Reader expertise and the literary significance of small-scale textual features in prose fiction

Parente, Fabio; Conklin, Kathy; Guy, Josephine; Carrol, Gareth; Scott, Rebekah

Abstract

We use eye tracking to investigate the attention readers pay to different textual features to determine their significance in the appreciation of prose fiction. Previous research examined attention allocation to lexical and punctuation variants, and the impact on reading dynamics for the remainder of the text, demonstrating that readers “notice” both kinds of variants but assign less value to the latter (Carrol, Conklin, Guy & Scott, 2016). Here, in two experiments, we examine two conditions that may affect attention allocation: we investigate the influence of reader expertise (Experiment 1) and whether performance is influenced by a task-specific “spot-the-difference” effect (Experiment 2). We found that expertise plays little role in readers’ greater sensitivity to lexical rather than punctuation changes, and that the advantage for lexical changes persisted when the time interval between exposures is increased. These results confirm earlier findings: that small-scale features may not possess the creative significance predicated of them by critics and text-editors.

Citation

Parente, F., Conklin, K., Guy, J., Carrol, G., & Scott, R. (2019). Reader expertise and the literary significance of small-scale textual features in prose fiction. Scientific Study of Literature, 9(1), 3-33. https://doi.org/10.1075/ssol.19006.par

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 16, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Feb 4, 2020
• Publication Date: 2019-12
• Deposit Date: Feb 18, 2020
• Journal: Scientific Study of Literature
• Print ISSN: 2210-4372
• Electronic ISSN: 2210-4380
• Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 3-33
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/ssol.19006.par
• Keywords: eye-tracking, prose-fiction, reader expertise, small-scale textual features, punctuation
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3962149
• Publisher URL: https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/ssol.19006.par