Readers assume that commonplace properties of the real world also hold in realistic fiction. They believe, for example, that the usual physical laws continue to apply. But controversy exists in theories of fiction about whether real "individuals" exist in the story's world. Does Queen Victoria exist in the world of "Jane Eyre,"…

The paper deals with the work of the Czech children's author Jaroslav Foglar from a gender perspective, reflecting on two themes in particular: the absence of heroines; and his understanding of boys' reciprocity and friendship with the adoration of physicality. The impetus for this analysis was data from a questionnaire survey, the aim of which…

Research in the field of reading has demonstrated the benefits of reading, including increased vocabulary (Anderson et al., 1986; Day et al., 1991) and comprehension (Anderson et al., 1986; Duncan et al., 2016), improved academic skills (Chen et al., 2017; Whitten et al., 2016), enhanced relaxation and pleasure (Gerlich et al., 2012; Kaiser &…

Readers are increasingly exposed to text that includes both words and images through comics, graphic novels, online materials, and video games. In this study, we use the medium of the 4-panel comic strip to examine how readers make meaning of the word/image composite. We propose a cognitive interactive framework that incorporates both the…

The connection between evaluation practice and its ultimate goal--social betterment--is indirect. With little or no direct control over social programs and policies, many evaluators rely on the actions of stakeholders to bridge the gap between evaluation practice and its purpose. Consequently, communicating with influence becomes key. The present…

Reader expectations form across hierarchical scales of discourse (e.g., from coarse to fine: genre, narrative, syntax). Cross-scale interactivity produces word reading times (RTs) with multifractal structure. After introducing multifractals, we test two hypotheses regarding their relevance to reader expectations: (1) multifractal evidence of…