Table 3.
Questionnaire items and results overview.
| Questionnaire name (story-specific) | Question (on a scale of 1−4 with 1 being “completely disagree” and 4 being “completely agree”) | De Mexicaanse Hond | De Muur | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| fMRI group | Rater group | fMRI group | Rater group | ||||||||||
| Mean | SD | Cronbach’s alpha | Mean | SD | Cronbach’s alpha | Mean | SD | Cronbach’s alpha | Mean | SD | Cronbach’s alpha | ||
| Appreciation Questionnaire | Interesting | 2.04 | 0.94 | NA | 2.63 | 0.98 | NA | 1.73 | 0.95 | NA | 3.04 | 0.85 | NA |
| Well-written | 2.06 | 0.93 | 3.00 | 0.80 | 1.73 | 0.77 | 3.20 | 0.66 | |||||
| Of high literary quality | 2.24 | 0.99 | 2.94 | 0.79 | 2.21 | 0.89 | 3.04 | 0.78 | |||||
| Easy to understand | 2.29 | 0.92 | 3.33 | 0.87 | 1.88 | 1.02 | 3.26 | 0.81 | |||||
| Accessible | 2.41 | 0.92 | 3.17 | 0.88 | 2.27 | 1.01 | 3.07 | 0.77 | |||||
| Thrilling | 2.33 | 1.01 | 2.80 | 1.05 | 1.96 | 0.97 | 3.15 | 0.98 | |||||
| Beautiful | 2.75 | 0.84 | 2.31 | 0.99 | 2.35 | 0.93 | 2.59 | 0.88 | |||||
| Fascinating | 2.16 | 0.92 | 2.67 | 1.05 | 2.04 | 1.01 | 2.85 | 0.90 | |||||
| Emotional | 2.78 | 0.94 | * | * | 2.37 | 1.03 | * | * | |||||
| Sad | 2.96 | 0.92 | * | * | 3.29 | 0.91 | * | * | |||||
| SWAS (Imagery) | Sometimes I had the feeling that I could see through the eyes of the main character. | 1.96 | 0.88 | 0.4 | 3.00 | 0.89 | 0.87 | 1.96 | 0.99 | 0.75 | 3.17 | 0.80 | 0.81 |
| While reading I saw situations that were described to me as if I was there myself. | 1.75 | 0.68 | 3.02 | 0.94 | 1.75 | 0.81 | 3.15 | 0.96 | |||||
| Sometimes I had the feeling that I was in the environment in which the story took place. | 2.12 | 0.92 | 2.85 | 1.04 | 2.04 | 0.99 | 3.02 | 0.90 | |||||
| Sometimes I saw the environment in which the story takes place in front of me. | 1.75 | 0.65 | 3.28 | 0.90 | 1.52 | 0.70 | 3.39 | 0.76 | |||||
| While reading, I saw situations that were described to me as if I were a silent spectator. | 1.98 | 0.87 | 2.74 | 1.01 | 1.94 | 0.87 | 2.87 | 1.13 | |||||
| While reading this story I saw a picture of the main character in front of me. | 2.67 | 1.17 | 2.30 | 1.00 | 2.19 | 1.05 | 2.72 | 1.07 | |||||
| SWAS (Emotional Engagement) | I felt like the main character felt. | 2.79 | 1.04 | 0.83 | 2.37 | 1.00 | 0.96 | 2.96 | 1.05 | 0.85 | 2.17 | 0.97 | 0.93 |
| I could empathize with the characters. | 2.21 | 0.96 | 2.76 | 0.93 | 2.29 | 1.02 | 2.54 | 1.02 | |||||
| I sympathized with the main character. | 2.13 | 0.89 | 2.63 | 0.98 | 2.10 | 0.93 | 2.96 | 0.89 | |||||
| I shared the protagonist’s emotions. | 2.63 | 0.93 | 2.43 | 1.00 | 2.87 | 0.89 | 2.52 | 1.06 | |||||
| I felt sorry for the protagonist. | 2.48 | 1.04 | 2.48 | 1.06 | 2.13 | 1.10 | 3.06 | 0.94 | |||||
| As I read, I could imagine what it would feel like to be in the protagonist’s shoes. | 2.27 | 0.95 | 2.85 | 1.07 | 2.40 | 1.09 | 2.70 | 1.04 | |||||
| I knew exactly which emotions the characters experienced. | 2.77 | 0.94 | 2.41 | 1.00 | 2.77 | 0.96 | 2.46 | 0.97 | |||||
| I could imagine how the main character felt. | 2.08 | 0.84 | 2.85 | 0.98 | 2.12 | 0.92 | 2.94 | 0.94 | |||||
| I understood how the main character felt. | 2.33 | 0.90 | 2.80 | 0.98 | 2.31 | 0.98 | 2.67 | 1.08 | |||||
| fMRI group | Rater group | ||||||||||||
| Mean | SD | Mean | SD | ||||||||||
| Reading habits (person-specific) | How much do you like fiction? (1−7 Likert scale with 7 being “I love fiction”) | 5.19 | 1.48 | 5.28 | 1.58 | ||||||||
| How many novels did you read last year? | 7.64 | 12.01 | 6.52 | 6.45 | |||||||||
Behavioural measures of fMRI and both rater groups assessing their overall engagement with DH and DM and individual reading habits. The rater group originally answered these questions on a scale of 0−100, and the results were converted to be on a scale of 1−4 (for story-specific questionnaires) and a scale of 1−7 (for reading habits) to match with the results from the fMRI group. Due to data collection errors, ratings of “emotional” and “sad” from the rater group were excluded (marked by “*”).