This paper provides an explanation for the non-specificity of emotion inferences found in previous research (e.g., Gygax, Garnham & Oakhill, 2004). We first demonstrate that behavioral components of emotions, as opposed to emotions per se, are better markers of readers’ mental representations of the main character’s affective status. We also suggest that in a self-paced reading paradigm, when...
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The masculine plural form in French (e.g., musiciens [musicians]), as in other grammatical gender languages, though interpretable as a generic form (e.g., musicians are men and women), has been shown to more likely activate a specific interpretation (e.g., musicians are mainly men). In this study, we presented participants with female or male kinship – role noun word-pairs (e.g., oncle or tante...
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Using a word association paradigm we examined the extent to which readers can overcome the specific interpretation of the grammatical masculine form in French when instructed to embrace its generic meaning. In two experiments participants were to decide whether a person introduced by a kinship term (e.g. aunt) could be part of a group represented by a role name (e.g. musicians). After the...
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This paper investigated readers’ representations of the main protagonist’s emotional status in short narratives, as well as several mental factors that may affect these representations. General and visuo-spatial working memory, empathy and simulation were investigated as potential individual differences in generating emotional inferences. Participants were confronted with narratives...
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