Gillioz, C. & Gygax, P.
Department of Psychology. University of Fribourg. Fribourg, Switzerland
In this study, we investigated if the mental representation of a character’s emotional response built during reading is elaborated in a way that mirrors emotion construct, as defined by Scherer’s (2005) emotion components. We manipulated the quality and the quantity of features of emotion components transmitted in emotional narratives according to the GRID instrument (Scherer, 2005). In the typical version of each narrative, the text included all emotion components qualified by their most typical features. In the similar version, the features of two components were congruent but not typical of the target emotion. In the filler version, two components were omitted. Surprisingly, results showed that target emotion sentences were read slower in the typical condition. However, sentences containing typical features were read faster than those similar ones. These results suggest that emotional inference is an incremental and constructive process and that readers rely on emotion components in order to elaborate a mental representation of the emotion described in the text. They also suggest that readers may construct specific emotion representations (different to the target emotions in our narratives) when presented with salient typical emotional features and keep more open representations of the emotion when the story conveys less typical features.