Reading Different Types of Narrative Texts: A Study of Cognitive and Emotional Responses

This paper examines cognitive and emotional responses produced while reading different types of narrative texts. The Italian translation of Borges's short story «La muerte y la brújula» («Death and the Compass») was presented either in the original or in a modified version, which omitted the initial paragraph introducing the two main characters. Readers were asked to evaluate the degree with which they experienced the following responses: coherence, curiosity, emotionality, empathy, facility, imagery, impact, interest, involvement, pleasure, pleasure at the outcome, postdictability, surprise, surprise at the outcome and suspense. A factorial analysis on the scores showed the same three factors found in previous experiments using Poe’s and Tarchetti's short stories: 1. readers' emotional participation in the story; 2. violation of readers' expectations; 3. cognitive evaluation of the textual features that make the story comprehensible (Levorato & Nemesio, 2005). Differences were found in relation to gender and textual type.