1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. Scientific Study of Literature
  4. Volume 10, Issue 2
  5. Article
Volume 10, Issue 2
  • ISSN 2210-4372
  • E-ISSN: 2210-4380
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

Psychological studies of poetry have focused on the responses to written text, and little is known on how choices made by reciters affect listeners’ responses. We hypothesized that syntax-compatible prosodic cues – pauses and pitch breaks – would increase preference by increasing comprehension. Participants rated different declamations of the same poem for preference and comprehension. The match between syntactic boundaries and linguistic prosody cues was quantified in each version, and then we tested how this match predicted listeners’ responses. Unlike our predictions, linguistic prosody had opposite effects on comprehension vs. preference: Comprehension was enhanced by using both sentence pauses and clause pitch breaks, while avoiding clause pauses. When controlling for comprehension, preference was enhanced by clause pauses but hampered by clause breaks and sentence pauses. Results are consistent with the possibility that listeners enjoyed losing track of syntactic boundaries, in line with the idea that deviation may lead to pleasure.

© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/ssol.19019.pos
2021-03-19
2024-12-13

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/ssol.19019.pos
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Acock, A. C.
    (2014) A Gentle Introduction to Stata (4th ed.). Texas: Stata Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Balogh, J. , Zurif, E. , Prather, P. , Swinney, D. , & Finkel, L.
    (1998) Gap-filling and end-of-sentence effects in real-time language processing: Implications for modeling sentence comprehension in aphasia. Brain and Language, 61(2), 169–182. doi:  10.1006/brln.1997.1917
     https://doi.org/10.1006/brln.1997.1917 [Google Scholar]
  3. Baron, R. M. , & Kenny, D. A.
    (1986) The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173–1182. 10.1037/0022‑3514.51.6.1173
     https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.51.6.1173 [Google Scholar]
  4. Bates, D. , Maechler, M. , Bolker, B. , Walker, S. , Christensen, R. H. B. , Singmann, H. ,
    (2015) Package‘lme4’. Available at: https://cran.rproject.org/web/packages/lme4/index.html
  5. Belfi, A. M. , Vessel, E. A. , & Starr, G. G.
    (2018) Individual ratings of vividness predict aesthetic appeal in poetry. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 12(3), 341–350. doi:  10.1037/aca0000153
     https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000153 [Google Scholar]
  6. Belyk, M. , & Brown, S.
    (2013) Perception of affective and linguistic prosody: an ALE meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9(9), 1395–1403. doi:  10.1093/scan/nst124
     https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nst124 [Google Scholar]
  7. Clifton, C. , Carlson, K. , & Frazier, L.
    (2006) Tracking the what and why of speakers’ choices: Prosodic boundaries and the length of constituents. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 13(5), 854–861. doi:  10.3758/BF03194009
     https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194009 [Google Scholar]
  8. Culpeper, J.
    (1996) Inferring character from texts: Attribution theory and foregrounding theory. Poetics, 23(5), 335–361. doi:  10.1016/0304‑422X(95)00005‑5
     https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-422X(95)00005-5 [Google Scholar]
  9. Cutler, A. , Dahan, D. , & Van Donselaar, W.
    (1997) Prosody in the comprehension of spoken language: A literature review. Language and speech, 40(2), 141–201. doi:  10.1177/002383099704000203
     https://doi.org/10.1177/002383099704000203 [Google Scholar]
  10. Davis, P.
    (2008) Syntax and pathways. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 33(4), 265–277. 10.1179/174327908X392843
     https://doi.org/10.1179/174327908X392843 [Google Scholar]
  11. Frota, S.
    (2014) The intonational phonology of European Portuguese. Prosodic typology II: The phonology of intonation and phrasing, 6–42. doi:  10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199567300.003.0002
     https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199567300.003.0002 [Google Scholar]
  12. Fujisaki, H.
    (1997) Prosody, models, and spontaneous speech. In Y. Sagisaka , N. Campbell , & N. Higuchi (Eds.) Computing prosody (pp.27–42). New York: Springer. 10.1007/978‑1‑4612‑2258‑3_3
     https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2258-3_3 [Google Scholar]
  13. Hakemulder, J. F.
    (2004) Foregrounding and its effect on readers’ perception. Discourse Processes, 38(2), 193–218. doi:  10.1207/s15326950dp3802_3
     https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326950dp3802_3 [Google Scholar]
  14. Hanauer, D.
    (1996) Integration of phonetic and graphic features in poetic text categorization judgements. Poetics, 23(5), 363–380. doi:  10.1016/0304‑422X(95)00010‑H
     https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-422X(95)00010-H [Google Scholar]
  15. (1998) The genre-specific hypothesis of reading: Reading poetry and encyclopedic items. Poetics, 26(2), 63–80. doi:  10.1016/S0304‑422X(98)00011‑4
     https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-422X(98)00011-4 [Google Scholar]
  16. Hanauer, D. I.
    (2015) Beauty judgements of non-professional poetry: Regression analyses of authorial attribution, emotional response and perceived writing quality. Scientific Study of Literature, 5(2), 183–199. doi:  10.1075/ssol.5.2.04han
     https://doi.org/10.1075/ssol.5.2.04han [Google Scholar]
  17. (2018) Intermediate states of literariness: Poetic lining, sociological positioning, and the activation of literariness. Scientific Study of Literature, 8(1), 114–134. doi:  10.1075/ssol.18001.han
     https://doi.org/10.1075/ssol.18001.han [Google Scholar]
  18. Himmelmann, N. P. , & Ladd, D. R.
    (2008) Prosodic description: An introduction for fieldworkers. Language Documentation & Conservation, 2(2), 244–274.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Jacobs, A. M.
    (2015) Neurocognitive poetics: Methods and models for investigating the neuronal and cognitive-affective bases of literature reception. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 9, 186. doi:  10.3389/fnhum.2015.00186
     https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00186 [Google Scholar]
  20. Jacobs, A. M. , Lüdtke, J. , Aryani, A. , Meyer-Sickendieck, B. , & Conrad, M.
    (2016) Mood-empathic and aesthetic responses in poetry reception. Scientific Study of Literature, 6(1), 87–130. doi:  10.1075/ssol.6.1.06jac
     https://doi.org/10.1075/ssol.6.1.06jac [Google Scholar]
  21. Keidel, J. L. , Davis, P. M. , Gonzalez-Diaz, V. , Martin, C. D. , & Thierry, G.
    (2013) How Shakespeare tempests the brain: Neuroimaging insights. Cortex, 49(4), 913–919. doi:  10.1016/j.cortex.2012.03.011
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2012.03.011 [Google Scholar]
  22. Knoop, C. A. , Wagner, V. , Jacobsen, T. , & Menninghaus, W.
    (2016) Mapping the aesthetic space of literature “from below”. Poetics, 56, 35–49. doi:  10.1016/j.poetic.2016.02.001
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2016.02.001 [Google Scholar]
  23. Kraxenberger, M. , & Menninghaus, W.
    (2016a) Emotional effects of poetic phonology, word positioning and dominant stress peaks in poetry reading. Scientific Study of Literature, 6(2), 298–313. doi:  10.1075/ssol.6.2.06kra
     https://doi.org/10.1075/ssol.6.2.06kra [Google Scholar]
  24. (2016b) Mimological reveries? Disconfirming the hypothesis of phono-emotional iconicity in poetry. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1779. doi:  10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01779
     https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01779 [Google Scholar]
  25. (2017) Affinity for poetry and aesthetic appreciation of joyful and sad poems. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 2051. doi:  10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02051
     https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02051 [Google Scholar]
  26. Kraxenberger, M. , Menninghaus, W. , Roth, A. , & Scharinger, M.
    (2018) Prosody-based sound-emotion associations in poetry. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1284–1284. doi:  10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01284
     https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01284 [Google Scholar]
  27. Leder, H. , Belke, B. , Oeberst, A. , & Augustin, D.
    (2004) A model of aesthetic appreciation and aesthetic judgments. British Journal of Psychology, 95(4), 489–508. doi:  10.1348/0007126042369811
     https://doi.org/10.1348/0007126042369811 [Google Scholar]
  28. Leech, G. N.
    (1985) Stylistics. In T. van Dijk (ed.) Discourse and literature: New approaches to the analysis of literary genres (pp39–57). Amsterdam: Benjamins. 10.1075/ct.3.04lee
     https://doi.org/10.1075/ct.3.04lee [Google Scholar]
  29. Ludlow, L. , & Klein, K.
    (2014) Suppressor variables: the difference between ‘is’ versus ‘acting as’. Journal of Statistics Education, 22(2), null. doi:  10.1080/10691898.2014.11889703
     https://doi.org/10.1080/10691898.2014.11889703 [Google Scholar]
  30. MacKinnon, D. P. , Fairchild, A. J. , & Fritz, M. S.
    (2007) Mediation Analysis. Annual review of psychology, 58, 593. doi:  10.1146/annurev.psych.58.110405.085542
     https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.58.110405.085542 [Google Scholar]
  31. MacKinnon, D. P. , Krull, J. L. , & Lockwood, C. M.
    (2000) Equivalence of the Mediation, Confounding and Suppression Effect. Prevention science: the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research, 1(4), 173. 10.1023/A:1026595011371
     https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026595011371 [Google Scholar]
  32. Männel, C., Schipke, C. S., & Friederici, A. D.
    (2013) The role of pause as a prosodic boundary marker: Language ERP studies in German 3-and 6-year-olds. Developmental cognitive neuroscience, 5, 86–94. 10.1016/j.dcn.2013.01.003
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2013.01.003 [Google Scholar]
  33. Obermeier, C. , Kotz, S. A. , Jessen, S. , Raettig, T. , von Koppenfels, M. , & Menninghaus, W.
    (2016) Aesthetic appreciation of poetry correlates with ease of processing in event-related potentials. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 16(2), 362–373. doi:  10.3758/s13415‑015‑0396‑x
     https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-015-0396-x [Google Scholar]
  34. Pandey, S. , & Elliott, W.
    (2010) Suppressor Variables in Social Work Research: Ways to Identify in Multiple Regression Models. Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, 1(1), 28–40. doi:  10.5243/jsswr.2010.2
     https://doi.org/10.5243/jsswr.2010.2 [Google Scholar]
  35. Payne, B. R. , & Stine-Morrow, E. A. L.
    (2014) Adult age differences in wrap-up during sentence comprehension: Evidence from ex-Gaussian distributional analyses of reading time. Psychology and Aging, 29(2), 213–228. doi:  10.1037/a0036282
     https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036282 [Google Scholar]
  36. Pessoa, F.
    (1934) Mensagem (Prólogo e anotações de Pedro Sinde). Porto: Porto Editora.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. de Pijper, J. R., & Sanderman, A. A.
    (1994) On the perceptual strength of prosodic boundaries and its relation to suprasegmental cues. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 96(4), 2037–2047. 10.1121/1.410145
     https://doi.org/10.1121/1.410145 [Google Scholar]
  38. R core team
    R core team (2013) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Reber, R. , Schwarz, N. , & Winkielman, P.
    (2004) Processing fluency and aesthetic pleasure: is beauty in the perceiver’s processing experience?Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8(4), 364–382. doi:  10.1207/s15327957pspr0804_3
     https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0804_3 [Google Scholar]
  40. Rucker, D. D. , Preacher, K. J. , Tormala, Z. L. , & Petty, R. E.
    (2011) Mediation analysis in social psychology: current practices and new recommendations. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5(6), 359–371. doi:  10.1111/j.1751‑9004.2011.00355.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2011.00355.x [Google Scholar]
  41. Silva, S. , Dias, C. , & Castro, S. L.
    (2019) Domain-specific expectations in music segmentation. Brain Sciences, 9(7), 169. doi:  10.3390/brainsci9070169
     https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci9070169 [Google Scholar]
  42. Siomopoulos, G.
    (1977) Poetry as affective communication. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 46(3), 499–513. 10.1080/21674086.1977.11926809
     https://doi.org/10.1080/21674086.1977.11926809 [Google Scholar]
  43. Stanislaw, H. , & Todorov, N.
    (1999) Calculation of signal detection theory measures. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 31(1), 137–149. doi:  10.3758/BF03207704
     https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207704 [Google Scholar]
  44. Steinhauer, K. , Alter, K. , & Friederici, A. D.
    (1999) Brain potentials indicate immediate use of prosodic cues in natural speech processing. Nature Neuroscience, 2(2), 191. doi:  10.1038/5757
     https://doi.org/10.1038/5757 [Google Scholar]
  45. Stowe, L. A. , Kaan, E. , Sabourin, L. , & Taylor, R. C.
    (2018) The sentence wrap-up dogma. Cognition, 176, 232–247. doi:  10.1016/j.cognition.2018.03.011
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.03.011 [Google Scholar]
  46. Terken, J., & Hermes, D.
    (2000) The Perception of prosodic prominence. InM. Horne (Ed.), Prosody: Theory and Experiment (14, pp.89–129).
     [Google Scholar]
  47. Thierry, G. , Martin, C. D. , Gonzalez-Diaz, V. , Rezaie, R. , Roberts, N. , & Davis, P. M.
    (2008) Event-related potential characterization of the Shakespearean functional shift in narrative sentence structure. NeuroImage, 40(2), 923–931. doi:  10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.12.006
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.12.006 [Google Scholar]
  48. Tursunov, A. , Kwon, S. , & Pang, H. S.
    (2019) Discriminating emotions in the valence dimension from speech using timbre features. Applied Sciences, 9(12), 2470. doi:  10.3390/app9122470
     https://doi.org/10.3390/app9122470 [Google Scholar]
  49. Ullrich, S. , Aryani, A. , Kraxenberger, M. , Jacobs, A. M. , & Conrad, M.
    (2017) On the relation between the general affective meaning and the basic sublexical, lexical, and inter-lexical features of poetic texts – a case study using 57 poems of H. M. Enzensberger. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 2073. doi:  10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02073
     https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02073 [Google Scholar]
  50. van Heuven, V. J. J. P.
    (1994) Introducing prosodic phonetics. In: C. Odé , & V. J. J. P. van Heuven (Eds.), Phonetic studies of Indonesian prosody (pp.1–26). Leiden: Faculteit der Letteren.
     [Google Scholar]
  51. Wassiliwizky, E. , Koelsch, S. , Wagner, V. , Jacobsen, T. , & Menninghaus, W.
    (2017) The emotional power of poetry: Neural circuitry, psychophysiology and compositional principles. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12(8), 1229–1240. doi:  10.1093/scan/nsx069
     https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsx069 [Google Scholar]
  52. Yang, X. , Shen, X. , Li, W. , & Yang, Y.
    (2014) How listeners weight acoustic cues to intonational phrase boundaries. PloS One, 9(7), e102166. doi:  10.1371/journal.pone.0102166
     https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0102166 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/ssol.19019.pos
Loading
The role of linguistic prosody in the responses to recited poetry
Scientific Study of Literature 10, 228 (2020); https://doi.org/10.1075/ssol.19019.pos
/content/journals/10.1075/ssol.19019.pos
/content/journals/10.1075/ssol.19019.pos
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): aesthetics; comprehension; linguistic prosody; poetry; preference; syntactic hierarchy

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error