Previous research has shown that empathy influences reading comprehension, and the current research builds further on these results. It examines whether emotional stories lead to more text...Show morePrevious research has shown that empathy influences reading comprehension, and the current research builds further on these results. It examines whether emotional stories lead to more text comprehension than neutral stories; whether empathy influences text comprehension of stories that tend to elicit emotion and; whether working memory moderates this relation. Text comprehension is measured during reading (online processes) and after the reading is finished (offline processes). The stories are read by 54 Psychology- and Pedagogical Sciences students, by the use of a self-paced reading paradigm. After the reading was finished, all participants answered several questions about the texts. They also filled in two questionnaires regarding their levels of empathy and they made a working memory test. The analyses have shown that, in accordance with the hypothesis, emotional stories result in more online and offline text comprehension. Contrary to the second hypothesis, empathy does not have a significant effect on online and offline text comprehension of emotional stories. Working memory seems to moderate the relation between empathy and text comprehension of emotional stories, which corresponds to the third hypothesis. The overall conclusion is that emotional stories are read faster than neutral stories, but the remaining question is whether shorter reading times reflect better text comprehension. Besides that, the role of empathy is still doubtful, because the effects differ between online and offline text comprehension and it also seems to depend on working memory.Show less
Reading comprehension is a complex skill that has been widely studied. Nevertheless, insights on the process of emotional inferences in children have remained limited. Therefore, the first aim of...Show moreReading comprehension is a complex skill that has been widely studied. Nevertheless, insights on the process of emotional inferences in children have remained limited. Therefore, the first aim of this study is to investigate reading time differences in emotion-eliciting and control narratives read by children. Furthermore, in previous studies perspective taking, working memory and visuospatial ability have been suggested to influence reading processes. This leads to a second aim: examine the influence of working memory, visuospatial abilities and perspective taking on reading times of emotion-eliciting and control narratives read by children. Participants were 84 students in grade 5 in the age group 10 - 12. Each participant read 10 emotion-eliciting and 10 control short narratives in random order. Narratives were characterized by either an emotion-eliciting or a control target sentence. Furthermore, measures of working memory, visuospatial abilities, perspective taking and reading fluency were administered. Results revealed RT differences between kinds of sentences (target or closure) and working memory was found to influence the RT of children. These results indicate a difference in the ability to make emotional inference between children and adults.Show less
Abstract The main focus of this research lies on differences between the reader’s own emotional state and the emotional state of the protagonist. 83 eleven-year-old Dutch pupils read short...Show moreAbstract The main focus of this research lies on differences between the reader’s own emotional state and the emotional state of the protagonist. 83 eleven-year-old Dutch pupils read short fictional narratives in an experimental and neutral condition and rated the emotional states for valence and arousal with a Likert-scale. It was expected that participants were able to make correct inferences of the protagonist’s emotional state and therefore rate the valence and arousal scale more extreme in the experimental condition and for the protagonist. Results showed that participants indeed differed significantly between the two conditions and perspectives. They did so for both valence and arousal and for stories with positive and negative emotions. Furthermore an interaction effect between gender and condition was found; boys rated the valence of their own emotional state more neutral than girls. Boys also rated the arousal scale stronger for positive stories in the experimental condition. Readers who are able to distinguish more between their own emotional state and the emotional state of the protagonist might have an advantage at reading comprehension over children who rate the emotional states more alike.Show less
