Examining the Phenomenology of Affect and Task-Unrelated Thought during Reading

EasyChair Preprint 3822

Abstract

We examined how readers’ online affective and attentional experiences influenced comprehension after reading. Participants were periodically interrupted during reading to assess their affective valence (i.e., their feelings) and whether their minds had wandered away from the text. Results revealed that affective valence and mind-wandering influence levels of comprehension differently: wandering thoughts are overall negative for comprehension and positive valence negatively impacts shallow comprehension while increasing readers propensity to interpret emotion in a text.

Keyphrases: emotion, mind wandering, online processing, reading

@booklet{EasyChair:3822,
  author    = {Shelby Smith and Jacob Gagne and Heidi Martin and Caitlin Mills},
  title     = {Examining the Phenomenology of Affect and Task-Unrelated Thought during Reading},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 3822},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2020}}