Shifts in Narrative Perspectives Consume Attentional Resources and Facilitate Reading Engagement

ABSTRACT

Purpose

The use of attentional resources is an important cognitive indicator of reading engagement but it is unknown how this is influenced by linguistic cues. We designed two experiments to investigate whether shifts in narrative perspectives occupy more of the attention of readers and engage them more in the text.

Methods

Experiment 1 employed a dual-task paradigm to explore how shifts in narrative perspective influence the attention that readers allocate to the text. Experiment 2 used the same methods but replaced sentences with whole chapters to examine the effects of shifted perspectives on readers’ ability to allocate attention and engage in reading.

Results

Experiment 1 found that shifts in perspective delayed the participants’ responses to the tones. Experiment 2 found that perspective shifts enhanced the participants’ self-reported attentional focus and overall reading engagement. The results of Experiment 1 were not replicated by Experiment 2 but both experiments found that attentional engagement was deeper at the initial than the later stage of reading.

Conclusion

Perspective shifts in novels constitute valid language cues that can fully utilize readers’ attentional resources and improve their engagement in reading. Attentional resources play a more important role when readers initially process texts than at later stages.

Acknowledgments

This research was reviewed and approved in advance by the research ethics committee of the university with which both of the authors are affiliated, which is Human Research Sub-Committee, Ethic Review Committee, Central China Normal University, HR-ERC-CCNU.

All participants voluntarily participated in this research, signed informed consent prior to their participation in the experiments, and were rewarded with cash payment after the experiment.

Both of the authors of the research declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of the final version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2023.2179922.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 62077025) and the self-determined research funds of CCNU from the colleges’ basic research and operation of MOE (No. CCNU20TS030). We also thank the editor and the three reviewers (especially Professor Joe Magliano) for their valuable comments and suggestions on our manuscript