Dissertation proposal presentation, March 2011

1. The experience of
reading, reading
cognition and
metafiction
Élika Ortega Guzmán

2. Layout
• Framework
– Reader response theory
– Neuroaesthetics
– Cognitive Poetics
– Metafiction
• Hypotheses
• Methodology
• Preliminary conclusions
• Bibliography

3. Framework I
Reader as the
axis for
Reader response theory analysis
(Wolfgang Iser,
Hans Robert Jauss,
Jonathan Culler)
A text’s
autonomous and
heteronomous
nature
Actualization
Reading
potentials

4. Framework II-i
Literature as
Empirical object of
scientific
Studies studies
Neuroaesthetics Cognitive Poetics

5. Framework II-ii
Reading
Science
Attention and
Artification
Neuroaesthetics
Theory of mind
Flow

6. Framework II-iii
Deictic shift theory
Cognitive
Poetics
Discourse
worlds
Mental
Spaces Text worlds
Inner experience

7. Framework III
Metafiction
(process made visible)
Linda
Hutcheon +Linguistic and
narrative structures
+The role of
Outward the reader
Not a focus
Contemporary
phenomenon Intellectual and
Affective Responses
Reader as Comparable to
Co-creator Life Experiences

8. Hypothesis 1
Because reading is based on a series
of unconscious cognitive processes,
the act of reading is carried out
“naturally”, i.e. not realizing how it
gets done or, for example how we get
to inhabit a text, specially when
reading fiction.

9. Hypothesis 2
Metafictional texts, like any other
text, have the potential to draw us
into their narrative world, but
because of their specific qualities
they can also drastically interrupt the
cognitive processes involved in
reading and make us realize the
artifice of reading in our own
experience.

10. Methodology
• Literature review:
– Theoretical (metafiction, reading
cognition, and reader-response
theory)
– Critical (primary sources)
• Experimental tests
• Data analysis

11. Tests
• Altered texts
–Change some aspects of the text (the ending,
or certain words / types of words) to observe
their particular effects.
• Text check-marking
–Readers are asked to check mark moments of
the text when they experience a specified
variant (a memory, a feeling, etc.)
• Post reading questionnaires
• Additional use of well established tests
such as Author Recognition Test (ART)
and Self-Report Measure of Fantasy.

12. Examples (preliminary)
+ Elements
signaling location,
time and disposition
+Lack of
personal pronouns

13. Data Analysis
• Effects of specific features of the texts.
• Location of those effects.
• Possible mapping of text structures by
measure of devices affecting/triggering
cognitive processes.

14. Preliminary Corpus
- Miguel de Unamuno, Niebla
- Jorge Luis Borges, El libro de arena
Theoretical and
and Ficciones.
argumentative
- More to add.
- Julio Cortázar, “Continuidad de los
parques”.
Experimental -Benito Pérez Galdós, “La novela en
el tranvía”.

15. Possible conclusions
• The study of the effects a metafictional
text elicits in our cognitive processes
should provide information regarding
how they operate.
• Give a possible explanation for the
“naturalization” of reading.
• Highlight characteristics of what we
consider conventionally a metafictional
text.

16. Preliminary bibliography
• Appleyard, J. A. Becoming a Reader: The Experience of Fiction from Childhood to Adulthood. Cambridge [England]:
Cambridge University Press, 1990. Print.
• Berlyne, D. E. Aesthetics and Psychobiology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1971. Print.
• Bouson, J. Brooks. The Empathic Reader: A Study of the Narcissistic Character and the Drama of the Self. Amherst:
University of Massachusetts Press, 1989. Print.
• Brandt, Deborah. Literacy as Involvement: The Acts of Writers, Readers, and Texts. Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1990. Print.
• Burke, Michael. Literary reading, cognition and emotion : an exploration of the oceanic mind. New York: Routledge, 2011.
Print.
• Cognitive Poetics Goals, Gains and Gaps. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2009. Print. Cognitive Poetics in Practice. London:
Routledge, 2003. Print.
• Deixis in Narrative: A Cognitive Science Perspective. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1995. Print.
• Empirical Approaches to Literature and Aesthetics. Norwood, N.J: Ablex Pub, 1996. Print.
• Evolution, Literature, and Film: A Reader. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. Print.
• Evolutionary and Neurocognitive Approaches to Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. Amityville, N.Y: Baywood Pub, 2007.
Print.
• Gavins, Joanna. Text world theory : an introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007. Print.
• Hogan, Patrick Colm. Cognitive Science, Literature, and the Arts: A Guide Forhumanists. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Print.
• Identity of the Literary Text. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985. Print.
• Jackson, Holbrook. The Anatomy of Bibliomania: In Two Volumes. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1931. Print.
• László János. The Science of Stories: An Introduction to Narrative Psychology. London: Routledge, 2008. Print.
• Manguel, Alberto. A History of Reading. London: HarperCollins, 1996. Print.
• ---. A Reader on Reading. New Haven, [Conn.]: Yale University Press, 2010. Print.
• ---. The City of Words. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2007. Print.
• Miller, J. Hillis. The Ethics of Reading: Kant, De Man, Eliot, Trollope, James, and Benjamin. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1987. Print.

17. Preliminary bibliography
• Narrative and Consciousness: Literature, Psychology, Andthe Brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Print.
• Neuroaesthetics. Amityville, N.Y: Baywood Pub, 2009. Print.
• New Directions in Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. Amityville, N.Y: Baywood, 2006. Print.
• Orejas, Francisco G. La Metaficción En La Novela Española Contemporánea: Entre 1975 Y El Fin De Siglo. Madrid: Arco
Libros, 2003. Print.
• Proust, Marcel. On Reading. New York: Macmillan, 1971. Print.
• Reader Development in Practice: Bringing Literature to Readers. London: Facet, 2008. Print.
• Reception Study: From Literary Theory to Cultural Studies. New York: Routledge, 2001. Print.
• Rick Gekoski. Reading is overrated | Books | guardian.co.uk. 17 Feb. 2011. Web. 16 Mar. 2011.
• Rosenblatt, Louise M. The Reader, the Text, the Poem: The Transactional Theoryof the Literary Work. Paperback ed.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1994. Print.
• Saunders, Max. Self Impression: Life-Writing, Autobiografiction, and the Forms of Modern Literature. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2010. Print.
• Sorensen, Diana. The Reader and the Text: Interpretative Strategies for Latin American Literatures. Amsterdam:
Benjamins, 1986. Print.
• Stockwell, Peter. Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 2002. Print.
• The Book History Reader. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2006. Print.
• The Experience of Reading: Louise Rosenblatt and Reader-Response Theory. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook
Publishers, 1991. Print.
• The Literary Animal: Evolution and the Nature of Narrative. Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press, 2005. Print.
• The Work of Fiction: Cognition, Culture, and Complexity. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2004. Print.
• Tsur, Reuven. Toward a Theory of Cognitive Poetics. 2nd ed. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2008. Print.
• Wijsen, Louk M. P. T. Cognition and Image Formation in Literature. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1980. Print.
• Zunshine, Lisa. Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel. Columbus, OH: Ohio State UP, 2006. Print.
• ----. Theory of Mind and Fictions of Embodied Transparency. Narrative 16.1 (2008): 65-92. Print.
• Zunshine, Lisa (ed. and introd. ). Introduction to Cognitive Cultural Studies. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 2010.
Print.

18. Thank you