Vol. 10 No. 3 May 1996 Section 4 Page 303

COGNITION AND EMOTION, 1996, 10 (3), 303± 321

The Representation of Changing Emotions in Reading Comprehension M anuel de Vega, Inm aculadaLeo  n, and Jose M . Dõ az University of La Laguna , Spain

The ability of readers to represent protagonists’ changing emotions was explored. In Experiment 1, subjects read stories in a c umulative version (all the events biased the same emotion) or in a shifting version (the ® rst part biased an e motion and the second part suggested another one). An emotional sentence (e.g. Ann felt p roud of her de cision) placed at tw o different loci was either consiste nt or inc onsistent w ith the ® rst part of the story. In the cumulative context, inconsistent targets w ere read slow er in any locus. In the shifting contex t, inconsistent sentences were read slow er in the ® rst locus, and faste r in the second locus, indicating that readers had updated the protagonist’ s emotion. In Experiments 2 and 3 subjects read ve rsions of the stories w ith a ® rst part that biased one of tw o alternative emotions (e.g. proud or gui lty), follow ed by neutral sentences and then the target sente nce. The consistency effect w as obtained again, demonstrating that the representation of the initial emotion was highly accessible beyond the local c ontext. The results indicate that readers built updatable mental models of protagonists’ emotions.

Emotions are dynamic states, and so their mental representation should also be dynamic. This can be true not only in real life but also in stories. Protagonists of stories are involve d in various situations that imply emotional signi® cance. We c laim that, for an appropriate understanding of narrativ es, readers must be able to track protagonists ’ implicit emotions, updating their representations as emotionall y relevant information is provided by the text. For instanc e, at a giv en moment readers may understand that the protagonist feels proud, but after reading about new events in the

Requests for reprints should be sent to Manuel de Vega, Departmento de Psicologõ Â a Cognitiva, Universidad de La Laguna, Campus de G uajara, 38200 La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain. Portions of this article were presented at the VIIth Conference of the European Society for Cognitiv e Psychology, held in Lisbon in September 1994. The study was supported by the DGICYT PB92± 0656± C04± 01 from the Ministerio de EducacioÂn y Ciencia (Spain). q

1996 Psychology Press, an imprint of Erlbaum (UK) Taylor & Francis Ltd

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text, they can understand that now he/she feels unsatis ® ed. Despite their som ew hat dynami c character, emotions can play an im portant role in readers’ representation bec ause they can serve as a ``glue’ ’ that integrates contents that are relatively distant in the text. By tracking the characters’ emotional states, readers are in a privileged position to integrate pieces of information w idely distributed throughout the te xt. Emotions, therefore, may contribute in providing global coherence to stories. This paper w ill explore both the dynamic and the integrative character of em otion representations constructed during comprehension. According to some theories of comprehension, readers of narratives, in addition to parsing w ords and sentences into a propositiona l code, also represent the situation to w hich the narrativ e refers. These kinds of representations are som etimes described as life-like mental models of the situation (Glenberg, Meyer, & Lindem , 1987; Morrow , Bow er, & Greenspan, 1989, etc.). The mental models literature deals mainly with spatial representations , indicating that readers apparently take the protagonist’ s ``visual ’ ’ perspective in described scenarios (e.g. de Vega, 1995; Frankli n & Tversky, 1990) . But it is very likely that in addition to the visuo-spatial perspective, readers can also be sensitive to the protagonists ’ psychological ``perspective’ ’ , representing changing internal states such as their emotions or affects. Sometimes, the protagonists’ e motions are explicitly labelled in the text (e.g. John was an gry). How ever, the most interesting situation for research involv es texts which do not mention any emotion explicitly but in w hich, nevertheless, the reader can understand the protagonists ’ emotions. A few studies in psycholinguistics have explored the issue of emotion representations built by subjects during ordinary reading . They demonstrated a basic phenomenon: Readers are able to represent acc urately the implicit emotional states of protagoni sts as a consequence of understanding their actions, goals, and relationships w ith other characters (Gernsbacher, Goldsm ith, & Robertson, 1992; Gernsbacher & Robertson, 1992). For instance, subjects read a story in w hich a main character stole m oney from a store w here his best friend w orked, and later he learned that his friend had been ® red. At the end of the story subjects read a critical sentence that described the protagoni st either as feeling guilt (matching the implicit emotion) or prid e (mismatching the implicit emotion) . Subjects read the sentences w ith the word that matched the emotion induced by the story faster than sentences w ith the m ismatching emotion w ord. In addition, Gernsbacher et al. (1992) provided support for the contention that emotion representations are speci® c and accurate representations (e.g. He felt guilt) rather than gross representations of an em otion valenc e (e.g. He felt rathe r bad). In the same way, in their Experiment 2, they obtained the predicted differential reading time for mismatching

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and matching sentences even w hen both emotions shared the same negativ e affective valence (e.g. guilt and shy). We w ere also concerned w ith the em otional repre sentations that a subject incidentally constructs during a naturalisti c reading task. Consequently, the methodolog y used w as close to that used in Gernsbacher et al.’ s experim ents. Unlike in the typical appraisal experim ents (e.g. Roseman, 1991 ; Smith & Laz arus, 19 93), w e w ere not primaril y concerned with a ® ne-grained analysi s of the func tional relations among particular emotions and appraisa l com ponents, and so we did not ask the subjects to m ake any appraisal or emotion judgem ent. The reader’ s emotions w ere not the objective of this research, either in their phenomic aspect or their physiological concomitants. The generality of our results to real emotion experience could be limited. But w e think that representing characters’ emotions in stories is a cog nitive phenomenon that deserves attention itself. The present experiments explored three features of em otion representation. First, the subjects’ capability for updating the emotion representations when new informationÐ either consistent or inconsistent w ith the previous emotion stateÐ w as provided by the ongoing text. Secondly , w hether emotion representations are kept accessible beyond the local context in order to provide global coherence to the stories. Thirdly , the subjects’ capability to represent e motions even in the total absence of em otion labe ls. Upd ating. Emotions in narrativeÐ as in real lifeÐ can be transient states, momentarily associated w ith c haracters. This m eans that the implicit emotions of a ® ctional character in a narrativ e can be dynamic as the plot develops. Under the changing circumstances described in narratives, it is likely that the initial representation of a protagonist’ s emotion becomes less activated while a new emotion state is inferred by the reader. To put it another w ay, our hypothesis is that readers do update the represe ntation of protagonists’ emotion states (Experiment 1). G loba l Coh erence. The representation of emotions and affects, even in the absence of their explicit mention in the text, may be critical for the reader to establish global coherence in the story, or in Miall ’ s terms (1989, p. 56), to establish ``cross-domain categorisation of text elements’ ’ . Thus, emotional representations may, for exam ple, contribute to overcome narrative incoherences and am biguities. The super® cial text of a long narrativ e is ne ither totally coherent nor completely provides all the relevant inform ation. Frequently , coherence is broken because of the introduction of new charac ters, chang es in places, temporal and causal discontinuitie s in the ¯ ow of events, shifts in the protagonists’ goals and intentions, etc. (Gernsbacher, 1990). These bre aks in local coherence sometimes mean

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that readers have dif® culties in integrating different portions of the text. In addition, narrativ es are to some extent indeterminate; they seldom provide explicit information of events that are suf® ciently complete to describe the situation and the sequence of events in a real-life w ay . For instance, if w e read that a c ouple are sitting at a restaurant table, gazing into each other’ s eyes, w ith their hands e ntw ined, we immediately assume there is a strong, positiv e feeling between them and this assum ption may fac ilitate the comprehension of further events (w e read that the couple w ere going shopping for their wedding rings). Despite breaks in local coherence and indeterminacy, readers of narratives usually manag e to elaborate a representation that is globall y coherent. How global coherence is established is an important issue that is still being discussed in psycholinguistics (Garnham, 1992; Glenberg & Mathew , 1992; McKoon & Ratcliff, 1992) . Miall ’ s intuition, how ever, seems reasonable: The reader’ s sensitivity to the protagonist’ s affective states c an contribute to giving unity to different episodes that, otherwise, may appear less coherent. This paper addresses empiricall y w hether subjects maintain their em otion representations accessible for global coherence (Experiments 2 and 3). R epresenting Unlab elle d Emotion s. Emotion labels in narrativ es can be considered as cues that induce the representation of the corresponding emotions, perhaps as a backw ard process. In Experiment 3, we tested whether readers of narrativ es are sensitive to the im plicit protagonists ’ emotions in absence of any emotion labe l. Thus, the target sentence described a protagonist’ s external behaviour that c ould be interpre ted as an emotional reaction c onsistent or inconsistent w ith the events described by the previous context. A consistency effect may indicate that readers do track the protagoni st’ s unmentioned emotion. E X P E R IM E N T 1

This experiment analys es the readers’ capability to update the representation of protagonists’ emotions as a consequence of changes in the described situation. Several short stories w ere w ritten. An example of one of them appears in Table 1. Each story provided factual information about the c haracters’ goals, relations , and actions, intending to induce in the reader particular representations of the protagonist’ s emotion. The stories did not have explicit reference to the character’ s feelings although, eventually, some mental state w as described in the ® rst part of some stories (e.g. ``she could not believe it’ ’ , ``he had some doubts ’ ’ ). Only the target sentence contained an emotion label that w as either consistent or inconsistent w ith the emotion induced by the pre ceding context. The reading time of the targe t sentences

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TABLE 1 E x a m p l e o f a S to r y u s e d in E x p e r im e n t 1 A : C u m u la tiv e C o n te x t

First part: Arthur thought about it once more. The most beautiful girl in the class had asked him to teach her to play tennis in the afternoons . He laughed to himself. He had no doubts about her intentions . Rather than wanting to learn to play tennis, she was looking for an excuse to be with him. He went to the tenni s court in the afternoon anticipatin g an easy conquest, with the air of a man who knows himself to be irresistible. Target sentences in the ® rst locus: Arthur felt quite ¯ attered. Arthur felt quite insecure.

(Consistent) (Inconsistent)

Second part: He saw he r with her short skirt. She was talking with other classmates. Arthur notic ed that she immediately le ft the others and joine d him. All afternoon she was interested only in him. Target sentences in the second lo cus: Arthur felt quite ¯ attered. Arthur felt quite insecure.

(Consistent) (Inconsistent)

Fin al sentence: Arthur couldn’ t believe it. Note: The story has been translated from Spanish.

was recorded and used as a dependent variabl e. We expected that, as in Gernsbacher et al.’ s (1992) experiments, the representation of an emotion induced by the story context w ould produce faster reading times for the consistent rather than the inconsistent target sentence. Another important manipulatio n was the locus of the target. It w as placed immediately after the ® rst part of the story (® rst locus) or at the end of the story (second locus). The comparison be tw een both loci would reveal the eventual development in the representation of the protagonist’ s emotional state. Finally , the experiment attem pte d to te st the consistency effect in a shifting context ag ainst a cumulativ e context. In the cumulative con text condition, the ® rst part of the stories induced the representation of a protagoni st’ s emotion and the second part of the stories w as a continuation of the initial course of the events, implicitly reinforcing the same emotion. We predict that the larger the amount of consistent cues provided by the context, the higher the activation of the appropriate emotion. Therefore, w e expect that the reading time for the consistent targets will be faster in the second locus than in the ® rst locus, whereas the reading tim e for the inconsistent targets w ill be slow er in the second than in the ® rst locus. In the shifting context condition, the circumstances c hang ed so much along the story that the initial protagoni st’ s emotion w as no long er consistent w ith the subsequent events. Table 2 illustrates the material of the

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TABLE 2 E x a m p l e o f a S to r y u s e d in E x p e r im e n t 1 B : S h iftin g C o n te x t

First part (different to the cumulative context): Arthur thought about it once more. The most beautiful girl in the class had asked him to teach her to play tenni s in the afternoons . He had some doubts about it. He couldn’ t believe that she was interested in him. She was probably looking for an excuse to get into the club and to have contact with anothe r boy. He was meeting her that afternoon. Everything depende d on whether she came or not; and, if she came, what her attitude would be towards him. Then he would know if she was really interested in him. Target sentences in the ® rst locus: Arthur felt quite insecure. Arthur felt quite ¯ attered.

(Consistent) (Inconsistent)

Second part (identical to the cumulative context): He saw he r with her short skirt. She was talking with other classmates. Arthur notic ed that she immediately le ft the others and joine d him. All afternoon she was interested only in him. Target sentences in the second lo cus: Arthur felt quite insecure. Arthur felt quite ¯ attered.

(Consistent) (Inconsistent)

Fin al sentence: Arthur couldn’ t believe it. Note: The story has been translated from Spanish.

shifting context. For this context, w e can expect an updating of the protagonist’ s emotion in the second part. Thus, the reading time for the consistent target w ill be longer in the second locus than in the ® rst locus, because the initial emotion is no longer c onsistent after the second part of the story. On the other hand, the initiall y inc onsistent em otion w ould become activate d at the end of the story and its reading time w ould be shorter at that point than in the ® rst locus. Tw o subexpe rim ents w ere designed to exam ine these predictions. G e n e r a l M e th o d

Materials. Tw o sets of 24 stories, describing familiar situations for university students w ere w ritten. For example, to pass (or to fail) an examination, to be invited to a party, to go on a date, and so forth. The ® rst set, used in Experiment 1A, included storie s w ith a cumulativ e context, whereas the se cond se t, used in Experim ent 1B, included modi® ed versions of the same storie s w ith a shifting context. Notice that the homologou s stories in set 1 and set 2 shared several features: (1) the setting and inducing event; (2) the charac ters; and (3) the second part of the stories (the 5 or 6 ® nal sentences). As the se cond part w as the same for each text in

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both experim ents, the implicit em otion at the end of the stories was the same. In order to ide ntify the tags of the emotional state im plicit in the stories, a normative study w as performed. Ninety subjects from the Teacher Training College of La Laguna University participated in the study; none of them participated in any of the experime nts de scribe d in this pape r. Set 1: Cumulativ e context. Forty-® ve subjects received the cumulativ e stories: 23 received one-half (15 stories), and the other 22 the rem aining half. The instructions were to read the stories and complete the last sentence of each one with the most likely emotion term (e.g . Arthur felt . . . at this moment). The y had to choose from three emotions that w ere given for each story (these emotions had bee n the most frequently cited for that conte xt by 10 judg es in a previous study), or they could suggest another emotion if they considered it more appropriate than the given ones. Set 2: Shifting context. The remaining subjects (N = 45) w ere also divided into two groups , each of w hich received 15 shifting stories. The procedure for the completion task w as the same as for the cumulativ e context, although the completion sentence giv en to the subjects differed in order to obtain the implicit em otion of the ® rst part of the story (the shifting context). For instance: Arthur no long er felt . . . Six stories (in their tw o versions, cumulative and shifting ) w ere discarded because of the diversity of responses they elicited. For the remaining 24 pairs of stories, the emotion terms most frequently chosen in each version were selec ted. These are the 24 pairs of opposite emotions: grate ful-ap prehensive, sad-enthusia stic, w orried-relaxed, proud-uncon® dent, irritated-comfortable, satis® ed-guilty, insecure-secure, anxious-calm, happy-d epressed, trusting-distrustful, angry-u nderstandi ng, ashamed-self con® dent, disliked-admired, jealous-relieved, expectant-dis illusi oned, ¯ attered-insecure, unful® lled-ful® lled, enthusia stic-frustrated, e nvio usfriendly, empathetic-insensitive, motiv ated-unmotivated, grief strickenstrong, lo ved-unlo ved, frightened-brave. (Note: The Spanish words corresponding to the mem bers of each pair of emotions w ere of similar leng th.) With these emotion labe ls w e tried to encompass a w ide span of the emotion domain. Each member of the pairs corre sponds to an extre me value in the dimension of affective valence. Emotion states can also differ along other dimensions suc h as intensity, duration, relevance to se lf versus others, temporal reference, and so forth (Frijda, 1986). De® ning the fundame ntal dimensions of emotion states has led to a debate among researchers (Ortony, C lore , & Collins, 1988; Scherer, 1984) althoug h w e do not address that issue in this paper. Guided by practical reasons only, w e

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selected the affective valence as the sole dimension to study, w hile trying to keep other parameters ® xed. For instance, w e paired ¯ attered with ins ecure because both feelings depend on the attribution of success; an gry with understandin g because both are feelings connected to the actions of other people; and frighte ned with brav e because they illustrate the reaction to an eventuall y threatening situation. For Experiments 1A and 1B , a target se ntence describing the character’ s emotion (e.g. Arthur felt quite ¯ attered/in secure) w as plac ed imm ediately after the ® rst or the second part of the story, and w as either consistent or inconsistent w ith the preceding biasing context. In addition, each experiment had 18 ® ller stories, with a similar structure to the experimental ones, but without any reference, either explicit or implicit, to emotional states. They w ere as emotionall y ne utral as possible, in orde r to reduce the subject’ s expectations or an emotional atmosphere in the stories. Procedure . Subjects w ere tested individuall y in a session that w as approximately 30 minutes long. They read the instructions on an AT 38 6 computer screen. Then they w ere given 3 texts for training , follow ed by one set of 24 experimental texts (either the cumulativ e or the shifting set), and the 18 ® ller texts. The order of the stories was randomis ed for each subject. Subjects read each story sentence by sentence in a self-paced way . One-third of the stories w ere follow ed by a yes/no question on the computer screen that subjects had to answ er on a separate paper. This secondary task aimed to encourage the com prehension of the stories, and its data were not analys ed. E x p e r im e n t 1 A : C u m u l a t iv e C o n t e x t s

This experiment tested the dynamic of emotion representations in cumulative contexts, namely in those stories in w hich the events described in the ® rst and the second part induce the same emotion. M e th o d

Subje cts. Forty-tw o students partic ipated as a partial ful® lment of requirements for an Introductory Psycholog y class at the University of La Laguna. Design. Subjects w ere randoml y assigned to 1 of the 4 condition s of a 2 (consistency) 3 2 (locus) w ithin-subj ects desig n. The 24 experimental texts were counterbalanced to ensure that every subject receiv ed an equal number of texts of each condition, and no subject received the same text tw ice.

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R e s u lt s

R eading times of target sentences w ere used as a dependent variable. As in all the experim ents to be reported in this paper, reading times that w ere 2.5 standard deviations from the subject’ s mean w ere rem oved (they represent betw een 1.3% and 1.8% of the data). A m ain effect of consistency w as found {F 1(1, 41) = 52,28; P < 0.01 }, and {F2(1, 23) = 23,02 ; P < 0.01}. Reading times for the target sentences w ere much slowe r w hen the emotion label was inconsistent (2916ms) rather than c onsistent (2213m s) w ith the immediately preceding context. This result replicates the c onsistency effects obtained by Gernsbacher et al. (1992) . Note, how ever, that because of desig n requirements, the consistent and inconsistent versions of the target sentence differed in a w ord (the emotion label), which m akes both versions less com parable. A more appropriate comparison between consistent and inconsistent emotions w ould be made later in Experiment 2, in w hich the same em otion w ord w as used for both the consistent and inconsistent condition . The most im portant result w as the interaction Locus 3 Consistency, signi® cant for subjects: {F1(1, 41 ) = 4.40, P < 0.05 }, and marginall y signi® cant for items: {F(1, 23) = 3.08 , P < 0.09 }. As can be seen in Fig. 1, the difference betw een consiste nt and inconsistent sentences w as higher in the second locus (Me ans: 2176ms vs. 2990ms; SD: 440ms and 67 7ms, respectively) than in the ® rst locus (Means: 2250m s vs. 2842ms; SD: 618ms and 80 9ms, respectively).

Reading times in the cumulative context as a function of Locus and Consistenc y (Experiment 1A). F IG . 1 .

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D i s c u s s io n

Apparently the emotion cues added in the second part of the story had tw o consequences: (1) to increase the accessibility of the consistent emotion; and (2) to make the inconsistent emotion at the end of the story less accessible. Such conclusions are derived from the reduction in reading time for consistent targets betw een the ® rst and the second locus and the increase of reading time for the inconsiste nt target betw een both loci. The results are compatibl e w ith the idea that readers form a mental model of the situation w hich includes emotion states. This model allow s subjects to m ap the target sentence on to the implicit character’ s emotion derived from the previous context. In addition, the salience and accessibility of emotion represe ntations depends on the amount of contextual cues provided throughout the text. The more evidence accumulated supporting an emotional state, the more accessible the emotion representation, and other incom patibl e emotions become less accessible. E x p e r im e n t 1 B : S h if ti n g c o n t e x t

The aim of this experiment w as to test the dynamic of emotion representations w hen subjects read shifting conte xts, in w hich the events described at different points of the story induced a chang e in the protagonist’ s emotion. M e th o d

Subje cts: Forty-six students participated as a partial ful® lment of requirements for an Introductory Psycholog y class at the University of La Laguna. None of them had participated in the previous experiments. Design.

This w as identical to that of Experim ent 1A.

R e s u lt s

R eading times of target sentences w ere used as depe ndent variabl e. The only signi® cant main effe ct w as that of consistency, for subjects: {F 1(1, 45) = 5.91; P < 0.02}; w hich w as nonsigni ® cant for items: {F 2(1, 23) = 2.39; P = 0.13}. How ever, this effect might be quali ® ed by the highly signi® cant interaction Loc us 3 Consistency {F1(1, 45) = 39.71 ; P < 0.01 ; F2(1, 23) = 13.4 0; P < 0.01}. As Fig. 2 illustrates, the events described in the second part of the stories m odulates the effec t of consistency. Thus, a given emotion c onsistent at the beginning of the text w as read faster in the ® rst position than at the end of the story (Means: 2454 ms vs. 2959ms; SD:

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Reading times in the shifting context as a function of Locus and Consistenc y (E xperiment

1B).

575ms and 780ms, respectively). Conversely, an emotion inconsistent at the beginning of the te xt w as read slow er in the ® rst position than at the end of the story (Means: 2320 ms and 2682 ms; SD: 598ms and 71 2ms, respectively). D i s c u s s io n

Experiment 1A demonstrated that the more convergent emotion cues accumulated in the text, the greater the differences in accessibili ty betw een consistent and inc onsistent emotions. Experiment 1B show ed that after a signi® cant chang e in the em otion cues provided by the text, the initial emotion was less accessible, and an em otion with an opposite affective valenc e more appropriate to the new e vents, became more accessible. To put it another w ay, subjects updated the emotion representation w hen there were signi® cant chang es in the described situation. An alternativ e explanation for this result, how ever, is that inferred emotions are only governed by the local context (the three or four imm ediately preceding sentences). Thus, sentences in the second part of the story (the ``shifting ’ ’ portion) m ay simply have displaced the previous representations from w orking memory, including the initial emotion representation (e.g. ¯ attered). The second part of the story suggested an emotion representation (e.g . insecure) w ithout taking into account the previous emotion representation, because it has been ``lost’ ’ . This hypothetical mechanis m may interpret the phenomenon observed in Experiment 1B as a passiv e side-effect of w orking memory limits, rather than an active process of updating the emotion parameters of the situation.

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E X P E R IM E N T 2

The purpose of this experiment w as to try to rule out the local context hypothesis just mentioned. The stories of Experiment 1 were rew ritten with modi® cations: (a) the ® rst part of the stories (the emotion context) had tw o versions aimed at suggesting opposite emotions; (b) the second part of the stories (the local context) was alw ays emotionall y ``neutral’’ ; and (c) the target sentence w as always placed at the end of the stories, immediately after the neutral sentences. We expected shorter reading times for consistent rather than inconsistent targets despite the fact of both being preceded by the same neutral context. An illustration of the materials is show n in Table 3. M e th o d

Subje cts. Fifty-three stude nts participated as a partial ful® lment of requirements for an Introductory Psycholog y class at the University of La Laguna. None of them had participated in the previous experiments. Materials. Tw enty-four pairs of stories w ere w ritten according to the criteria described earlier. B oth members of each pair had the same setting TABLE 3 E x a m p le o f a S to r y u s e d in E x p e r i m e n ts 2 a n d 3

First part: Arthur thought about it once more. The most beautiful girl in the class had asked him to teach her to play tenni s in the afternoons . He had some doubts about it. He couldn’ t believe that she was interested in him. She was probably looking for an excuse to get into the club and to have contact with anothe r boy. He was meeting her that afternoon. Everything depende d on whether she came or not; and if she came, what he r attitude would be towards him. Then he would know if she was really interested in him. Second part (® llers): He saw her with her short skirt. She was bouncing the ball on the court. The tennis court was the closest one to the entrance gate; beside it, there were the basketball and volley-ball courts. Target sentences (Experiment 2): Arthur felt quite insecure. Arthur felt quite ¯ attered.

(Consistent) (Inconsistent)

Target sentences (Experiment 3): Arthur approached the girl, unsteady on his feet, without looking at her. Arthur smiled and winked while approaching her.

(Consistent) (Inconsistent)

Fin al sentence: Arthur couldn’ t believe it. Note: The story has been translated from Spanish.

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and charac ters, althoug h they differed in some events occurring in the ® rst part of the story that suggested two protagonist’ s emotions w ith opposite valenc e. The second part (i.e. the local context of the target sentence) included 5 to 6 neutral sente nces com mon to both versions of the stories. The neutral sentences mentioned the protagoni st anaphori cally in order to keep local coherence, and described features of the environm ent or the protagonist’ s routine actions that did not favour any emotion. Finally , the target sentence describing the character’ s emotion state w as placed imm ediately after the neutral sentences. There w ere 1 or 2 post-target sentences completing the episode. This was intende d to distract subjects from being aw are that the target sentence had a ® xed subjects position. The sam e 18 ® ller and 3 training stories of Experiment 1 w ere included. Design. The independent variable was the consistency betw een the target sentence and the initial emotion context. A given target sentence (e.g. Arthur felt quite ¯ attered) was consistent in one version of the story and inc onsistent in another, as both versions differed precisely in the emotion suggested by the initial context. The two versions of each story and the tw o em otion labels in the critical sentence (e.g. ¯ attered/in secure) were counterbalanced, generating four sets of 24 experimental stories. Each set was assigned to a different group of subjects. The dependent variabl es w ere the reading times for the target sentence and the ® rst post-target sentence. Procedure . 1B.

The procedure was identical to that of Experiments 1A and

R e s u lt s

In order to check their emotional ``neutrality ’ ’ , reading tim es of se ntences prior to the target one w ere subm itted to an ANOV A, with consistency as the independent variabl e. No signi® cant differences w ere found in any case, indicating that these sentences can be considered, as expected, emotionall y ``neutral’ ’ . The effect of consistency on the reading times of target sentences w as highly reliabl e {F1(1, 52) = 26.6; P < 0.01, and F2(1, 47) = 30.6 ; P < 0.01 }. Speci® cally, the target sentence w as read faster whe n it w as consistent (Mean: 2498msec; SD: 536ms) than w hen it w as inconsistent (Mean: 2848 ms; SD: 61 6ms) w ith the emotion context provided at the be ginning of the story. R eading tim es for the post-targ et se ntence w ere also contrasted statistically, in order to check for possibl e delayed effect of consistency in the processing of post-target sentences, like that found by Huitema, Dopkins,

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Klin, and Myers (1993) in a similar experimental design. There w ere no differences for this sentence that w ere produced by the preceding context {both F(1, 47) < 1}. D i s c u s s io n

The interpretation of the abov e effect is straightforw ard. The represe ntation of the emotion activated by the ® rst part of the story is kept accessible in memory even w hen the local context does not convey additional emotion clues. Therefore, the emotion state is a persistent represe ntation that probabl y contributes to the reader’ s building of the global coherence of narrativ e episodes. In addition, this result sheds some light on the ® nding s of Experiment 1B . The dynamic of emotion representations obtained there can be considered a genuine updating effect rather than a local context effect. The present experiment demonstrated that w hen the local context is emotionall y neutral, the emotion related to the initial context is still availabl e. E X P E R IM E N T 3

In the previous experiments, subjects read emotion labels in each experimental story. The label appeared at the end of the story supposedly after subjects had already built the emotion representation. How ever, it is possibl e that the presence of emotion labels in most stories induced subjects to use a sort of strategy (either consciously or not). Thus, they may have taken into ac count that most stories w ere about protagonists ’ emotions and, consequently, they activated emotion representations to ® t the task demands. The goal of this experiment w as to test whether the consistency effects found in the previous experiments also appear in the absence of explicit emotion terms. Each emotion label w as substituted by a sentence w hich re¯ ected implicitly the main character’ s em otion state. M e th o d

Subje cts. Forty-nine students participate d as a partial ful® lm ent of requirements for an Introductory Psycholog y class at the University of La Laguna. None of them had participated in the previous experiments. Design.

This w as identical to that of Experim ent 2.

Materials. The 48 narrativ es of Experime nt 2 w ere modi® ed as follow s: The target sentence, w hich explicitly labelled an emotion state of the main character, w as substituted by a sentence in which overt

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behaviour of the protagoni st was described; an example appears at the bottom of Table 3. Note that, as in the previous experiment, the target sentences w ere preceded by a set of 5 to 6 ® ller sentenc es, common to all conditions, which provided emotionall y ne utral local conte xts. In order to select the new target sentences, an auxiliary study w as designed. The 48 narrativ es employ ed in Experiment 2 w ere divided into tw o halv es, and 20 subjects received each with instructions to provide a sentence that w as a suitable substitution of the sentence containing the emotion te rm. They should only mention overt behaviours . Four judg es evaluated the subjects’ responses, choosing a sentence for each narrativ e according to four criteria: (1) the sentence did not m ention any protagonis t internal state; (2) it did not include any idiom or cliche ; (3) it suggested an emotion state w ithout explicitly mentioning it; and (4) it w as coherent with the preceding sentences (local context). In the case that no sentence provided by the subjects ful® lled all these requirements, judg es could mix more than one response, to adjust the target sente nce to the previousl y mentioned criteria. Four sets of 24 stories w ere created in order to c ounterbalance the tw o versions of each story and the tw o target sentences. Each set w as assig ned to a different group of subjects. Procedure .

This w as identical to that of previous experiments.

R e s u lt s

One of the subjects w as dropped before analysing data because her reading times were extre mely slow . The target sentences w ere read 240ms faster when they w ere consistent rather than inconsis tent with the context (Mean: 3264ms vs. 3024 ms; SD: 735ms and 587ms); {F1(1, 47 ) = 11.68, and F2(1, 47 ) = 8.81, in the tw o cases, P < 0.0 1}. Also, as in Experiment 2, reading times for the neutral sentences preceding the target and for the post-targ et sentence we re subm itted to ANOVAS. No consistency effect w as obtained in any case {F(1, 47 ) = < 1}. D i s c u s s io n

The present experiment replicate d the pattern of results of Experiment 2: After a neutral local context the representation of the implicit protagonist’ s emotion was still accessible. Experiment 3, however, reveals a new feature of the process of tracking characters’ emotions: It seems to occur even in the absence of explicit emotion terms. Therefore, we can discard the explanation that emotion representations are a lexically guided process,

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® red only when readers encounter an emotion label. In contrast, the results support the idea that emotion representations are incidentally constructed and updated to the point w here subjects de tect w hether or not the protagonist’ s actions or reactions are emotionall y appropriate to the situation. G E N E R A L D IS C U S S I O N

The experiments reported here suggest that readers can represent and update the implici t emotions of protagonists . Experiment 1 has show n that subjects not only represent the protagoni st’ s em otion (replicating Gernsbacher et al.’ s 1992 ® ndings) but they are also able to update the emotion as the situation described in the story chang es. Therefore, emotion representations seem to be dynamic in order to ® t the varied circum stances of the protagonist. The chang e of emotion representations seems an active process of updating the emotion state associated with the protagonists. Once the em otion representation has been built, guided by the initial context of the story, the incoming information is checked agains t it. If the eve nts described by a new segment of the story are consistent w ith the initial emotion representation then the representation becomes more accessible (Experiment 1A). If the new events are neutral the em otion representation still remains highl y accessible in the w orking m emory (Experiment 2) and, ® nally , if the new events are inconsis tent with the emotion, the initial emotion becomes less accessible and a new emotion representation is activated (Experime nt 1B ). Our results on the dy namic of emotion representations are consistent with some recent ® nding s of Smith and Lazarus (1993). In their study with vignettes, they introduc e d a within-subj ect manipulatio n in such a w ay that the ® rst part of the narrativ e included emotion appraisal s and the second part either provided the same type of appraisal s or shifted to other apprai sals. Immediately after the ® rst and second parts, subjects made several appraisal and emotion judg ements. The questionnaire response s show ed that in the shift-conditions the initial emotional state was reduced. In the experiments, the protagonist’ s emotions w ere not explicit in the context. Therefore, they had to be ``inferred’ ’ or derived from the described events. Are these inferences governed by the local context or are they a global context phenomenon? Given the cognitiv e cost of inferences in comprehension, some authors have claimed that subjects rarely engag e in inferences. Particularly, the minimalist account of McKoon and Ratcliff (1992) propose s that inferences usually occur w hen the relevant pieces of information are close together in the te xt and therefore are co-activated in working memory. This privileged situation only takes place when all the relevant inform ation belongs to the local context. How ever, w hen the relevant information is beyond the local context (e.g. three or m ore

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sentences before the critical sentence) or is w idely distributed in the text, inferences w ould only take place w hen they are necessary to keep the local coherence. This rese arch suggests that the representations of implicit emotions remain accessible beyond the local context. Experiments 2 and 3 indicate that w hen the ® nal portion of the text preceding the c ritic al sentence w as emotionall y neutral, the initial representation of the protagonist’ s emotion was still accessible being thus responsibl e for the consistency effect. The minimalist account w ould not predict the accessibility of such ``global context’ ’ representation because the local c oherence was maintained in the neutral portion of the text by means of anaphors . Apparently, the initial em otion representation was not displaced from w orking memory when the neutral inform ation was processed, but probably remained in the foreground allow ing the reader to check and integrate new information of emotional signi® cance. What is the persistence of emotion representations? We have reported in Experiments 2 and 3 that these representations are still availabl e after 4 to 5 neutral sentences. Perhaps, as the number of intervening neutral sentences increases beyond certain limits, the e motion becomes less accessible. Another interesting possibili ty that would require further research is that the persistence of emotion representations depe nds on some world parameters (rather than text features) such as the ``intensity’’ of the emotion or its duration in the real world. For instance, after learning that the protagonist’ s father suddenly died, the reader can understand that the protagonist is still sad one week later. How ever, after learning that the protagoni st felt frustrated because he did not ® nd a parking place near the store, it is likely that shifting to one w eek later is suf® cient to de-activate the protagonist’ s frustration. In Experiments 1 and 2 (as w ell as in Gernsbacher et al.’ s 1992 experiments) subjects w ere alw ays given an emotion label at the end of the text, either embedded in a sentence or as a test probe (Experiment 3 of Gernsbacher e t al.) This involves tw o potential problems. First, subjects may becom e sensitive throughout the experiment to the emotion tone of the stories because in many of them there w as an explicit emotion label. Secondly , the emotion label can w ork as a cue that triggers a backw ard mapping that w ould otherw ise not occur. That is, it is possible that subjects do not represent on-line the protagonist’ s emotion. Only w hen subjects encounter the emotion label w ould the y check w hether the em otion representation derived from the previous events m atch the emotion label. If this were the case, w e can still consider that the protagonist’ s emotion w as derived from the described situation. However, the inference w ould be to som e extent lexically driven. Experiment 3 has show n, how ever, that even in the absence of any emotion label, subjects are able to com pute the

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emotion consistency of a behavioural predicate agains t the implicit protagonist’ s emotions. The readers are sensitiv e to the unlabelled emotion states of protagoni sts. This result is complementary to some observations in the production area. Thus, Haviland and Goldston (1992) report that subjects’ diaries on emotionall y signi® cant episodes use few emotion labels and when they do the labels are rather general and inaccurate. In sum, this paper has explored in some detail the em otion representations that readers build during normal comprehension of stories. We provide evidence that readers ef® ciently represent changing emotional states derived from several conve rgent cues such as ac tions, goals , interactions, etc. In addition, emotion representations are suf® ciently robust to be foregrounded beyond the local context, contributin g to give coherence to pieces of information w idely distribute d in the text. Finally , emotion representations are built incidentally as a part of the ordinary comprehension process, and they can even be computed in the absence of any emotion labe l. O ur results suggest that representing others’ emotion s is a cognitive phenom enontha t deserves m ore attention,w ith the aim of disclosure of its mechanism s an d dyna m ic. Sim ilarly, m ore research to establish differences betw een representationsof other’ s emotion s and other phenom ena,such as representingor experiencing our own emotions ,would also be necessary. Manuscript received 17 Oc tober 1994 Revised manuscript receiv ed 6 September 1995

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