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Regress in a sentence4/2/2023 ![]() Proverbs clearly aim at these goals associated with succinctness. Second, it should leave a strong imprint/impression in the reader not only through its meaning, but also as a distinct verbal gestalt, i.e., by virtue of its very form, thereby gaining access to a privileged storage in memory. First, a succinct sentence, or statement, should drive home its message in as short a form as possible, avoiding all detours and superfluous pieces of information. Two dimensions of the meaning of praegnanz/succinctness are particularly noteworthy here. Still, in order not to alienate readers unfamiliar with this tradition, we prefer to use the term “succinctness” as a decent (though not perfect) English translation of the German word throughout this manuscript. It was so internationally successful at its time that it paved the way for the inclusion of the word “Praegnanz” into English dictionaries the German word gestalt was likewise adopted into the English language in this very context. The German term that we here translate as “succinctness” is the word “Praegnanz.” “The law of praegnanz” is the most basic principle proposed in the earlier 20th century by German gestalt psychology (Koffka, 1935 Wertheimer, 1923). Finally, and again following previous studies using proverbs (Bohrn et al., 2012 Bohrn et al., 2013 Menninghaus et al., 2015), we included a Succinctness rating. Given our focus on modifying degrees of familiarity, we followed previous studies on proverbs and other single sentences (Bohrn et al., 2012 Bohrn, Altmann, Lubrich, Menninghaus, & Jacobs, 2013) in also collecting Familiarity ratings. for the concept of “parallelism,” see Fabb, 2015 Jakobson, 1960 Menninghaus et al., 2017) enhance the perceptual ease of processing and thereby also render a sentence more aesthetically appealing (Kuchinke et al., 2009 McGlone & Tofighbakhsh, 1999 McGlone & Tofighbakhsh, 2000 Menninghaus, Bohrn, Altmann, Lubrich, & Jacobs, 2014 Menninghaus et al., 2015 Reber et al., 2004). Regarding linguistic stimuli, it has been shown that not just familiarity (i.e., repeated prior exposure), but also several features of phonological and prosodic “parallelism” (such as rhyme, meter, alliteration, etc. The respective findings have been summarized as the cognitive fluency hypothesis (Reber, Schwarz, & Winkielman, 2004 Reber, Winkielman, & Schwarz, 1998). Since Zajonc ( 1968) reported the mere-exposure effect (e.g., more frequently presented stimuli are preferred over less frequently presented ones), a positive relationship between familiarity-driven ease of cognitive processing and aesthetic liking/preference, has been repeatedly confirmed (Bornstein, 1989 Martindale & Moore, 1988). The study shows a possible application of the eye-tracking method for capturing aesthetically evaluative dimensions of processing sentences. Moreover, the two factors modulated the pupillary data antagonistically: A higher affective factor predicted larger pupil dilations, whereas a higher cognitive factor predicted smaller pupil dilations. The cognitive factor comprised the rating items “succinctness” and “familiarity,” whereas the affective factor reflected the ratings for “beauty” and “liking.” A higher cognitive factor predicted shorter dwelling time. Using factor analysis, we extracted two key factors of the aesthetic appeal of the texts: an affective and a cognitive factor. The results showed that the rating scores were interactively modulated by both familiarity-driven and meter-driven fluency. Aesthetic ratings of all sentences were collected afterwards, and the relationships between the ratings, levels of familiarity, meter, and eye-tracking datasets were tested. During reading, pupil sizes and eye movements were recorded. Across all four groups, the sentences moreover varied with regard to featuring or not featuring meter. Participants read four groups of short sentences in which a key predictor of aesthetic liking, i.e., familiarity, was systematically modified to four degrees. The present study investigated whether similar effects can be found in visual text processing. Eye-tracking parameters (fixation and pupillary responses) have been shown to be modulated by the aesthetic perception and evaluation of visual and auditory artworks (e.g., paintings, music).
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