Abstract
ABSTRACTPrevious research showed an emerging appreciation of literary narratives on second reading, whereas such effects fail to occur for the same narratives depleted of literary features. This might suggest that appreciation is associated with readers’ acknowledgment of the purposefulness of literary devices on rereading. It may also be that the increase in appreciation is caused by a general sense of increased comprehension, a more common effect that may also occur on rereading nonliterary narratives. Three studies were conducted in which participants reread either original literary texts or manipulated versions in which literary style aspects were normalized. Using linear mixed models we examined the relationship between levels of literariness, perceived comprehension, and appreciation as well as the mediating influence of participants’ reading experience. The results show that an increase in appreciation seems mainly related to an increase in perceived comprehension, independent of the level of literariness.
Highlights
Texts vary in the rewards they yield to their readers
The results show that the increase in appreciation upon second reading occurs in both conditions, independent of the level of literariness
The hypothesis that high print exposure is associated with greater increases in appreciation from first to second reading needs to be rejected in this study, since we found that print exposure did not have any effect on appreciation
Summary
Texts vary in the rewards they yield to their readers. This holds even more so for rereading them: For some texts one reading suffices, whereas others seem to promise there is more to be discovered on second reading. Qualitative data (Bálint, Hakemulder, Kuijpers, Tan, & Doicaru, 2016) suggest that when readers encounter deviating aspects in a text, they may choose to reread as part of their strategy to prolong their contact with the text, to disambiguate parts they feel uncertain about, or to slow down the pace of their reading as they experience an overpowering force of the narrative style. To the participants this rereading enhances rather than obstructs their engagement with the text
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