Poetry-Elicited Emotions: Reading Experience and Psychological Mechanisms

Poetry-elicited emotions have recently come into the focus of empirical aesthetics. However, little is known about the association between individual differences in reader characteristics and emotional responses to poetry, such as differences in reading experience and psychological differences. The latter can be conceptualized either as dispositional traits or as processes that occur during an act of reading, when evaluated in relation between reading experience and emotions. The present study aimed to investigate the role of reading experience in poetry-elicited emotions, as well as the involvement of empathy, imagery, and proneness to fantasize as potential moderators and mediators in this relation. First, participants completed an online survey, which assessed reading experience and traits such as empathy, visual imagery, movement imagery, auditory imagery, and proneness to fantasize. Second, a 30-min reading session was followed by an assessment of their emotional responses. Other questions asked were in regard to process measures of empathy, visual imagery, movement imagery and auditory imagery for words and for sounds. Results of a hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that participants with greater reading experience, a higher level of auditory imagery control and a higher level of proneness to fantasize experienced more intense emotions while reading poetry. Furthermore, a mediation analysis revealed that empathy, visual imagery, and auditory imagery for words experienced during the reading session carry the effects of reading experience on emotion intensity. We argue that the present study is a first step in the direction of considering reader characteristics alongside text characteristics when studying poetry-elicited emotions.

Automated summary

This study aimed to examine the impact of reading experience and individual differences on emotions evoked by poetry, as well as the moderating and mediating roles of empathy, imagery, and proneness to fantasize in this relationship. The results showed that participants with greater reading experience, higher levels of auditory imagery control, and a higher level of proneness to fantasize experienced more intense emotions while reading poetry. Furthermore, the experiences of empathy, visual imagery, and auditory imagery for words during the reading session mediated the effects of reading experience on emotion intensity.