Article 29th (What We See When We Read)

Visualization is defined as the production of mental images in the process of reading. This article is concerned with varieties of visualization during an absorbing reading of a fictional narrative, the mental images that range from an indistinct and largely automatic default visualization to the much more vivid images that occur at significant stages in the narrative.

Vivid visualization due to increased attention occurs mainly in descriptive passages when the reader is cued by the narrative to shift from action and movement oriented visualization to object and description oriented visualization. In sum, the key ideas this article offers beyond existing cognitive literary research are twofold: firstly, visualization is easily and smoothly effected when a dynamic narrative confirms prior knowledge and cultural schemata; secondly, visualization is vivid and intense when mental images shift from action vision mode to object vision mode, following the attentive gaze of an emotionally involved fictional character. In encouraging readers to shift now and then from the default mode of motion oriented visualizing to a more conscious object visualization, literary fictions exercise their power to evoke imaginings that one wouldn't generate by oneself.

Annisa Masnasuri Kesai

16611069

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