THE LANDSCAPE OF TIME IN LITERARY RECEPTION - CHARACTER EXPERIENCE AND NARRATIVE ACTION

This experiment examined responses to excerpted episodes from short st ories that either focused on action or on the experiences of the chara cters. The effects of instructional sets to approach the texts from th e viewpoint of subjective involvement or objective detachment were als o studied. The two story types and two reading sets were factorially c ombined in a within-subjects design. Scale ratings of the story excerp ts and reading times (syllables per second) were measured. A total of subjects (20 males and 20 females) read six segments from each of the episodes as quickly and accurately as possible. Pretest data were obta ined for each segment indicating how much it ''provided insight into t he characters' experiences'', and its level of suspense and surprise. Segments which ''provided insight'' were read more slowly, whereas sur prising segments were read more quickly. Under the Subjective Set, sub jects slowed the pace of reading if they judged the text to be ''rich in meaning about life''. For the Objective Set, stories that were judg ed to have evoked ''images'' were read more slowly. Females were more responsive to the Subjective Set than were the males, finding the stor ies to be ''richer in meaning'' and more ''personally relevant''. Fema les also slowed their reading pace for segments that they judged to be ''rich in meaning about life'', while males slowed down if the storie s evoked ''images''.