Fluctuation in cognitive engagement during listening and reading of erotica and horror stories.

The present study examined whether emotional text content influences cognitive engagement and transportation during listening (Experiment 1) and reading (Experiment 2) of neutral, horror and erotic stories. In Experiment 1, fluctuation in arousal and cognitive engagement were measured by continuous arousal judgments and head movement recordings during story listening. Participants rated experienced transportation and emotional valence after each story. The results showed that emotional texts were more arousing and induced more transportation than neutral stories. There was less head motion overall and a steeper decrease in head motion across time for erotic than neutral or horror stories. In Experiment 2, participants' head movements and reading times were recorded during reading, and participants rated experienced transportation, arousal, and valence after each text. The results showed that emotional texts were more arousing and induced higher transportation than neutral stories. There was less head motion during reading of erotic than neutral or horror texts. Horror texts were read slower and recalled better than neutral or erotic texts. The present results show that emotional text content impacts cognitive engagement during listening and reading of literary texts and demonstrates the importance of methodological triangulation when examining cognitive engagement.

IDEST: International Database of Emotional Short Texts.

We introduce a database (IDEST) of 250 short stories rated for valence, arousal, and comprehensibility in two languages. The texts, with a narrative structure telling a story in the first person and controlled for length, were originally written in six different languages (Finnish, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Turkish), and rated for arousal, valence, and comprehensibility in the original language. The stories were translated into English, and the same ratings for the English translations were collected via an internet survey tool (N = 573). In addition to the rating data, we also report readability indexes for the original and English texts. The texts have been categorized into different story types based on their emotional arc. The texts score high on comprehensibility and represent a wide range of emotional valence and arousal levels. The comparative analysis of the ratings of the original texts and English translations showed that valence ratings were very similar across languages, whereas correlations between the two pairs of language versions for arousal and comprehensibility were modest. Comprehensibility ratings correlated with only some of the readability indexes. The database is published in osf.io/9tga3, and it is freely available for academic research.

Cognitive engagement during reading on digital tablet: Evidence from concurrent recordings of postural and eye movements.

The present study utilised a novel combination of eye movement and motion capture recordings to examine cognitive engagement during reading on a hand-held tablet computer. Participants read a multiple-page text with a specific task in mind and after reading recalled the main contents of text from memory. The results showed that head distance from screen was slightly shorter, and readers spent longer time reading task-relevant than irrelevant segments of text and had better memory for task-relevant than irrelevant text information, indicating that there are task-induced momentary changes in engagement during reading. Moreover, head motion and individual fixation durations decreased during the course of reading of relevant segments, and even though there was an overall increase in table motion during reading, the slope of this increase was steeper for irrelevant than relevant text segments. These results suggest that readers become more engaged with relevant and less engaged with irrelevant text segments across the text. The novel methodological combination of eye and postural movements seems to provide valuable information about cognitive engagement during reading in digital environments. The cumulation of evidence from this and previous studies suggests that reading on a tablet affords different interactions between the reader and the text than reading on a computer screen. Reading on a tablet might be more similar to reading on paper, and this may impact the attentional processes during reading.

Effects of Valence and Emotional Intensity on the Comprehension and Memorization of Texts.

In the present study, we independently manipulated valence (positive, negative, or neutral) and emotional intensity (low, medium, or high), asking what impact they have on text comprehension (via surface, paraphrase, and inference questions) and memorization (via Remember/Know test) in adults. Results show that emotional contents, including valence and intensity affects comprehension. Emotional valence had a significant effect on text comprehension, with higher scores for positive and neutral texts than for negative ones. Participants scored higher on the surface questions for positive texts and on the inference questions for negative texts, with equivalent scores for paraphrase questions. Regarding emotional intensity, medium intensity generally fostered better comprehension of both positive and negative texts. High emotional intensity is beneficial for positively valenced texts, but hinders the understanding of negatively valenced ones. Regarding memorization, participants recalled more emotional words than neutral ones, and more words for positive texts than for either negative or neutral ones. In conclusion, our results show that emotions play an important role and improve the processing of information.

Cognitive engagement in emotional text reading: concurrent recordings of eye movements and head motion.

The present study examined the effects of emotions on eye movements, head motion, and iPad motion during reading. Thirty-one participants read neutral, emotionally negative texts and emotionally positive texts on a digital tablet and both participants' eye movements and body movements were recorded using respectively eye-tracking glasses and a motion capture system. The results showed that emotionally positive texts were read faster than neutral texts, and that readers' movements decreased when reading emotional texts regardless of valence polarity. Recent studies suggested that postural movements may reflect cognitive engagement and especially the engagement in the task to be done. Our findings seem to validate this hypothesis of a bodily engagement in reading emotional contents. The present results suggest that the novel methodology of eye and postural movement recordings is informative in studying the readers' embodied engagement during reading emotional materials.

Referential processing during reading: concurrent recordings of eye movements and head motion.

The present study utilized a new experimental set-up synchronizing eye movements and head motion for investigating referential change occurring in a reading task. We examined the effects of a change in narrative perspective during reading on eye movements and head motion. Forty-four participants read texts on a digital tablet, and both participants' eye movements and head movements were recorded using eye tracker and motion capture. The results showed longer eye fixation duration, longer reading time and decreasing head motions when perspective changed. Recent studies have supported the dynamic engagement hypothesis suggesting that there is a fluctuation in cognitive engagement reflected by postural movements. Our findings on head movements seem to validate this hypothesis of a bodily engagement in reading. The results provided by our study showed that the novel methodology of eye and head movement recordings we used was proven to be informative in studying the reader's embodiment during reading.

Fluctuation in cognitive engagement during reading: Evidence from concurrent recordings of postural and eye movements.

The present study utilized a novel methodological combination of eye tracking and postural movement recordings to study task-induced changes in cognitive engagement during expository text reading. Thirty-three participants read an expository text with a specific task in mind while their eye and postural movements were concurrently recorded, and after reading recalled the text from memory. The results showed that readers spent longer total fixation time and had better memory for task-relevant than irrelevant text information. During the course of reading, head-to-screen distance and the speed of head motion decreased more for relevant than irrelevant text segments. The results support the dynamic engagement hypothesis: there is task-induced fluctuation in cognitive engagement during reading. Moreover, the results suggest two types of engagement processes: transient and sustained engagement. The former refers to fast, momentary changes, whereas the latter refers to slower changes in the level of engagement observed across the reading task. The novel combination of eye and postural movement recordings proved to be useful in studying how readers embody the cognitive task demands during reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).