Periodic Reporting for period 2 - TLDR (TL; DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read): Close and hyperreading of literary texts and the modulation of attention) Reporting period: 2022-09-01 to 2023-08-31 Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project In the information age, technological developments have drastically increased the amount of texts available through different media. This has led to a shift in reading habits from close reading, sustained and focused attention to the text, to hyperreading, non-linear, computer-assisted modes of reading such as skimming and scanning. Consequently, some fear, young people are losing the ability to concentrate. Many scholars align literary reading with close or deep reading and maintain a strict binary conception of this mode and hyperreading at the opposite pole.TDLR proposes that (a) readers tend to modulate between the two modes, that are more integrated than is often assumed and that (b) this is especially true for literary reading, as literary texts demand of their readers to switch between close and hyperreading.Does reading literature help to make us better at allocating and modulating attention? What elements in literature prompt readers to pay close attention, and what elements invite a more distracted reading? Are experienced literary readers more skilled at determining when to zoom in and close read, and when to skim? And is this skill transferable to non-literary (information) environments and texts? Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far A literature review has been conducted in the first year of the project, which resulted in a conceptual model for attentional modulation in literary reading. This resulted in an article which is currently under review (resubmitted with revisions to Orbis Litterarum, Aug 11, 2022). The model of literary reading takes into account both top down processes (the experienced reader’s knowledge of how the literary text is constructed) and bottom up processes (textual characteristics that trigger close and distracted modes of reading and attention) and will serve as the basis for the experiments in year 3. WP1 has thereby been completed. A reading survey has been designed and distributed among 830 readers of literature in the Netherlands and other countries, to offer insight in their reading habits of attentional modulation. The results will be published in an article, co-authored (PI is first author) with supervisor Anne Mangen and advisor Frank Hakemulder (accepted with revisions and resubmitted, per Sept 6, 2022, to Scientific Study of Literature). This publication concludes WP2.The next stage of the project consisted of determining what text types (genre, formal elements, length) are best suited to reading with attentional modulation. To this end, I created a taxonomy of textual characteristics that and devices that prompt deep or close reading (attention grabbers), skimming (internal distractors), and modulation between the two. On top of the deliverables that were promised, I presented the results in an article that I submitted, per June 7, 2022, to Language and Literature. This completes WP3.At UC Santa Barbara, I was supervised by Rita Raley, with whom I had bi-monthly meetings about my project. She advised me on theories of attention and media as well as methodological issues. I presented my research on several occasions in the context of the research groups Transcriptions and Literature and Mind (the latter also was the context for a focus group session which formed the basis for article 3). More extensive forms of collaboration were Early March 2022, I ended my outgoing phase at UC Santa Barbara with a one-day conference titled Transformations of Attention, for which I invited top scholars on media and attention from a broad range of fields like N. Katherine Hayles, Maryanne Wolf, Joe Walther, Susanna Paasonen, Kiene Brillenburg Wurth, Alice Marwick, and my co-author on a forthcoming publication, Lucie Chateau.From March onwards, I worked with Anne Mangen and Frank Hakemulder at the Reading Research Center at University of Stavanger, Norway. Here, I received training in empirical literary studies, and designed the eyetracking experiments for WP4. A also planned to do a pilot study but we decided against this, as the eye-tracking lab at University of Stavanger had not yet been finished, so I could not use their equipment. The pilot study will be conducted in Fall 2022 at Tilburg university, where I have returned as planned for the last year of my project. Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far) In the last year, of the project, I carry out the eyetracking studies with the help of Rein Cozijn who runs the eyetracking lab at Tilburg University. After having received the proper training at UiS, during the returning phase I will be able to carry out the reading experiments and publish the results (MS5) in an article.Then I will synthesize and analyze the data from all phases and, based on this, write a handbook for reading in secondary education. I will also hold a series of focus groups with teachers of (Dutch) literature who will implement the handbook. The scientific contribution of this study will be a precise and fine-tuned determination of the specific capacities and affordances of literary reading in training attentional allocation and modulation.Societal implications so far might emanate from lectures I have done for a non-academic audience, such as the keynote lecture for a broad audience of readers, educators, publishers, etc. organized by Stichting Lezen (over 1000 online attendees). The impact of the project will be clearest in the last months, when I write a handbook for secunary education based on the results and a series of focus groups with Dutch teachers. nogeenkeertjehogereres.jpg
