1887
Volume 2, Issue 2
  • ISSN 2210-4372
  • E-ISSN: 2210-4380
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Theory of Mind (ToM) has been proposed to explain social interactions, with real people but also with fictional characters, by interpreting their mind as well as our own. “Perspective embedding” exploits ToM by placing events in characters’ minds (e.g., “he remembered she was home”). Three levels of embedment, common in literature, may be a “sweet spot” that provides enough information about a character’s motivation, but not a confusing over-abundance. Here, we use short vignettes with 1 or 3 characters and 0–5 levels of perspective embedding in two reading studies to see whether these preferences might be related to processing ease. Self-paced readers were fastest with one level of embedment, increasingly slower as embedment increased; vignettes without embedment were approximately as slow as level 4. With both self-paced and imposed timing, error rates on probe questions increased only at the fifth level. Readers seem to prefer literary texts in which ToM operations are obvious due to embedding of perspectives within the narrative but still somewhat challenging.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/ssol.2.2.06wha
2012-01-01
2025-04-19
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/ssol.2.2.06wha
Loading
  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): literature; perspective embedding; reading; theory of mind
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