DIMENSIONS OF ABSUR? TION Exploring the Dimensional Relationships of Story World Absorption. A Commentary on the Role of Attention During Absorbed Reading.DIMENSIONS OF ABSORPTION Exploring the Dimensional Relationships of Story World Absorption. A Commentary on the Role of Attention During Absorbed Reading. Abstract: Absorption has proven to be an important mediator of reading enjoyment and persuasive te..t effects (Green & Brock, 2000; Kuijpers, Hiaxemulder, Yan & Doicaru, 2014). ty ‘cally, absorbing experiences with arrative media are captured asing seif= report measuring instruments. One such instrument is the Story World Absorption Scale, which is comprised of four dimensions: Attention, Emotional Engagement, Mental Imagery, and Transportation (Kuijpers et al., 2014). As of yet, we do not know how these dimensions relate to one another. Data from four different studies one survey and three experiments) using the Story World Absorption Scale were investigated with the use of structural equation modeling to attempt to answer this question, The results show that attention fulfills a crucial role in the absorption experience confirming the work of Kuiken & Douglas (2017, 2018) on absorption-like states. The findings inspire a discussion on how we (should) use multi-dimensional instruments in the field of empirical literary studies. Keywords: Absorption; attentio eading experience: meta-analysis; structural equation modeling; story world absorption scaleDIMENSIONS OF ABSORPTION 3 Introduction Absorption during reading ~ the enjoyable experience of feeling lost in a book - has, ‘over recent decades developed from a uni-dimensional (Green & Brock. 2000) to a multi-dimensional concept (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2009; Kuijpers, Hakemulder, Doicara & Tan, 2014), Recently, Kuiken and Douglas (2017) have taken absorption research a step further by developing the Absorption-like States Questionnaire (ASQ), an instrament that ".. explicitly incorporates existing tensions between cognitive psychological and phenomenological conceptions of absorption (p. 218)". In their study they tested a theoretical model of absorption-like states, whereby attention (termed Open Reflection in their model) predicted different conceptualizations of absorption, Which in turn lead to different outcomes. It is the first study to develop a multi- dimensional construct of absorption whereby the different dimensions are not on the same hierarchical level, but rather are described as forming distinctive, and even contrasting, paths of absorption-like experiences. Inspired by Kuiken and Douglas’ (2017) work on the ASQ, this paper applies a similar structural equation modeling method to four different data sets using the Story World Absorption Seale (SWAS, Kuijpers et al., 2014) to come to an understanding of ‘the possible integrated function of the dimensions of Story World Absorption. Dimensions of narrative xbsorption There are several multi-dimensional instruments available to measure narrative absorption in various media, and the overlap between these constructs informed theDIMENSIONS OF ABSORPTION 4 original identification of the four main dimensions of Story World Absorption (Kuijpers et al., 2014), The first dimension is attention, which is characterized as a sustained form of concentration on the world of the story, as a consequence of which the reader loses awareness of the world surrounding them, the flow of time, and themselves (Kuijpers et al., 2014, p. 91). The second dimension is emotional engagement, which denotes feeling for or with the characters of a story, including empathy, sympathy and identification (p. 94). The third dimension of mental imagery refers to vivid visual imagery generated by the reader when reading a story (p. 93). The fourth and last dimension is sransportation. Which signifies a feeling of having been to the world of the story without completely losing contact with the actual world: the reader feels as if they have entered the fictional world that they are reading about (p. 94). Figure 1 shows the complete list of 18 items included in the SWAS divided per dimension. << INSERT FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE >> As stated when the Story World Absorption Scale was first developed, depending on the text that is being read — or more accurately on the interaction between a text and a reader — some dimensions at one time co-occur (e.g. participants score highly on two of the four dimensions), while at others one is much more prominent than the other (e.g., participants score high on only one dimension). In other words, it was hypothesized that, even though the dimensions share a common latent variable — Story World Absorption — they could function independently of one another (Kuijpers et al., 2014). This hypothesis was formulated based on two distinct pieces of empirical evidence: 1) the correlations between the dimensions were only modest, and 2) the dimensions were able to differentially predict outcomes like enjoyment and impact (Kuijpers et al,DIMENSIONS OF ABSORPTION 5 2014), For example, emotional engagement was the strongest predictor of both enjoyment and impact, whereas transportation only contributed to predicting enjoyment but not impact (Kuijpers et al., 2014, p. 117), ‘What I am interested in here is the question of whether every absorption experience shares the same core, whether every absorption experience starts the same way, regardless of which dimension is the strongest mediator of effects, and regardless of which text is being read? There are conceptualizations, such as Green and Brock’s Transportation construct (2000), that clearly give equal prominence to its aspects, According to them Transportation can be defined as “an integrative melding of attention, imagery and feelings” (2000, p. 701), whereas both the Narrative Engagement construct (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2009) and the Story World Absorption construct (Kuijpers et al, 2014) clearly delineate the dimensions on their constructs. Neither one of these three groups of scholars identify one dimension as the possible core of an engaging narrative experience, nor hypothesizes about a potential natural progression of such an experience. So far, the only study that has empirically explored relationships between dimensions of its absorption constructs is Kuiken and Douglas (2017) work on the ASQ. The authors found that their Attention dimension (ie., Open Reflection, involving both, Sustained Attention and Attentional Reorienting) takes up a prominent role in absorbed reading. In their model of absorption-like states, attention functions as a precondition for different types of absorption-like experiences to occur. Their structural equation modeling shows that different aspects of attentional involvement lead to various types of involvement with the narrativ , and subsequently to different types of outcomes.DIMENSIONS OF ABSORPTION 6 Based on Kuiken and Douglas’ (2017) work we could assume that the initial (precipitating) moment of an absorption experience during reading of uarrative text is its attentional component. For most constructs, the attentional component indicates an intense focused attention on reading and the story world, which results in a lower bodily awareness, a lower awareness of surroundings and an altered sense of time (¢. . Gerrig. 1993; Green & Brock, 2000; Busselle & Bilandzic, 2009: Kuijpers, Hakemulder, Tan & Doicaru, 2014). This seems to coincide nicely with earlier descriptions of absorbing narrative experience. In Nell’s “Lost in a Book” (1988). a seminal work for the field of absorption research, the aspect of attention was already given a central role in its definition: “Absorption is a full commitment of conscious attention which could lead to “Reading Trance’ which is the extent to which the reader has ‘gone away”” (Nell, 1988, p. 77). For Kuiken and Douglas (2017), the attentional component of the ASQ also involves attentional flexibility or attentional reorienting, which they describe as a sustained readiness to shift attention during reading The other aspects of absorbing narrative experiences can of course come into play during absorption but are less particular of such experiences. For example, emotional engagement - a dimension on the Stary World Absorption construct (Kuijpers et al 2014), and the Narrative Engagement construct (Busselle & Bilandzie, 2009) - is an experience that often occurs outside of the context of absorption as well. It is closely related to Identification (Cohen, 2001), which has been empirically distinguished from ‘Transportation (Tal-Or & Cohen, 2010), and is thus not solely an aspect of absorption experiences, but a reader experience in itself. Transportation refers to the feeling of being in the world of the story. This experience comes into play when attention is shifted from real world to story world butDIMENSIONS OF ABSORPTION 7 does not necessarily happen each time someone is paying close attention to a story. ‘Transportation seems to take up a different place in the Story World Absorption construct than emotional engagement and mental imagery as illustrated by the quote from Nell (1988) at the beginning of this section. This quote seems to imply that focused attention is where the experience of absorption starts. In turn, this focused attention could lead to or transform into a more intense experiential state, such as transportation within the Story World Absorption construct (Kuijpers et al., 2014), narrative presence in the Narrative Engagement construct (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2009) or something like a rrance, as described by Nell (1988). In this paper, I propose that emotional engagement and the forming of vivid mental imagery help this transformation of pure attention into transportation. The present research We have come up with multi-dimensional construets of absorption, in order to study aspects of an absorbing reading experience in isolation or together, but so far, we have not asked ourselves: is each of these dimensions equally important to the concept as a whole? This paper addresses two main hypotheses about the relationships between the dimensions on the Story World Absorption Scale. The main hypothesis, partly based on Kuiken and Douglas’ (2017) work, is that attention prediets the other three dimensions. The second hypothesis is that transportation builds on attention, emotional engagement and imagery. These two hypotheses are illustrated in the theoretical model that is shown in Figure 2 below. << INSERT FIGURE 2 ABOUT HEREDIMENSIONS OF ABSORPTION 8 Obviously, this is an oversimplified model of reading, due to the fact that self-report instruments have their limitations. Participants fill out the scale after they have finished reading, so naturally this cannot tell us anything about the progression of absorption while reading. For example, it seems plausible that once a reader is triggered to emotionally engage in a story. this in tum might increase their attention. In other words, there might be feedback loops throughout a whole reading experience. Thus, this model does not portray the entirety and the progression of a reading experience, What it ean tell us is whether attention is able to predict the other dimensions of absorption in the ‘manner described above, This would support the idea first presented by Kuiken and Douglas that the dimensions of attention within constructs of absorption are a precondition for the other dimensions to occur. Kuiken and Douglas (2017) developed an instrument with this theoretical model in mind, whereas the current paper tests whether this theoretical model can be found in an instrument that has been used in many studies before, but was never developed with that purpose Method Sample characteristics Table 1 provides basic descriptive statistics for the four samples used in the analyses. Three of these samples (Study 1, 2, and 3) were experimental studies investigating, respectively, the relationship between absorption and enjoyment (Study 1 and 2), and the relationship between suspense and absorption (Study 3). Study 1 employed a two- factor design in which participants were randomly assigned to read one of two different short stories (one character-oriented, one action-oriented). The participants of Study 1 were first year university students from The Netherlands, studying a range of subjects and last year high school students from The Netherlands. Al of them participated in theDIMENSIONS OF ABSORPTION 9 experiment in the setting of their classroom. They were asked to read the story and then {ill out the questionnaire, which was focused on absorption and enjoyment, controlled for comprehension and asked for demographic information. Study 2 also employed a two-factor design in which participants were randomly assigned to read one of two short stories (one rich in descriptions of inner life, one rich in descriptions of extemal world). Participation in Study 2 took place online, where Dutch participants read one story and then filled out a questionnaire focused on absorption and enjoyment, supplied demographic information and answered a few additional control questions. Study 3 was mote complex and involved a 3x2x2 design with 21 different conditions. There were 3 original stories from three different genres (romance, thriller, and action) that were each manipulated 6 times to account for different levels of suspense and curiosity in the texts Dutch participants were randomly assigned to one of these 21 different stories, read the story and filled out the questionnaire which focused on absorption, suspense and curiosity. The experiment took place in classroom environments and the participants were bachelor students of varions disciplines (For more detailed information on the experiment design, materials and results of these three studies, see Kuijpers [2014]. Kuijpers, Hakemulder, Tan & Doicaru [2014] and Balint, Kuijpers & Doicaru (2017). ‘Study 4 was an online survey study addressing questions about reading habits, personality traits and absorbed reading, distributed among a sample of Canadian psyeliology students, In the online survey study participants chose which text they ‘wanted to evaluate, based on the question “what was your most memorable reading experience of the past year?” (For additional information on the design and results of ‘the Canadian survey study, see Kuijpers, Douglas & Kuiken, 2019). MeasuresDIMENSIONS OF ABSORPTION 10 All studies used the Story World Absorption Scale (Kuijpers et al., 2014), which is a smulti-dimensional measure of absorbed reading with 18 items (see Figure 1 for the full item list). Al items were rated on a 7-point bipolar scale (from -3 = “completely disagree” to 3 = completely agree”). The internal consistencies of the overall scale ranged from c= .88 to a = .95: and for the separate dimensions from «= .74 toa =.91 for attention; fiom a =.73 too. =.90 for transportation; from a =.75 to a =.91 for emotional engagement; and fiom o = .66 to a = .80 for mental imagery << INSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE >> Data emalyses The Lavaan package for R was used to run confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation models. I started with a series of confirmatory factor analyses to confirm the second order latent variable structure of the SWAS in all four samples. In addition to the theoretical model portrayed in Figure 2, a range of additional models was, tested. I started with a simple model in which attention had a simple unidirectional relationship to all three of the other dimensions without mediation. The next step was to test the theoretical model in Figure 2 in two variations: one with relationship between attention and transportation and one without. In the last model, the relationship between mental imagery and transportation was removed, as this relationship was insignificant in some of the samples, and instead a relationship between mental imagery and emotional engagement was added. For evaluation of model fit I used the following indices: Chi-squared, RMSEA, CFI, and TLI and for model comparison we used the BIC and AIC indices.DIMENSIONS OF ABSORPTION a Results To test the factor structure of the SWAS as presented in Figure 1, I started with correlation analyses between the dimensions of the SWAS and confirmatory factor analyses for each sample, The results of these analyses can be found in the tables in the supplementary materials. As expected all dimensions correlated positively with one another across all four samples. The positive correlations were moderate for Studies 1, 3 and 4, and moderate to high for Study 2. Tran confirmatory factor analyses for the original second order latent variable model (story world absorption > four dimensions > individual items) and an additional first order latent variable model (four dimensions ~> individual items) to investigate whether swe can safely assume that the four dimensions are indeed part of one underlying construct of story world absorption. When comparing the fit indices from the two different models per study, I found that there is virtually no difference between the second order and first order models. Thus, based on the available empirical evidence, it is difficult to draw a definitive conclusion about the integration or separation of the dimensions of story world absorption. Theoretically, though, there are good reasons to assume an underlying structure, which is why I moved forward with the second order latent variable model. The conclusion drawn from the correlational and confirmatory factor analyses, allowed me to move ahead with the structural equation models as set out above in the Method section. Starting with the simplest model in which attention predicts the other three dimensions; to the three variations of that model described in the method section. I have made the seript and the datasets for this paper available on Open Science Framework ADD LINK>, in case anyone would like to inspect the models more closely.DIMENSIONS OF ABSORPTION 12 Table 2 provides an overview of the fit indices per model per study. The best model fit per study is highlighted in bold. << INSERT TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE » Hypothesis 1 ‘The first question asked was whether attention can predict the other three dimensions of Story World Absorption. As can be seen in Table 3. the first model showed the best ‘model fit of all four models across all four samples. In Study 1 and 2 the model shows moderately good fit, and in Study 4 it shows an almost moderately good fit. However, in Study 3 the model is a poor fit for the data. Nevertheless, it is still the model that fits the data best, in comparison to the other three models. Table 3 shows the beta coefficients for each of the relationships in the model, for all four studies. Hypothesis 2 The second hypothesis was that transportation builds on the other three dimensions. As the model that fitted the data best, was the first model, where attention has a direct relationship to emotional engagement. transportation and mental imagery, this hypothesis needs to be rejected. However, as the model fit for the fourth model, at least in two of the four samples, came very close to the model fit of the first model, the possibility that transportation is an outcome of some combination of the other three dimensions of Story World Absorption, warrants further investigation, perhaps with an experimental design, << INSERT TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE >>DIMENSIONS OF ABSORPTION 13 General Discussion This paper aimed to investigate the relationships between the dimensions on the Story World Absorption Scale. Understanding of the internal consistency of the SWAS may help to further understanding of the progression of absorbing reading experiences, and facilitate future studies on the nature of such experiences. Results from four different studies — one survey and three experimental studies — conducted over the course of four years with samples from two different countries, not only provide evidence of construct validity of the Story World Absorption Scale through the convergent results across studies, but also show that attention can be considered a precondition of emotional engagement, mental imagery, and transportation. The role of attention in absorption Similarly to the findings of Kuiken & Douglas (2017, 2018), the results of the present study seem to support the hypothesis that attention plays a more prominent role in absorbing reading experiences than other dimensions. Perhaps it can even be argued that absorption in general is a form of attention. It can be distinguished from other forms of attention by the fact that it has a narrow attentional breadth (i.e., the story that is being read) and a high present moment orientation (.e., forgetting womties and distractions) (Dane. 2010). Apart from that it can be described as a deep form of concentration sustained over a longer period of time, while at the same time a person who is absorbed exhibits a sustained readiness to shift attention; that is, within the reach of the attentional object (i.e., the book that is being read) and without breaking concentration (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017), Recent research on the relationships between the ASQ and the SWAS (Kuiken, Douglas & Kuijpers, under review) indicates that theDIMENSIONS OF ABSORPTION 14 attention dimension on the SWAS shows some overlap with the attentional reorienting aspect of the open reflection construct on the ASQ. Previously, the attention dimension of the SWAS has been conceptualized as purely sustained concentration (Kuijpers et al. 2014), but the dimension does include items like "When I finished reading the story I ‘was suprised to see that time had gone by so fast”, which conceptually overlaps with the ASQ Attentional reorienting mini-scale Altered Sense of Time. Thus, one way to interpret these results is that sustained, yet flexible attention is at the core of absorption: it is a precondition for the other dimensions of Story World Absorption to occur, and in that respect, these findings can be seen as a replication of the results that Kuiken and Douglas (2017, 2018) found for their Absorption-like States Questionnaire ‘These results have consequences for how we evaluate findings of studies using multidimensional constructs of absorption, especially of studies that use the SWAS, but do not delineate between the four dimensions, and only look at the overall score on absorption. What does it mean when a participant scores low on the attention dimension of Story World Absorption, but high on the emotional engagement dimension? If focused attention is not there, can we still eall that participant's experience a Story World Absorption experience? This study showed that attention is a precondition for the other dimensions to occur, but is attention also sufficient? If a reader scores high on the attention dimension, but low on all of the others, should we still consider them, absorbed? And conversely, can a reader be emotionally engaged in a story, without being absorbed in it? The correlations in this study, as well as previous research on the relationships between the Transportation scale and the Identification scale (Tal-Or & Cohen, 2010), seem to suggest that this might be a possibility. However, it might beDIMENSIONS OF ABSORPTION 15 more difficult to make a similar case for the transportation dimension. Based on item content aloue, it is harder to disentangle transportation fiom attention, than the other ‘two dimensions. The correlations found in the four studies in this paper also show that transportation and attention correlate the most in every study. The models in this paper also point to the possibility that transportation might be more of an extension of the other three dimensions, and thus it seems unlikely for one participant to score high on transportation, but low on attention, What would it mean if we find such participants? ‘How would we interpret their Story World Absorption Scores? These are questions that should be more closely examined and reported on in every study using multi- dimensional constructs of absorption. Reconceptualization of the Story World Absorptio 1 construct Based on these findings, as well as recent research by Kuiken, Douglas and Kuijpers (under review), a reconceptualization of story world absorption emerges, that converges with related measures such as the ASQ on some aspects, and contrasts with such measures on other aspects. As stated above, what these measures of absorption have in common is sustained, yet flexible attention. The recent study by Kuiken, Douglas and Kuijpers (under review) also showed that some of the items on the SWAS mental imagery dimension (eg., "When I was reading the story, I could imagine what the world in which the story took place looked like") show conceptual similarity with items on the ASQ-Integrative Comprehension (¢.g., "While reading what made this poem, short story, or novel memorable, I could almost see the setting (or environment) that was ‘there at that moment"), whereas some of the items on the emotional engagement dimension (e.g., "When I read the story I could imagine what it must be like to be in the shoes of the main character") show conceptual similarity with items on ASQ-ExpressiveDIMENSIONS OF ABSORPTION 16 Enactment (e.g., "While reading what made this poem, short story, or novel memorable, for a moment I felt like I ‘was’ the character whose experience was being described there") What makes the Story World Absorption construct different fiom a measure like the ASQ is the dimension of transportation, which both describes a deictic shift from real world to story world with items like "When I was finished reading the story, it felt like 1 had taken a trip to the world of the story", as well as an emotional proximity of the reader to the characters in the story, with items like "When I was reading the story it sometimes seemed as if I was in the story world too", The inclusion of the transportation dimension on the SWAS, may be the reason why the SWAS was able to distinctively predict being moved, whereas ASQ-IC distinctive predicted narrative curiosity and ASQEE distinctly predicted sublime feeling (Kuiken, Douglas & Kuijpers, under review). Items on the transportation dimension, as well as some items on the emotional engagement dimensions, come conceptually very close to types of reactive engagement, such as participatory and para-social responses. An interesting avenue for further research would be to investigate the relationships between the Story World Absorption Scale, measures of reactive engagement, such as para-social and participatory responses, and being moved. Perhaps such research could find evidence for a SWAS-Reactive Engagement pathway, besides the ASQ-Integrative Comprehension and the ASQ-Expressive Enaetment absorption like states, This pathway would start with a sustained yet flexible attention (as measured by the attention dimension on the SWAS), lead through reactive engagement (as measured by the mental imagery, emotional engagement and transportation dimensions on the SWAS; and corroborated by high positive correlations with measures of para-social and participatory responses), to being moved. Being moved seems like a type of emotionalDIMENSIONS OF ABSORPTION 17 engagement that is suggestive of reactive engagement as well, as items like "T felt like crying”, "I felt touched”, "I was moved to tears" and "Reflecting on this story provided moving moments" show strong emotional reactions to fictional characters as if they were real people. Future research This paper hopefully paved the way for farther research into the nature of absorbing narrative experiences. The first step would be to investigate the dimensional relationships within similar construets such as the Narrative Engagement Seale (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2009) and the Transportation Scale (Green & Brock, 2000). This would be to confirm whether the findings presented here and the ones of Kniken and Douglas (2017) are particular to the psychometric properties of the scales that were ‘used, or whether they can be generalized and attributed to the concept of absorption itself Once we have established that attention is indeed the initiating component of absorbing narrative experiences, we can take empirical research into absorbed literary reading to the next level. To progress absorption research, objective measures are needed, but as there are so many aspects to absorbing reading experiences it is hard to know where to start and which psychophysiological measures to use, With a confirmation that attention is at absorption’s core, we already know to start our search for appropriate measures by looking at instruments or techniques that can capture attentional focus during reading, such as eye-tracking measures. The use of objective measures will allow us to study absorption while itis happening and determine, amongst other things, its progression and the specific textual features that inspire it.DIMENSIONS OF ABSORPTION 18 ‘My hope is that this paper inspires a discussion about how we interpret the results, wwe gather with multi-dimensional constructs. Especially within the area of absorption research, we have made a point about the importance of using multi-dimensional constructs, but we still tend to report overall absorption scores without investigating the differences between participants in the make-up of their dimensional structure. Of course. there are more and more studies that use the dimensions of the SWAS to look at genre differences in text and how they affect absorption experiences (Rebora, Kuijpers & Lendvai, 2018) or how different types of simulation are related to the dimensions on the SWAS (Mak & Willems, 2019). Nevertheless, in these eases as well, we are still mostly looking at means across groups and treating the dimensions as separate concepts. A multi-dimensional construct with an underlying latent variable such as Story World Absorption, can and should be used in multiple different ways to not only look at group differences, but also at individual differences, all the while remaining criticial of what our results tell us about what it is like to feel absorbed during reading. Acknowledgements This research was conducted at Utrecht University, the Max Planck Institute of Empirical Aesthetics, and the University of Alberta. I would like to thank Don Kuiken and Shawn Douglas for the lively discussions we had during our collaboration, which have inspired this paper References Balint, K., Doicamn, M. M., & Kuijpers, M. M. (2017). The effect of suspense structure on felt suspense and narrative absorption in literary and filmic narratives. A media comparative study. 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