Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

It is well established that readers form mental images when reading a narrative. The influence of mental imagery on theway people experience stories is however still unclear. In two experiments reported here, participants received instructionsaimed at encouraging or discouraging mental imagery before reading literary short stories. After reading, participantsanswered questions about their reading experiences. The results from the first experiment suggested an important roleof mental imagery in determining reading experiences. However, the results from the second experiment showed thatindividual trait differences in how imaginative participants are predicted reading experiences much better than guidedmental imagery. Moreover, the role of mental imagery did not extend to aspects of the reading experience other thanmental imagery. The implications of these results for the relationship between mental imagery and reading experiencesare discussed.