The current study assesses whether the stylistic choices that Van Leeuwen & Van Haaften (2018) identified in the ‘Van Gelder’ case affect readers’ evaluations. This case revolves around summary... Show moreThe current study assesses whether the stylistic choices that Van Leeuwen & Van Haaften (2018) identified in the ‘Van Gelder’ case affect readers’ evaluations. This case revolves around summary proceedings that gymnast Yuri van Gelder brought against NOC*NSF, as NOC*NSF had removed him from the Olympic gymnastics final due to misbehaviour. Van Leeuwen & Van Haaften argue that Van Gelder’s lawyer’s stylistic choices minimise the severity of Van Gelder’s behaviour and paint him as a victim, while the NOC*NSF lawyer maximises the severity of the behaviour and frames Van Gelder as solely responsible for his situation.209 participants read either an original or a manipulated fragment of the pleas and evaluated the severity of Van Gelder’s behaviour, his responsibility and their agreement with the judge’s decision. Results suggest that whether participants had read the original or the manipulated plea did not affect their evaluations. The content of the plea did matter, however, as participants who read the plea by the NOC*NSF lawyer were more negative about Van Gelder than those who had read Van Gelder’s lawyer’s plea. While the content of a text thus does affect readers’ evaluations, our stylistic manipulations may have been too subtle to make a difference. Show less
This study investigated how speaker certainty (a rational cue) and speaker benevolence (an emotional cue) influence children's willingness to learn words in a selective learning paradigm. In two... Show moreThis study investigated how speaker certainty (a rational cue) and speaker benevolence (an emotional cue) influence children's willingness to learn words in a selective learning paradigm. In two experiments four- to six-year-olds learnt novel labels from two speakers and, after a week, their memory for these labels was reassessed. Results demonstrated that children retained the label-object pairings for at least a week. Furthermore, children preferred to learn from certain over uncertain speakers, but they had no significant preference for nice over nasty speakers. When the cues were combined, children followed certain speakers, even if they were nasty. However, children did prefer to learn from nice and certain speakers over nasty and certain speakers. These results suggest that rational cues regarding a speaker's linguistic competence trump emotional cues regarding a speaker's affective status in word learning. However, emotional cues were found to have a subtle influence on this process. Show less
Literary narrative fiction may be particularly effective in enhancing Theory of Mind (ToM), as it requires readers to contemplate author and character intentions in filling the literary ‘gaps’ that... Show moreLiterary narrative fiction may be particularly effective in enhancing Theory of Mind (ToM), as it requires readers to contemplate author and character intentions in filling the literary ‘gaps’ that have been suggested to characterise this fiction type. The current study investigates direct and cumulative effects of reading literature on ToM using confirmatory Bayesian analyses. Direct effects were assessed by comparing the ToM skills of participants who read texts that were manipulated to differ in the amount of gap filling they required. Cumulative effects were assessed by considering the relationship between lifetime literary fiction exposure and ToM. Results showed no evidence for direct effects of reading literature on ToM. However, lifetime literary fiction exposure was associated with higher ToM, particularly cognitive ToM. Although reading a specific piece of literary fiction may thus not have immediately measurable effects on ToM, lifetime exposure to this fiction type is associated with more advanced ToM. Show less
