Session 5

Question 1

What were the learning objectives for the 5th session?

Answer 1

Be able to define and explain:

1. The theoretical influences and distinctions that flow into Ralf Schneider’s cognitive theory of character perception.
2. Schneider’s dynamic model of the reading processes.
3. Schneider’s concepts of categorization and personalization.
4. What a cultural model is.
5. Scen Strasen’s cognitive theory of culture and its relevance to cognitive literary studies.

Question 2

What is the cogntive theory of character reception?

Answer 2

It is an attempt to combine:

1. Narratological definitions of literary characters.
2. Interest in reading effects (reception theory).
3. Research on text comprehension (discourse processing)
4. Insights from social cognition.
5. It is part of the first generation of cognitive literary studies.
6. It is a theory between universality and cultural specificity.

Question 3

What is the Idea of Reader-response theory?

Answer 3

The reader fills “blanks”, or “gaps”, and “spots of indeterminacy”.

Question 4

What is the “implied reader”?

Answer 4

1. A structure inscribed in the text, not having any real existence.
2. It embodies the predispositions necessary for a literary work to exercise its effect in the text itself.
3. It is a construct and in no way to be identified with any real reader.

Question 5

What type of character differentiations are there?

Answer 5

1. Flat vs. round characters
2. Monodimensional vs. multidimenstional figures
3. Static vs. dynamic characters

Question 6

What is the difference between flat and round characters?

Answer 6

1. Flat characters are constructed around “a single idea or quality”.
2. The test of a round character is whether it is capable of surprising in a convincing way. It has the incalculability of life about it.

Question 7

What is the difference between monodimensional and multidimensional figures?

Answer 7

1. Monodimensional: Figures who are defined by a small set of distinguishing features.
2. Multidimensional: Figures, who are defined “by a complex set of features taken from the most disparate levels”

Question 8

What is the difference between static and dynamic characters?

Answer 8

1. Static characters: Those who remain constant throughout the whole of the text.
2. Dynamic characters: Those who undergo a process of development in the course of the text.

Question 9

What is the central question asked by Ralf Schneider in his cognitive character reception theory?

Answer 9

When, and under which circumstances to characters seem flat/round or static/dynamic to the reader?

Question 10

What is a schemata?

Answer 10

1. It is a general term for structures that organize bits of information/knowledge into meaningful, coherent units and are stored in long term memory.
2. They have slots that can be triggered individually to activate the whole schema.
3. They are a constant interaction between top-down and bottom-up processing.

Question 11

What are frames and scripts?

Answer 11

1. Frames and scripts are cognitive parameters; the former are more static, the latter are more dynamic.
2. Frames basically deal with situations such as seeing a room or making a promise while scripts cover standard action sequences such as playing a game of football, going to a birthday party, or eating in a restaurant.

Question 12

How do our frames and scripts change in new contexts?

Answer 12

1. A script or frame comprises specific knowledge to interpret and participate in events we have been through many times.
2. They must be able to change as a result of new experiences (Constant interaction of top-down/bottom-up processing).

Question 13

How do we apply frames and scripts in new situations?

Answer 13

1. They can be used as a point of reference to help us master new situations.
2. When one encounters a new situation, one selects from memory a frame. This is a remembered framework to be adapted by changing details as necessary.

Question 14

What are the dynamics of the reading process?

Answer 14

1. In the top-down processing part we apply frames and scripts of already existing knowledge. (Stock-characters; Genre expectations, etc.)
2. When top-down processing doesn’t work we use bottom-up processing to make sense of the character and enrich the mental model. (Adjusting the frames)

Question 15

How does Schneider apply frame theory in his character perception model?

Answer 15

1. The characters of a narrative change similar to frames.
2. Schneider’s model is based on fallibility (adjustability) of the categories of characters. Thus, he wants to make categories more scalable.

Question 16

What is a mental model?

Answer 16

Johnson-Laird describes any understanding in terms of the construction of mental models evoked by narrative.

Question 17

What is a storyworld?

Answer 17

1. It is a type of mental model.
2. The term storyworld denotes mental models of who did what to and with whom, when, where, why and in what fashion in the world to which interpreters relocate as they work to comprehend a narrative.

Question 18

What is a situation model?

Answer 18

1. A situation model refers to the mental representation a reader or listener constructs of the situation described in a text or discourse.
2. The mental character model is mostly at the centre of narrative text processing: as part of the situation model. (Focalizer?)

Question 19

What is categorization in literature?

Answer 19

1. The mind will follow a tendency to apply categorization as a preference rule (Assimilation over accomodation).
2. Little attention will be devoted to a character as long as no information contradicting the categorization is encountered.
3. In a categorized model, inferencing will be mostly automatic, and expectations of and hypotheses about that character’s behaviour and attitude will be fairly strong, even if they are not consciously formulated (Top-down processing).

Question 20

What are examples of literary categories of characters (stock characters)?

Answer 20

1. The hero-villain
2. The damsel in distress
3. The byronic hero
4. The country bumpkin
5. Come up with one

Question 21

What is personalization?

Answer 21

1. Readers expect narratives to be about the meaningful experiences of interesting beings. Mental models of such characters will be a more complex structure that is kept “open” for a longer time to allow for the integration of further, potentially conflicting, information. (Characters whose very function is the creation of convincing surprise)
2. Most protagonists and main focalizers in novels will prompt personalised mental models.

Question 22

When do we have de-categorization?

Answer 22

De-Categorization is necessary when new information is a strong mismatch with previously established categorization.

Question 23

When do we have De-Personalization?

Answer 23

If the openness of non-categorized character models proves unnecessary or mistaken.

Question 24

When do we have individuation?

Answer 24

Individuation results from slight adaptations of the categorized model (character frame).

Question 25

Describe the dynamics of mental model construction in character reception.

Answer 25

Question 26

What are the limitations of Schneider's approach to mental model construction in character reception?

Answer 26

1. It is clearly constrained by 1st generation concept of the mind as a processing device. 2. It has no reference to embodied cognition. 3. Schneider critizices himself that his theory is mainly working best with the realist victorian novel and that in the post-modern novel the artificiality of the characters is sometimes drastically highlightes so that emotional involvement may be difficult to maintain.

Question 27

What are the influences of Schneider's cognitive theory of character reception?

Answer 27

Schneider's cognitive theory of character reception is theoretically influenced by: 1. Iser's notion of gaps and indeterminacies 2. Forster's distinction of flat and round characters 3. Pfisters distinctions of mono- and multidimensional characters as well as static and dynamic characters

Question 28

What was the summary of Character reception theory?

Answer 28

1. According to Schneider, mental character models are at the heart of processing of stories, and they involve top-down and bottom-up processing. 2. Schneider distinguishes categorization from personalization and individuation, as different forms of character processing.