Skip to main content
eScholarship
Open Access Publications from the University of California

Openness to Fictional Experience: Measuring Readers’ and Viewers’ NarrativeAbsorption as a Function of Personality

Creative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
Abstract

Social media uses narrative templates to present information, whether news (real or fake) or advertisements. The perpetualengagement with stories influences our attention, memory, thinking and behaviour. This study addresses two researchquestions: What kind of story engages what kind of audience? Are people high in openness to experience more susceptibleto getting lost in counterfactual worlds? Participants with high/low scores in openness to experience are presented withliterary and film vignettes independently rated as engaging/non-engaging. Narrative absorption and openness to experiencequestionnaires provide preliminary data indicating reliable narrative absorption-openness correlation. Eye tracking willprovide implicit narrative engagement measures for attention (eye fixation), cognitive load (pupil dilation) and engagement(gaze duration). Eye-movement, self-reports, and personality questionnaires will indicate which narrative designs engagespecific audiences efficiently.

Main Content
For improved accessibility of PDF content, download the file to your device.
Current View