Parallelisms and deviations: two fundamentals of an aesthetics of poetic diction.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci
; 379(1895): 20220424, 2024 Jan 29.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38104607
ABSTRACT
Poetic diction routinely involves two complementary classes of features (i) parallelisms, i.e. repetitive patterns (rhyme, metre, alliteration, etc.) that enhance the predictability of upcoming words, and (ii) poetic deviations that challenge standard expectations/predictions regarding regular word form and order. The present study investigated how these two prediction-modulating fundamentals of poetic diction affect the cognitive processing and aesthetic evaluation of poems, humoristic couplets and proverbs. We developed quantitative measures of these two groups of text features. Across the three text genres, higher deviation scores reduced both comprehensibility and aesthetic liking whereas higher parallelism scores enhanced these. The positive effects of parallelism are significantly stronger than the concurrent negative effects of the features of deviation. These results are in accord with the hypothesis that art reception involves an interplay of prediction errors and prediction error minimization, with the latter paving the way for processing fluency and aesthetic liking. This article is part of the theme issue 'Art, aesthetics and predictive processing theoretical and empirical perspectives'.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Emotions
/
Mental Processes
Language:
En
Journal:
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci
Year:
2024
Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Germany