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Cultural–historical knowledge and personal experience in appreciation of literature
Author(s) -
Larsen Steen F.,
László János
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
european journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1099-0992
pISSN - 0046-2772
DOI - 10.1002/ejsp.2420200505
Subject(s) - psychology , reading (process) , relevance (law) , comprehension , cultural diversity , cognition , social psychology , literal (mathematical logic) , danish , cognitive psychology , linguistics , sociology , anthropology , philosophy , neuroscience , political science , law
Appreciation of literature (understanding beyond literal comprehension and inference) is hypothesized to depend on readers' application of knowledge derived from personal experiences, a cognitive process called personal resonance. The influence of cultural differences in personal experience on appreciating a literary work was studied through retrospective reports about remindings that occurred while reading. A Hungarian short story in which geographical and temporal location were left open was read by Danish (culturally distant) and Hungarian (culturally proximate) subjects. Cultural proximity was found to influence considerably readers' location and overall evaluation of the story as well as the nature of remindings during the reading process. The culturally proximate Hungarian readers exhibited a higher level of personal resonance: they had more vivid remindings and were reminded of more complete events (as opposed to decontextualized event elements), particularly more personally experienced events. The personal relevance, pleasantness, and aggressiveness of the evoked memories were important determinants of readers' overall evaluation of the story, but with very different patterns in the two cultural groups.