Article published in:
Scientific Study of Literature
Vol. 9:1 (2019) ► pp. 72–103

What psycholinguistic studies ignore about literary experience

| Cognitive Scientist and Independent Scholar
| University of Alberta

Multiple decades of psycholinguistic research exploring people’s reading of different types of language has delivered much improved understanding of textual comprehension experience. Psycholinguistic studies have typically focused on a few cognitive and linguistic processes presumed to be central in reading comprehension of language, but this emphasis has omitted other processes and products readers commonly experience in their imaginative, aesthetic encounters with literature. Our paper describes some of the limitations of psycholinguistics for explaining people’s literary experiences. Nonetheless, we argue that recent research on embodied simulation processes may help close the gap between psycholinguistics, with its emphasis on generic processes of non-literary language use, and studies associated with the scientific study of literature with their focus on phenomenological, lived reactions to literary texts.

Keywords: embodied simulations, figurative language, literature, metaphor, pragmatics, psycholinguistics
Article outline
  • Psycholinguistic studies on figurative language
  • Social motivations as framers of literary experience
  • Phenomenological studies of literary experience
  • Embodied simulations as the process and products of literary experience
  • Conclusion: Embodied simulations and literary experiences
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 04 February 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/ssol.18009.gib
References
Altmann, U., Bohrn, I., Lubrich, O., Menninghaus, W., & Jacobs, A.
(2012) The power of emotional valence-from cognitive to affective processes in reading. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 61, 192. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2014) Fact vs fiction-how paratextual information shapes our reading processes. Social, Cognitive, Affective Neuroscience, 91, 22–29. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bálint, K., & Tan, E.
(2015) It feels like there are hooks inside my chest: The construction of narrative absorption using image schemata. Projections, 91, 63–88. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bálint, K., Hakemulder, F., Kuijpers, M., Doicaru, M. & Tan, E.
(2016) Reconceptualizing foregrounding. Scientific Study of Literature. 61, 176–207. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Baker, N.
(2010) The anthologist. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Bal, P., & Veltkamp, M.
(2013) How does fiction reading influence empathy? An experimental investigation on the role of emotional transportation. PLoS ONE, 81, e55341. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bergen, B.
(2012) Louder than words: The new science of how the mind makes meaning. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P.
(1979) Les trois etats du capital culturel. Acres Rech. Sci. Soc., 301, 3–6.Google Scholar
(1980) Le capital social: Notes provisoires. Acres Rech. Sci. Soc., 311, 2–3.Google Scholar
(1985) The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the cociology of education (pp. 241–258). New York, NY: Greenwood.Google Scholar
Bortolussi, M., & Dixon, P.
(2003) Psychonarratology: Foundations for the empirical study of literary response. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bowdle, B., & Gentner, D.
(2005) The career of metaphor. Psychological Review, 1121, 193–216. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Burke, M., Kuzmičová, A., Mangen, A., & Schilhab, T.
(2016) Empathy at the confluence of neuroscience and empirical literary studies. Scientific Study of Literature 6(1), 6–41. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Caracciolo, M.
(2012) Narrative, meaning, interpretation: An enactivist approach. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 111, 367–384. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2013) Phenomenological metaphors in readers’ engagement with characters: The case of Ian McEwan’s Saturday , Language and Literature, 221, 60–76. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2014) The experientiality of narrative: An enactivist approach. Berlin, Germany: DeGruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Claassen, E.
(2012) Author representations in literary reading. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Clark, H.
(1996) Using language. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Citron, F., & Goldberg, A.
(2014) Social context modulates the effect of hot temperature on perceived interpersonal warmth: a study of embodied metaphors. Language and Cognition, 61, 1–11. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Colston, H.
(2015) Using figurative language. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Desai, R., Binder, J., Conant, L., Mano, Q., & Seidenberg, M.
(2011) The neural career of sensory-motor metaphors. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 231, 2376–2386. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Djikic, M., & Oatley, K.
(2014) The art in fiction: From indirect communication to changes of the self. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts, 81, 498–505. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dillard, A.
(1982) Living by fiction. New York, NY: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Finke, R.
(1989) Principles of Mental Imagery. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.Google Scholar
Fong, K., Mullin, J., & Mar, R.
(2015) How exposure to literary genres shapes attitudes toward gender roles and sexual behavior. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 91, 274–285. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Frost, R.
(1979) The poetry of Robert Frost: The collected poems, complete and unabridged. New York, NY: Holt.Google Scholar
Gallagher, S.
(2017) Enactivist interventions: Rethinking the mind. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gallese, V., & Lakoff, G.
(2005) The brain’s concepts” The role of sensory-motor system in conceptual knowledge. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 221, 455–479. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Geary, J.
(2012) I is an other: The secret life of metaphor and how it shapes the way we see the world. New York, NY: Harpers.Google Scholar
Gerrig, R., & Mumper, M.
(2017) How readers’ lives affect narrative experiences. In M. Burke & E. Troscianko (Eds.), Cognitive literary science: Dialogues between literature and cognition (pp. 239–257). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R.
(1994) The poetics of mind: Figurative thought, language, and understanding. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
(1999) Intentions in the experience of meaning. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2006) Embodiment and cognitive science. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
(2016) Embodied dynamics in literary experience. In M. Burke & E. Troscianko (Eds.), Dialogues between literature and cognition. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(2017) Metaphor wars: Conceptual metaphor in human life. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2017) The embodied and discourse views of metaphor: Why these are not so different and how can they be brought closer together. In B. Hampe (Ed.), Metaphor: Embodied cognition and discourse. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R., & Blackwell, N.
(2012) Climbing the stairs to literary heaven: A case study of allegorical interpretation of fiction. Scientific Study of Literature, 21, 197–217. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R., & Boers, E.
(2005) Metaphoric processing of allegorical poetry. In Z. Maalej (Ed.), Metaphor and culture. Manouba, Tunisia: University of Manouba Press.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R., & Colston, H.
(2012) Interpreting figurative meaning. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R., & Gerrig, R.
(1989) How context makes metaphor comprehension seem special. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 41, 145–158. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R., Gould, J., & Andric, M.
(2005–2006) Imagining metaphorical actions: Embodied simulations make the impossible plausible. Imagination, Cognition, and Personality, 251, 221–238. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R., Kushner, J., & Mills, R.
(1991) Authorial intentions and metaphor comprehension. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 201, 11–30. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R., Okonski, L., & Tendahl, M.
(2011) Inferring pragmatic messages from metaphor. Lodz Papers in Pragmatics, 71, 3–28. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R., & Rasse, C.
in preparation). Is reading literature a metaphoric activity?
Glenberg, A., & Kaschak, M.
(2002) Grounding language in action. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 91, 558–565. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Glenberg, A., Sato, M., Cattaneo, L., Riggio, L., Palumbo, D., & Buccino, G.
(2008) Processing abstract language modulates motor system activity. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 611, 905–919. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gorsuch, G., & Taguchi, E.
(2010) Developing reading fluency and comprehension using repeated reading: Evidence from longitudinal student reports. Language Teaching Research, 141, 27–59. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Graesser, A., Singer, M., & Trabasso, T.
(1994) Constructing inferences during narrative text comprehension. Psychological Review, 1031, 371–395. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Heaney, S.
(2014) Selected poems 1988–2013. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
Horton, W. S.
(2007) Metaphor and reader’s attribution of intimacy. Memory and Cognition, 351, 87–94. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Iser, W.
(1972) The reading process: A phenomenological approach. New Literary History, 31, 279–299. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, A.
(2017) Affective and aesthetic processes in literary reading: A neurocognitive poetics perspective. In M. Burke & E. Troscianko (Eds.), Cognitive literary science: Dialogues between literature and cognition (pp. 309–325). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, D.
(2012) Transportation into a story increases empathy, prosocial behavior, and perceptual bias toward fearful expressions. Personality and Individual Differences, 521, 150–155. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kidd, D., & Castano, E.
(2013) Reading literary fiction improves theory of mind. Science, 3421, 377–380. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2019) Reading literary fiction and theory of mind: Three preregistered replications and extensions of Kidd and Castano (2013). Social Psychological and Personality Science, DOI HYPERLINK “ https://​www​.researchgate​.net​/deref/ Crossref” CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Koopman, E., & Hakemulder, F.
(2015) Effects of literature on empathy and self-reflection: A theoretical-empirical framework. Journal of Literary Theory, 91, 79–111. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kotovych, M., Dixon, P., Bortolussi, M., & Holden, M.
(2011) Textual determinants of a component of literary identification. Scientific Study of Literature, 11, 260–291. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kukkonen, K.
(2014) Presence and prediction: The embodied reader’s cascades of cognition. Style, 481, 367–384.Google Scholar
Kuiken, D., Campbell, P., & Sopčák, P.
(2012) The Experiencing questionnaire: Locating exceptional reading moments. Scientific Study of Literature, 21, 243–272. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kuiken, D., & Douglas, S.
in press). Identifying aspects of absorption that facilitate aesthetic response. In F. Hakemulder, M. Kuijpers, E. Tan, M. Doicaru, K. Balin Eds. The handbook of narrative absorption New York, NY Oxford University Press
Kuzmičová, A.
(2014) Literary narrative and mental imagery: A view from embodied cognition. Style, 481, 275–293.Google Scholar
Leggitt, J., & Gibbs, R.
(2000) Emotional reactions to verbal irony. Discourse Processes, 291, 1–24. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lodge, D.
(Ed.) (1988) Modern criticism and theory: A reader. London, United Kingdom: Longman.Google Scholar
Louwerse, M., Kuiken, D.
(2004) The effects of personal involvement in narrative discourse: Introduction. Discourse Processes, 381, 169–172. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mahlberg, M., Conklin, K., Bisson, M.-J.
(2014) Reading Dicken’s characters: Textual patterns and their cognitive reality. Language and Literature, 231, 369–388. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mahon, B., & Caramazza, A.
(2008) A critical look at the embodied cognition hypothesis & a new proposal for grounding conceptual content. Journal of Physiology – Paris, 1021, 59–70. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mak, M., & Willems, R.
(2019) Mental simulation during literary reading: Individual differences revealed with eye-tracking. Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, 341, 511–535. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mar, R., Oatley, K., Djikic, M., & Mullin, J.
(2011) Emotion and narrative fiction: Interactive influences before, during, and after reading. Cognition & Emotion, 251, 818–833. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mar, R., Oatley, K., & Peterson, J.
(2009) Exploring the link between reading fiction and empathy: Ruling out individual differences and examining outcomes. Communications, 341, 407–428. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mazzocco, P., Green, M., Sasota, J. & Jones, N.
(2010) This story is not for everyone: Transportability and narrative persuasion. Social Psychology and Personality Science, 11, 361–368. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
McEwan, I.
(2008) On Chesil beach. London, United Kingdom: Vintage.Google Scholar
(2016) Nutshell. London, United Kingdom: Vintage.Google Scholar
Nabokov, V.
(1990) The defense. New York, NY: Vintage.Google Scholar
Oatley, K.
(2011) Such Stuff as Dreams: The psychology of fiction. New York, NY: Wiley-Blackwell. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Okonski, L., & Gibbs, R.
(2019) Diving into the wreck: Can people resist allegorical meaning? Journal of Pragmatics, 1411, 28–43. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Panero, M., Weisberg, D., Black, J., Goldstein, T., Barnes, J., Brownell, H., & Winner, E.
(2016) Does reading a single passage of literary fiction really improve theory of mind? An attempt at replication. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pfaff, K., & Gibbs, R.
(1997) Authorial intentions in understanding satirical texts. Poetics, 251, 45–70. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Popova, Y.
(2015) Stories, meaning, and experience: Narrativity and enaction. New York, NY: Routledge. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ritchie, D.
(2008) X is a journey: Embodied simulation in metaphor interpretation. Metaphor and Symbol, 231, 174–199. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2017) Contextual activation of story simulation in metaphor comprehension. In B. Hampe, Ed., Metaphor: Embodied cognition and discourse. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, R., & Kreuz, R.
(1994) Why do people use figurative language? Psychological Science, 51, 159–163. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sikora, S., Kuiken, D., & Miall, D.
(2011) Expressive reading: A phenomenological study of readers’ experience of Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and Art, 51, 258–268. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Siyanova-Chanturia, A., Conklin, K., & van Heuven, W.
(2011) Seeing a phrase ‘time and again’ matters: The role of phrasal frequency in the processing of multiword sequences. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 371, 776–784.Google Scholar
Troscianko, E.
(2013) Reading imaginatively: The imagination in cognitive science and cognitive literary studies. Journal of Literary Semantics, 421, 181–198. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
van Kuijk, I., Verkoeijen, P., Dijkstra, K., & Zwaan, R. A.
(2018) The effect of reading a short passage of literary fiction on theory of mind: A replication of Kidd and Castano (2013). Collabra: Psychology, 4(1), 7. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, N., & Gibbs, R.
(2007) Real and imagined body movement primes metaphor comprehension. Cognitive Science, 311, 721–731. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wojciechowski, H. & Gallese, V.
(2011) How stories make us feel: Toward an embodied narratology. California Italian Studies 21.Google Scholar
Zwaan, R., Stanfield, R., & Yaxley, R.
(2002) Language comprehenders mentally represent the shapes of objects. Psychological Science, 131, 168–171. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Zwaan, R. & Taylor, L.
(2006) Seeing, acting, understanding: motor resonance in language comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 1351, 1–11. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Eekhof, Lynn S., Kobie van Krieken & Roel M. Willems
2022. Reading about minds: The social-cognitive potential of narratives. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review Crossref logo
Gibbs, Raymond W. & Carina Rasse
2022. Embodiment in the diversity of literary experience: a reply to Wolfgang Teubert (2021). Journal of Literary Semantics 51:1 ► pp. 55 ff. Crossref logo
Rasse, Carina & Raymond W. Gibbs
2021. Metaphorical thinking in our literary experiences of J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye”. Journal of Literary Semantics 50:1 ► pp. 3 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.