Reading imaginatively: The imagination in cognitive science and cognitive literary studies

Abstract

I argue that literary studies can contribute to the "imagery debate" (between pictorialist, propositionalist, and enactivist accounts of mental imagery). While imagery questionnaires are pictorially configured and conflate imagining and seeing with pictorial representation, literary texts can exploit language's capacity for indeterminacy and therefore elicit very different imaginative experiences, thus illuminating the non-pictorial qualities of mental imagery.

Reading for tracing evidence: developing scientific knowledge through science text

“…Popular magazines, web or blogs that are referred to by students though can be used as reference sources, are actually addressed to the general public, not for the science community. Students who refer more web pages or popular news shows low motivation and reading habit because they take information instantly from internet browsing or refer to the conclusions of previous research without seeing scientific process happened in it [22], [23], [12]. It has an impact on the students' lack of understanding of science comprehensively, especially in appreciating how scientists think and act, how a study leads to new findings and how to use the results of research as empirical foundation of further research [24], [25].…”

“…Intervention is done through tutoring science reading by teacher, including selection of up-to-date reference sources and suitable for scientific community, use of citation management, reading strategy to develop comprehension and use the information as a part of evidence [22], [23], [28]. After the intervention, the data obtained as follows : Textbook, research journal and web/blog (0 students) Support a claim (59 students) As evidence (59 students) Positioning (59 students)…”

The Fictive Brain: Neurocognitive Correlates of Engagement in Literature

“…extent comparable at the neural level (Jeannerod, 2006;Kosslyn, 1994). There is however a very important difference between explicit imagery, and the more implicit generation of images in the mind when we comprehend language (Burke, 2011;Jacobs, 2016;Kuzmičová, 2014;Troscianko, 2013). Literary scholars have long recognized "the optical poverty of my images" during literary reading (Iser, 1976, p. 138).…”

Audiobooks and Print Narrative: Similarities in Text Experience

“…Vision is the dominant sense in humans, and mental images are often experienced to have a visual component (see also Spence and Deroy 2013). But static visual pictures or even filmic snippets in the head are inaccurate as a general metaphor for mental imagery elicited by narrative, even though they are by far the most widespread in narrative and literary scholarship (Jajdelska et al 2010;Troscianko 2013). The metaphor presupposes that the imager's embodied stance vis-à-vis the imaged contents is one of a detached spectator, with little or no vicarious involvement in the contents themselves.…”