A difficulty that appears when studying the processes that influence the interpretation of texts is the variability of individuals; in addition to their innate cognitive processing, they associate different objects, places, and other stimuli to a certain emotional meaning through their multiple learning experiences (topdown processing). A second concern is the emotional meaning in the text itself; the literary content brings mental images and an emotional effect that influence the reader since some have a deeper emotional meaning than others (bottom-up processing). This is closely related to the study of emotional semantics, which refers to the emotions that reading a text generate. These at same time modify the interpretation of the plot but not the meaning or literal definition of the words; furthermore, this represents an experimental challenge for researchers, since it is difficult to control the origin of the stimuli that intervene in the actual textual interpretation. The present work aims to show the need to generate a tool that responds to these narrative challenges. Moreover, this tool seeks to satisfy both the ecological demands and internal validity. Therefore, it is proposed that the texts and research situations must have the following characteristics: a) closeness to reality; b) elaborated linguistic objects; c) reader as an active participant; d) validated narrative texts; e) unknown stimuli and f) multivalent propositional content.
Saldaña Medina, C. D. (2019). The need for validated narrative text as a tool for experimental study of emotional semantics and interpretation. Lenguas Modernas, (53), pp. 79–92. Retrieved from https://revistas.uchile.cl/index.php/LM/article/view/55448
