og funnene derfra ses i sammenheng med e-boktilbudene i henholdsvis fag- og folkebibliotek i Norge. Gjennomgangen viser at fagbibliotekenes e-bøker i liten grad gir støtte til deep reading i læringssammenheng, mens folkebibliotekenes tilbud fungerer bedre. Dagens leseteknologier i kombinasjon med bibliotekenes utlånssystemer gjør at e-bøker ikke kan erstatte papirbøker, men vil kunne fungere godt som et supplement til fysiske eksemplarer

Text Materialities, Affordances, and the Embodied Turn in the Study of Reading.

Digital texts have for decades been a challenge for reading research, creating a range of questions about reading and a need for new theories and concepts. In this paper, we focus on materialities of texts and suggest an embodied, enacted, and extended approach to the research on digital reading. We refer to findings showing that cognitive activities in reading are grounded in bodily and social experiences, and we explore the cognitive role of the body in reading, claiming that–influenced by tacit knowledge and the task at hand–textual meaning is enacted through a mental and physical engagement with text. Further, applying the concept of affordances, we examine how digital technologies have induced new ways of physically handling and mentally interpreting text, indicating that brain, body, text, and technologies are integrated parts of an extended process of reading. The aim of the paper is to encourage empirical research on the interplay between body (including brain), text, and text materialities, a focus we argue will deepen our understand of the current transformation of reading.publishedVersio

Textual reading in digitised classrooms: Reflections on reading beyond the internet

Discussions of digital technologies in education should take into consideration the role of analogue technologies – such as print books – especially when it comes to reading. Empirical research (Delgado et al., 2018; Kong et al., 2018; Clinton, 2019; Singer & Alexander, 2017) shows that paper supports comprehension better than screens, especially when reading longer and more complex texts. PISA 2019 shows that reading performance has declined in many countries, and teenagers report a significant drop in leisure reading. This article reviews and discusses these findings, in light of how reading and literacy have been redefined on the premises and affordances of digital technologies, and calls for a heightened attention to important aspects of reading that are now being marginalized – namely, those that are least compatible with digital technologies.publishedVersio

Comparing comprehension of a long text read in print book and on Kindle: Where in the text and when in the story?

Digital reading devices such as Kindle differ from paper books with respect to the kinesthetic and tactile feedback provided to the reader, but the role of these features in reading is rarely studied empirically. This experiment compares reading of a long text on Kindle DX and in print. Fifty participants (24 years old) read a 28 page (∼1 h reading time) long mystery story on Kindle or in a print pocket book and completed several tests measuring various levels of reading comprehension: engagement, recall, capacities to locate events in the text and reconstructing the plot of the story. Results showed that on most tests subjects performed identically whatever the reading medium. However, on measures related to chronology and temporality, those who had read in the print pocket book, performed better than those who had read on a Kindle. It is concluded that, basically comprehension was similar with both media, but, because kinesthetic feedback is less informative with a Kindle, readers were not as efficient to locate events in the space of the text and hence in the temporality of the story. We suggest that, to get a correct spatial representation of the text and consequently a coherent temporal organization of the story, readers would be reliant on the sensorimotor cues which are afforded by the manipulation of the book.publishedVersio

Eye movements and mental imagery during reading of literary texts with different narrative styles

Based on Kuzmicova's (2014) phenomenological typology of narrative styles, we studied the specific contributions of mental imagery to literary reading experience and to reading behavior by combining questionnaires with eye-tracking methodology. Specifically, we focused on the two main categories in Kuzmicova's (2014) typology, i.e., texts dominated by an "enactive" style, and texts dominated by a "descriptive" style. "Enactive" style texts render characters interacting with their environment, and "descriptive" style texts render environments dissociated from human action. The quantitative analyses of word category distributions of two dominantly enactive and two dominantly descriptive texts indicated significant differences especially in the number of verbs, with more verbs in enactment compared to descriptive texts. In a second study, participants read two texts (one theoretically cueing descriptive imagery, the other cueing enactment imagery) while their eye movements were recorded. After reading, participants completed questionnaires assessing aspects of the reading experience generally, as well as their text-elicited mental imagery specifically. Results show that readers experienced more difficulties conjuring up mental images during reading descriptive style texts and that longer fixation duration on words were associated with enactive style text. We propose that enactive style involves more imagery processes which can be reflected in eye movement behavior