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

Figures & data

Table 1. Means and standard deviations of text characteristics as a function of text type.

	Text type
	Erotic		Horror		Neutral
Measure	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
Character count	1098.37	42.65	1066.5	40.37	1049.75	27.13
Word count	201.12	10.95	175.75	6.61	177.75	8.55
Audio duration (s)	91	4.63	88.12	5.57	84.5	2.62
Flesch Reading Ease	67.57	6.24	53.64	4.98	53.22	7.21

Figure 1. Arousal rating tool. Low arousal (a), medium arousal (b) and high arousal (c).

Figure 2. Model estimates of arousal as a function of time for erotic, horror, and neutral texts.

Figure 3. Model estimates of head motion as a function of time during listening of erotic, horror and neutral texts.

Table 2. Means and standard deviations of different measures as a function of text type in Experiment 1.

	Text type
	Erotic		Horror		Neutral
Measure	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
Valence	6.33	1.33	3.00	1.10	5.00	.62
Arousal	.18	.19	.15	.21	-.14	.15
Head motion	6.28	2.10	6.53	1.85	6.98	1.85
Transportation	4.59	1.13	4.58	1.02	3.22	.84
Recall	.11	.05	.13	.04	.11	.04

Note. Means and standard deviations are computed across per-participant means.

Table 3. Means and standard deviations of different measures as a function of text type in Experiment 2.

	Text type
	Erotic		Horror		Neutral
Measure	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
Valence	5.94	1.25	3.31	1.16	5.05	.92
Arousal	5.28	1.66	4.84	1.51	3.04	1.18
Transportation	4.45	1.20	4.33	.99	3.42	.96
Reading speed	252.90	60.97	210.66	60.05	234.25	61.96
Head motion	3.21	1.22	3.62	1.49	3.62	1.38
Recall	.10	.04	.13	.05	.08	.03

Figure 4. Predicted values of head motion during reading of erotic, horror and neutral texts as a function of time. The y-axis is limited to values < 12.5 for the sake of readability and comparability to the results from Experiment 1.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in osf.io at http://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/Y4VRQ, reference number Y4VRQ.