6 The Psychology of Reading For Pleasure

The Psychology of Reading for Pleasure: Needs and Gratifications
Author(s): Victor Nell

Source: Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Winter, 1988), pp. 6-50
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the International Reading Association
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VictorNell
Universityof SouthAfrica
The psychology of reading for pleasure:

Needs and gratifications*
SPONTANEOUS pleasurereading(ludic reading)deservesattentionfor at least two reasons:It is
an importantgoal of readinginstruction,and it offers rewardsthat are powerfulenough both
to sustain reading for long periods and to supporta large publishing industry.Because the
needs it satisfies andthe gratificationsit offers have receivedlittle attention,the authorunder-
took a series of five studies over a 6-year period in order to investigatethe antecedentsof
ludic readingand its consequences. The five studies consider (1) readingability and reading
habits, (2) readerspeed variabilityduring naturalreading, (3) reader rankingsof books for
preference,merit, and difficulty, (4) the physiology of ludic reading,and (5) the sovereignty
of the readingexperience. Among the findings were that there is substantialrate variability
during naturalreading, with most-liked pages being read significantly slower; that the Fog
Index of readabilitypredictsreaders'preferenceand difficulty rankings,but that a cloze mea-
sure does neither;that, in keepingwith the Protestantethic, readersperceive literarymeritto
be inversely relatedto reading pleasure;that readingis physiologically more arousedthan
other wakingactivities, and is succeededby markedphysiological deactivation;that readers
greatly prize the controlthey exercise over their reading;and that many readingrewardsare
mediatedby consciousness-changemechanismsthat may have an analog in hypnotictrance.
La psychologie de lirepar plaisir: Besoins et satisfaction

LE FAIT de lire spontanementpour le plaisir (lectureludique)m6rite notre attentionpour au
moins deux raisons: C'est un objectif importantde l'apprentissagede la lecture et cela
r6compense suffisamment pour stimuler la lecture pendant de longues p6riodes et pour
soutenirla grandeindustriede la publication.Puisque on n'a accord6qu'unefaible attention
aux besoins qu'elle satisfaitet aux gratificationsqu'elleprocure,l'auteura entreprisune s6rie
de cinq recherchessur une p6riode de 6 ans afin de d6couvrirles ant6c6dentsde la lecture
ludique de meme que ses consequences. Les cinq recherches examinent (1) l'aptitudeh la
lecture et les habitudesde lecture, (2) la variation de vitesse de lecture pendantla lecture
normale, (3) la classification des livres par les lecteurs selon la preffrence, la valeur et la
difficult6, (4) la physiologie de la lecture ludique, et (5) la suprematiede l'exp6riencede la
lecture. Parmiles observations,on retrouveune variationsubstantiellede la vitesse pendant
la lecture normale avec les pages les plus appr6ci6eslues beaucoupplus lentement;tout en
respectantl'6thique protestante,les lecteurs accordent aux livres une valeur inversement
proportionnelle au plaisir de lire; on observe que la lecture est physiologiquement plus
stimulante que d'autres activit6s d'6veil et qu'il s'ensuit une desactivation physiologique
marquee;les lecteurs accordentune grande importanceau contr1le qu'ils exercent sur leur
lecture; plusieurs satisfactionsque procurela lecture sont m6diatis6espar des mechanismes
de changement de conscience pouvant presenter une analogie avec l'6tat de transe
hypnotique.
"*The
dissertationupon which this articleis based was amongthe 10 finalistsin IRA'sOutstandingDissertation
Award1983-1984 competition.
6

Readingfor pleasure NELL 7
La psicologia de la lecturapor gusto: Necesidad y gratificaci6n

LA LECTURA espontaineapor gusto (lectura lidica) merece atenci6n por lo menos por dos
razones: Es una meta importantede la instrucci6n de la lectura, y ofrece recompensaslo
suficientemente grandes para sostener la lectura por periodos prolongados y tambien
mantenera una granindustriaeditorial. Debido a la poca atenci6nque ha recibidotantoen las
necesidades que satisface y las gratificacionesque ofrece, el autor llev6 a cabo una serie de
cinco estudiospor espacio de 6 ahos parainvestigarlos antecedentesde la lecturalhidicay sus
consecuencias. Los cinco estudios consideran(1) habilidadde lectura y haibitosde lectura,
(2) variabilidadde la velocidad de lectura durantela lectura natural,(3) la clasificaci6n de
libros por lectores en terminos de preferencia, m6rito, y dificultad, (4) la fisiologia de la
lectura hidica, y (5) la soberanfa de la experiencia de la lectura. Entre los hallazgos se
encontr6 que hay un rango substancialde variaci6n durantela lectura natural, donde las
piginas maisgustadasson lefdas significativamentemaisdespacio; que conformea la teorfade
la 6tica protestante,el m6rito se percibe en relaci6n inversa con el gusto por leer; que la
lecturaes fisiol6gicamentemaisincitanteque otrasactividadesde vigilia, y es seguidapor una
deactivaci6n fisiol6gica marcada;que los lectores valoran en gran medida el control que
ejercen en su lectura; y que muchas recompensas en la lectura estain mediadas por
mecanismosde cambios de conciencia un tantoandilogosal trancehipn6tico.
Die Psychologie des Lesens zum Vergniigen:Bediirfnisseund GenuB

SPONTANES LESEN zum Vergnuigen(ludic reading) verdientAufmerksamkeitaus mindestens
zwei Grfinden:Es ist ein wichtiges Ziel f-ir den Lese-unterrichtund es bietet Belohnungen,
welche wirksamgenug sind, Lesen fiberlange Zeitriiumezu unterstfitzenund auBerdemeine
riesige Verlagsindustriezu erhalten.Da die befriedigtenBediirfnisseund die Belohnungenso
wenig Aufmerksamkeiterregt haben, hat der Autor eine Serie von ffinf Studien, fiber einen
6-Jahre-Zeitraumverteilt,unternommen,um die Antezedensdes Lesens aus SpaBund dessen
Konsequenzenzu untersuchen. Die ftinf Studien befassen sich mit (1) Lesefihigkeit und
Lesegewohnheiten,(2) Leseschnelligkeits-Schwankungen wfhrend des normalenLesens, (3)
Leser-Buchbeurteilung beziiglich Vorliebe, Verdienst, und Schwierigheit, (4) der
Psychologie des Lesens zum SpaBund (5) der Unumschrinktheitdes Leseerlebnisses. Unter
anderem fand man heraus, daB ein wesentlicher Schnelligkeitsunterschiedbesteht wihrend
des normalen Lesens, nimlich indem besonders beliebte Seiten viel langsamer gelesen
werden; daBin Einklangmit protestantischerMoral, Leser literarischesVerdienstinvers mit
Lesevergnfigenals verbundenansehen; daB Lesen physiologisch mehr erregt ist als andere
Wach-Aktivitiitenund daBdanacheine deutlichephysiologische De-Aktivierungerfolgt; daB
Leser ihre Kontrollefiber den Lesevorgangsehr schiitzen;und daB viele Lese-Belohnungen
einen BewuBtseinsverinderungs-Mechanistmus vermitteln, der einer hypnotischen Trance
Ahnlichist.
readingis a form of play. It is free that it is at root a play activity,and usually para-
Pleasure
activity standing outside ordinary life; it telic, that is, pursued for its own sake (Apter,
absorbs the player completely, is unproductive, 1979). In this study,ludic readersare defined as
and takes place within circumscribedlimits of those who read at least a book a week for plea-
place and time (Caillois, 1961; Huizinga, 1938/ sure and relaxation;of course, many ludic read-
1950). Ludic reading (from the Latin ludo, I ers-and certainly the 33 recruited for this
play: Stephenson, 1964) is therefore a useful study- read a great deal more thanthat.
descriptor of pleasure reading, reminding one Any kind of readingmattercan serve as the

8 READING RESEARCHQUARTERLY * Winter1988 XXIII/1
vehicle for ludic reading:a torn scrap of news- Figure 1

print, a magazine, a novel, or a textbook on a Flow chartof the antecedentsand consequences
subjectthe readerfinds engrossing. However,it of ludic reading
is light fiction that is the focus of the five stud-
ies reportedhere. The reading of light fiction, ANTECEDENTS OF LUDICREADING
1. Reading ability
most usually in book form, is of special interest 2. Positive expectations
for at least three reasons: First, fiction reading 3. Correct book selection
accounts for most ludic reading (Nell, 1985).
Second, the experience of being lost in a book,
Antecedents NO
in absorptionor entrancement,is most strongly adequate
associated with the reading of fiction and of
"narrativenonfiction" (Wolfe, 1975). Third, YES
since the eighteenthcentury the reading of fic-
LUDICREADING
tion, unlike other kinds of reading,has been the 1. Reading processes
target of merciless critical asceticism and has
even been regardedas addictive: The circulat- 2. 3.
Attention Comprehension
ing libraries were "tuppennydram shops,"and
"to read novels, as to drink wine, in the morn- Go to
alternative
ing, was far into the a
[nineteenth]century sign activity
of vice" (Leavis, 1938/1965, pp. 8, 50; see also

CONSEQUENCESOF LUDIC READING
Nell, 1985). 1. Physiological changes
2. Cognitive changes
Motivational analysis of ludic reading

One of the goals towardwhich readingin-
structionstrives is spontaneousludic reading.A YES Pleasanter
than
NO
alternative
legitimategoal of readingresearch,therefore,is
to specify the motivationalstructureof this com-
plex activity-the needsit promisesto satisfyand The three-partscheme in Figure 1 offers a
the rewardsit mediates.This is a dauntingtask. useful frame for this inquiry.The first of these
The reader'sreinforcementsare to be found not parts emphasizesthe antecedentsof ludic read-
in the words and phrasesof the book, but in the ing - namely, adequate reading ability, the
cognitive events that result from the interaction expectationthat ludic readingwill be a pleasur-
between book and reader. This interaction, in able experience, and the selection of a ludic ve-
turn, is modulatedby the social value systemand hicle that provides rewardssufficient to sustain
by personality variables. In the face of these the readingprocess. The second partpertainsto
complexities and inconstancies,if one is to at- the reading process itself, including its atten-
tempta comprehensivespecificationof the needs tional and comprehension components. The
leading to and the gratificationsarisingfrom lu- third part comprises the consequences of ludic
dic reading,one mustconsidera large numberof reading, especially its physiological and cogni-
relateddomains. These include the domains of tive outcomes. Thoughnot aspiringto the status
aestheticvalue formation,narrativestructureand of a model (except in the sense of a careful anal-
the natureof storytelling,the componentskills of ogy thatdisplays the relationsof the partsto the
readingand the determinationof readingability, whole: English & English, 1958), the flow
the natureof comprehensionand its relationto chart in Figure 1 indicatesthe temporaland hi-
readabilitymeasures,the attentionalmechanisms erarchic relations between these skills and
thatchangethe qualityand contentof conscious- events. One may further hypothesize that, for
ness in dreaming,in trance,andin some kindsof each ludic reader,thereare reinforcementcom-
reading, and physiological arousal as a reward paratorsthat weigh the pleasuresof commenc-
systemduringreading. ing or continuing reading against those of

Reading for pleasure NELL 9
available alternativeactivities. The positive re- preconditionfor ludic reading, or as a conse-

inforcersthat lead to the inceptionand continu- quence of it), there is very little empirical evi-
ation of readingare the subjectof the remainder dence that relates reading ability to reading
of this paper. Negative reinforcers, which may habits, or that determinesthe degree of reading
lead to a "stopreading"decision, can arise, for skill requiredfor ludic reading.
example, if the cognitive productgeneratedby Indirect evidence that ludic readers are
the book is uncomfortablyclose to a raw per- good readers, defined by Carroll (1981) as
sonal area, as a love story would be for a reader "thosewho have attainedhigh levels of automa-
who has just terminateda relationship("Books ticity in a large proportionof [the] components
like that upset me terribly");if the readerlacks of reading skill" (p. 18), derives from time
the narrativeframesemployed by the author("I budget data, which indicatethat leisure reading
just couldn'tget into the book"); if a So what? of books increases sharplywith increasingedu-
judgment is passed ("It'ssuch a stupid story"); cation, and furthermore,that as book reading
and for a multitudeof other reasons. That the increases, newspaperreadingtime declines as a
balance between readingand alternativeactivi-
proportionof total leisure reading time (Skor-
ties is delicate may be inferredfrom the obser- zynski, in Szalai, 1972). Similarly, Cole and
vation that the decision to terminatereading in Gold (1979) reportthat book readersare better
favorof an alternativeactivity may be takenat a educatedthannewspaperand magazinereaders,
naturalbreakpoint(a paragraphor chapterend), who do not read books. One interpretation
at a page-turning,or, indeed, in the middle of a (there are others) of this latter finding is that
sentence. bettereducatedreadersare fasterreaders;thus,
The interrelations of these skills, habits, one may speculatethatthe smallerreading"par-
and consequenceswere examinedin five studies cels" provided by newspapers and magazines
that involved 245 subjects (and 50 more in in- could be the refuge of slower and less fluent
formal pretesting) over a 6-year period. Very readers, to whom reading an entire book may
broadly,these follow the sequence of Figure 1, appeara dauntingtask.
though later parts of the scheme inevitably in- Direct evidence is anecdotal, like the re-
trude into the earlier. The five studies investi-
ports in the literaturethat slow readers do not
gate (1) reading ability and reading habits, (2) read for pleasure (Fisher, 1961; Hilgard,
reading speed variability during natural read- 1979), and observational, like the speed with
ing, (3) readers'rankings of books for prefer- which ludic readers of one's acquaintanceap-
ence, merit, and difficulty, and how these pear to "devour"books (Study 2). More com-
rankings relate to readability scores, (4) the pelling observationalevidence comes from the
physiology of ludic reading, and (5) the sover- experience of learning a second language and
eignty of the reading experience, which deals settling down at some point to read what looks
with the cognitive changes broughtaboutby lu- to be an exciting book in this newly acquired
dic reading. The first three studies relate pri-
tongue: One then becomes forcefully aware of
marily to the processes and antecedentsof ludic the difference between the technical literacy
reading;the last two deal with its consequences, thatallows one to deciphera menu or a newspa-
in which are containedthe reinforcersthat sus-
tain ludic reading. per headline and the effortless fluency that
opens the way to pleasurereading.
Direct empirical evidence relatingpleasure
STUDY 1 reading to reading ability is sparse. Greaney
and Quinn (1978) found that 920 Irish fifth-
Reading Ability and Reading Habits gradersspent an average of 60 minutes a week
in leisure reading(which includedbooks, com-
Though it seems perfectly self-evident that ics, and newspapers),andthatthe strongestpre-
ludic readers are skilled readers (whether as a dictors of leisure reading were gender and

10 QUARTERLY* Winter 1988
READINGRESEARCH XXIII/1
readingattainment;however,these variablesac- ing or research, followed by most Bachelor of

counted for only 23 percent of the variance in Arts graduates,and the demands of careers in
book reading time, indicating that their study construction site supervision or architectural
failed to tap other predictors. In a study of draftsmanship,for which buildingscience grad-
2,731 Canadianseventh-graders,Landy (1977) uates are prepared. My rationale for selecting
showed that of 100 variables, the most impor- such widely divergentgroups was that the con-
tant predictorsof amount of reading were sex, siderable differences in interest and aptitude
reading ability, and the number of books the profiles thatmight be assumedto underliethese
child owned. Related findings are reportedby tough- and tender-mindedcareer orientations
Howden(1967) and Lamme(1976). These vari- were expressionsof differingdevelopmentalan-
ous kinds of evidence converge to indicate that tecedents, which might in turn be expected to
ludic reading and skilled reading are likely to give rise to differing reading ability levels and
co-occur. The currentstudy was designed to in- differentreadinghabits, as indeedthey did.
vestigate further the interrelations between A follow-up group of 27 of the 71 BA de-
readingability and the readingof books, news- gree studentsin the 1976 sample was re-evalu-
papers, and magazinesfor pleasure. ated in 1978, 2 years after initial testing. Of
these, 24 were then completing the third-year
English literaturecourse, 1 had completed two
Method years of English literature studies, and 2 had
completedone year.
Subjects
Two groups of subjects contributeddata to Ludic readers. Ludic readerswere defined
as those who read a minimum of one book a
Study 1: 129 students (of whom 27 formed a week for pleasure. Most subjects exceeded the
follow-up group 2 years after the initial study)minimumby a wide margin:The sample mean
and 33 ludic readers.
was 16.9 books a month(SD = 10.0). Of the 33
Students.The studentswere markedlysim- ludic readers, 17 were selected from among the
ilar in age (M = 20.6 years, SD = 2.7) and ed- 49 who responded to a newspaper advertise-
ucation; all but a few were in their first or ment that read, in part, "Bookwormsrequired.
second year of college education. Of the total If you reada lot of light fiction and enjoy it very
sample, 71 were Bachelor'sdegree students at much, please volunteerto advance the cause of
the University of Port Elizabeth, all studying science." The other 16 subjects were recruited
=
first-year English. The remaining58 were di- by me. Meanage of the samplewas 37.2 (SD
ploma studentsin the Departmentof Civil Engi- 9.7); 14 were male and 19 female. No parame-
neering and Building at the Port Elizabeth ters were set for home language, educational
College for Advanced Technical Education. level, or reading preferences on the grounds
Therewere 47 females and 74 males in the sam- that individualswho read a great deal for plea-
ple; the home languagewas English for 87 sub- sure must find reading in English a rewarding
jects, and Afrikaans for 34 (8 subjects were experience: Such readingpresupposesadequate
omitted from the gender/language subgroups readingskills in Englishand a high level of pos-
because of incomplete information). Though itive reinforcement from reading. Many sub-
ostensibly members of the same culture, Afri- jects were very heavy readers. The owner of a
kaans- and English-speaking South Africans book exchange said she read 2 books a day and
have repeatedlybeen shown to differ widely in more on weekends, giving a total of some 16 a
their value systems and attitudes (e.g., week, or 70 a month. Fourmembersof a single
Mynhardt, 1980; 0. Nell, 1968). With regard family who all volunteeredas subjects, and are
to career choice, there are substantial differ- more fully described in Study 5, claimed that,
ences between the demandsof careers in teach- betweenthem, they read 101 books a month.

Materials and procedure tablished, raw reading speed was allowed to

The Reading ComprehensionSpeed Test. play a major role in the RCS formula used for
Like other complex activities, reading can be scoring: First, the comprehension questions
described in terms of its componentprocesses, were easy, and only 3 multiple-choice distrac-
each of which is independentlyspecifiable, or tors were used, possibly inflating the scores of
as a final, integratedperformanceto which one guessers. Second, a 100% score was given for
summatingmeasure may be applied. One such answering correctly all of those questions that
summating measure appears to be reading applied to the portion of the passage each sub-
comprehension speed (RCS), which is derived ject had read (but no other questions), so that
by correctingraw readingspeed downwardby a slower readerswere not penalized. Third, only
factorderivedfrom a comprehensiontest on the half the percentageerroron the comprehension
materialread (Jackson& McClelland, 1979). A speed test was subtracted from raw reading
number of commercially available tests were speed to give the RCS. Forexample, the RCS of
pretested on 14 subjects with a wide range of a subjectwho answered6 of 8 applicableques-
reading abilities and were found to be unsatis- tions correctly,and read 1,000 words in the 2-
factory. A new test was accordingly devised, minute period, would have been (1000/2) -
based on a 1,000-wordpassage from The Caine (25/2) = 487.5. Because of the correction for
Mutiny (Wouk, 1951, pp. 19-23). The Reading comprehension, the RCS is a quotient, not a
Comprehension Speed Test appeared to dis- readingspeed in wordsper minute.
criminate well between the 14 pilot-test sub-
jects, and its readabilityas measuredby the Fog The Reading Habits Questionnaire. The
Index (Gunning, 1952) was 10.21 (Kwolek, questionnairebegan by defining pleasure read-
1973, gives a mean Fog Index of 9.68 for best- ing as "the kind we do for fun and relaxation."
sellers, and 11 as acceptableto most adults). Respondentswere then asked to say how long
Subjectswere instructedto "readat the fast- they read at differenttimes (after lunch, in bed
est rate at which you can understandcomfort- before going to sleep, etc.) and to indicate at
ably what you are reading.... After you have which of these times they most enjoyed their
read the passage you will be requiredto answer reading. Reading quantity was probedby ask-
some easy questions about the content of what ing how many books subjectsreada month, and
you have read."Trueludic reading(such as that also the monthly, weekly, or daily number of
described in Study 2) is, of course, response- magazines and newspapers "read," whether
free, and adequatecomprehensionis assuredby fleetingly or thoroughly.The questionnaireelic-
the ludic reader'sown need to extract meaning ited time spent reading magazines and news-
in order to enjoy reading. However, if a brief papersas well as books.
passage is presentedto subjectsas a measureof Subjects were then asked to imagine that
reading speed, this internalcontrol tends to fall "your favorite reading time has arrived, but
away. If reading speed rather than skimming you'restaying at a strangehotel. Suddenly,you
speed is to be measured, an external compre- discover you have nothing to read."Two ques-
hension controlis required. tions followed: "How would you feel?" and
After a 90-second warmupperiod, subjects "Whatwould you do about it?" Indications of
were asked to adjusttheir speed up or down as strong affect ("absolutely terrible" or "com-
they felt appropriate("Youmay feel the material pletely lost")were scored as 4; moderateaffect
is very straightforwardand you can read faster, ("frustrated," "annoyed,""disappointedand at a
or that you have been going too fast to under- loss") as 3; weak affect ("disappointed"),2; and
stand what you are reading"), and they were "don'tcare" answers, 1. On the second ques-
timed over a further2 minutes from wherever tion, 3 points were given for a determined
they had stopped after the warmup. Because search ("scourthe shops till I found a book"),
some control for comprehensionhad been es- down to 1 point for "donothing."A Frustration

12 READING
RESEARCH * Winter1988
QUARTERLY XXIII/1
Index was computedby summingthese feeling Hypotheses

and action scores. This index can be seen as an It was hypothesized,first, thatreadingabil-
indirectmeasureof motive strengthto engage in ity, as measured by reading comprehension
ludic readingat the inceptionof reading. speed, would be positively correlated with
Similarly,reading span can be seen as an quantityand time spent readingbooks, but not
indirect measure of motive strength during magazines or newspapers,and that the ability-
reading. This was measuredby asking subjects relatedmeasures(sorting time and book choice
to say how long they would continue readinga decision time) would conform to this pattern.
book they very much enjoyed if they were able Second, it was predictedthat readingtime and
to continue reading without interruptionfor as quantityfor books would be inversely relatedto
long as they liked. time and quantityof readingfor magazinesand
An estimate of book choice decision time newspapers. Third, the motive strength mea-
was derived from answers to the following sures (FrustrationIndex and readingspan) were
question: expectedto correlatepositively with book read-
ing (which is held to be "addictive"),but not
You'rein the publiclibrarylookingfor some with
newspaperor magazinereading.
lightreading.Youpickup a book,look it over,
anddecidewhetherto takeit outor putit back
on the shelf. Howlong on averagedoes it take
youto decide? Results and Discussion
An analogous measure, derived from the Skills, motives, and habits
Reading Preference Test (to be described in The 14 variablesderived from the Reading
Study 3), is sorting time. This is the time taken Comprehension Speed Test and the Reading
for the first partonly of the ReadingPreference Habits Questionnairerelate to reading ability,
Test. This requires subjects to scan 30 brief to reading habits, and to motive strength, and
anonymous extracts from a wide variety of they are presentedunderthese heads in Table 1.
books, and allocate each to one of four catego-
ries ("most like," "quite like," "quite dislike," Reading speed. Validity and reliability of
"mostdislike").Instructionsemphasizedthatal- the Reading Comprehension Speed Test were
though this procedurewas being timed, it was good. For the 33 ludic readers, who read a
not a speed test, and subjects should "workat a mean of 16.9 (SD = 10.0) books a month for
comfortablepace."Sorting reading matterinto pleasure, the mean RCS of 387 (SD = 121) on
broad "like/dislike"categories is an analog of this test correlatedwell with each reader'sspeed
everydaybook selection: At a libraryor book- readingludic fiction in the laboratory(shownin
shop, the ludic readerpicks a book or passes it Study 2 to be equivalentto readingunder natu-
over by rapidly scanning one or two randomly ral conditions);r(27) = .65, p < .001. Withre-
selected pages. Ludic readers could therefore gard to reliability, the RCS of 27 university
be expectedto have the skills neededto perform students of English literature did not change
this part of the Reading Preference Test more significantlyover a 2-year period, t(52) = 1.6,
rapidly than non-ludic readers. Because of its n.s. Of course, the evidence in Study2 on read-
relation to reading habits, sorting time will be ing speed variability during natural reading
reportedhere, ratherthan in Study 3. suggests that reading speed measureswill do a
The last item in the Reading Habits Ques- poor job of predicting how fast a reader will
tionnaireasked subjectsto "thinkback to some read a given paragraphor page during natural
books you enjoyedvery much. Whatkind of en- pleasure reading. But, conversely, the longer
joyment do you get out of books like that?"An- the passage on which the measurementis made
swers to this question by the 33 ludic readers (or the longer the reading time allowed), the
yielded the self-reportdatareviewedin Study5. smaller the effect of within-textflexibility.

CAo- leOO 0 0 -
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t 00 0 0 00 r- c C\
0"0 mc:0 -0 CJ Jc
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70-
*\ *t *t3t
rc
o 00 0
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I I-
0* *
00
Ol*
el 0
k3t~tV
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For the 129 students, mean RCS was 221 time (Table1) suggests that these variablesmay
(SD = 73); their raw reading speed was 238 be indirectlytappingthe strengthof the motives
words per minute (WPM). This figure is in to engage in and to continue ludic reading,
good agreement with college student reading which is most often book reading.
ratesreportedelsewhere (Harris, 1968; Jackson
& McClelland, 1979). Many ludic readerswill, Conclusions.In any society in which read-
however, read considerably faster than 238 ing is a common and early-acquiredskill, it is
WPM, as shownby the RCS of 387 obtainedby not possible to carry out a study in which read-
the 33 ludic readers in the present study, and ing ability is manipulatedas the independent
their mean naturalreading speed of 412 WPM variable, while age, intelligence, and education
(Study2). are held constant.Accordingly,no causal infer-
ences can be drawn about the strong positive
Reading speed and ludic reading. Table 1 correlationsbetween readingspeed, book read-
presents the intercorrelationsof the 14 varia- ing time and quantity,and book readingmotiva-
bles. ReadingComprehensionSpeed correlates tion. Higher reading comprehension speeds
with more variables and at ratherhigher levels may be a preconditionfor ludic reading,or they
of significance than raw reading speed, indica- may developas a consequenceof it. For reading
ting that even the small correctionfor compre- instruction,it is clearly importantto determine
hension accuracy enhanced this measure's whether there is an RCS above which ludic
relationalfertility.RCS correlatedsignificantly reading usually develops, and below which it
with time spent reading books (r = .34, p < does not, and to throw more light on the direc-
.001) and numberof books read (r = .33, p < tion of the relations between reading compre-
.001). hension speed and ludic reading.
The near-zero correlations between RCS
and the measures of reading of magazines and Between-group differences
newspapersdo not supportthe view that these Table 2 gives means and standarddevia-
are preferredby slowerreaders;on the contrary, tions for the principal subject subgroups, and
newspaperand magazine reading appearto be for all subjectscombined. Thereare severalma-
unrelatedto readingability. jor findings. First, irrespectiveof careeror lan-
Book choice decision time, with one excep- guage differences, females spend more time
tion, generatedno significant correlationswith reading books than males; these differences
the other variables. On the other hand, its carry over to other readinghabit variables;and
operationalized analog, sorting time, related college males, of both language groups, read
significantly to the reading speed measures, to fewerbooks and for less time thanthe rest of the
book readingtime and quantity,andto the Frus- sample. The fastestreadersare the English uni-
trationIndex. versity females (RCS = 254), and the slowest
The FrustrationIndexis stronglycorrelated are the college Afrikaans males (175). The
with book reading time, but quite unrelatedto former read ludic books for longer every day
magazine and newspaper reading time. This (165 minutes)than the whole group (125 min),
may be interpretedto mean that newspaperand and the latterfor very much less time (53 min),
magazine readers are less dependent on their thus furthersupportingthe strong relations al-
reading matter than book readers, who feel ready noted between book readingand reading
readingdeprivationmore keenly and take more ability.
vigorous action to end it. Perhaps the Second, the FrustrationIndex is higher for
eighteenth-century critics were correct when those groups that spend more time reading
they comparednovel readingto tippling:Novels books, and lower for those who spend less time
are addictive, whereasnewspapersare not! The on books. Again, it is strikingthat heavy book-
fact that both the FrustrationIndex and reading readers seem to be more dependent on their
span are most strongly relatedto book reading readingthanthose who readbooks less.

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Third, there is no supportin these figures can'treplaythe enjoyableparts,or see it at my

for the substitutive hypothesis-that is, that ownpace.
book reading is reciprocallyrelatedto newspa-
Much reading rate variability research,
per and magazine reading. On the contrary, such as Carver's(1983) work in supportof his
book reading time decreases as either newspa-
per or magazinereadingtime decreases. rauding theory, relates to movement between
texts of varying difficulty. For ludic reading,
within-textflexibility is of greaterinterest, and
this is most convenientlymeasuredas a flexibil-
STUDY 2 ity ratio, arrived at by dividing the reading
Reading Speed VariabilityDuring speed (in WPM) for the fastest-readpassage by
that for the slowest-read passage. Eanet and
Natural Reading Meeks (1979) found that the mean flexibility
for three proficient readers reading a science
Readersoften describe their readingas if it passage was 55 %, which converts to a ratio of
were eating. Holland remarks that "of all the 1.55. Justand Carpenter(1980) foundthatgaze
differentlevels of fantasyin literature,the oral durationsfor contentwords in a single sentence
is the most common" (1968/1975, p. 38). varied from 267 to 1,566 msec, a ratio of 5.86,
Books are said to taste good ("I rolled a phrase and Rayner(1978) reportsa ratioof 5.13.
on my tongue and it tastedbetterthanthe wine": However, none of this evidence is directly
Maugham, 1934/1970, p. 337) or bad ("In applicableto an investigationof ludic reading,
some ways it's a horriblelittle book, like over- which requiresthe studyof skilled readersread-
brewed tea": T.E. Lawrence in Cohen & Co- ing long, continuous, and readily compre-
hen, 1971). As books taste, so are they eaten. hended texts of their own choice under
The involved reader savors the text, moving response-freeconditions. It is importantto de-
slowly to get its full richness (Hilgard, 1979); termine whether such readersdo indeed "bolt"
"hungrier"readersmay bolt their readinglike a and "savor,"thus generatingsubstantialwithin-
dog its food, tasting little but enjoying the text flexibility, or whether they read at the in-
quickly attainedsensation of fullness: "Toread variant pace that Huey described after
without reflection is like eating without diges- observingthe readingof a continuoustext:
tion"(EdmundBurke, in Peter, 1982).
If skilled readersdo indeed move freely be- Thereadersshoweda strongrhythmictendency.
tween bolting text and savoring it, substantial Eachwouldfallintoa readingpacethatseemed
within-textflexibilitywouldarise duringnatural mostnaturalto him, andwouldthenreadpage
ludic reading.Unlike entertainmentmedia such after page in almost exactly the same time.
as TV or radioprograms, in which presentation Quiteusuallythedifferencesfrompageto page
wouldnotbe overthreeor fourseconds(1908/
pace is controlled by the producerratherthan 1968,p. 175).
the user, the pace of leisure reading is under
sole controlof the reader.Readersmay well ex-
ercise this control to linger over the hero's ar-
rival at police headquarters,or to race through Method
a beautiful sunset after the murder. Readers'
Subjects
subjective reports indicate that they greatly
prize their control of readingpace. One of the Subjects were the 33 ludic readers de-
scribed in Study 1.
subjectsin this study wrote,
I can reada bookat my ownpace, I canputit Materials
downwheneverI like, andI canalwaysgo back Ludic reading vehicle. A letter mailed to
to it. A moviecan'tbe switchedoff- samewith subjects asked each to come to the first labora-
TV-but perhapsthe most importantof all, I tory session with three books of the kind he or

she usually read that promisedto be especially control for comprehension,because this would
enjoyable. To ensurethatthis criterionwas met, have created an attentional set incompatible
I asked subjectsto sample the first 50 pages of with ludic reading. Indeed, pleasure reading
each book until they had found threebooks "that withoutcomprehensionis scarcely conceivable,
you regardas offering the best reads you have so that each reader'senjoymentcan be seen as
had for some time."During intake, subjects as- evidence for adequatecomprehension.
signed an expected enjoyment rating to each Each subject participatedin two identical
book. The highest-rated was set aside for the laboratorysessions a day apart,the first for ha-
second, criterion, laboratorysession; the low- bituationand the second for datarecording.
est-ratedwas returnedto the subject;and the re-
mainingbook was used in the first session. Timing.In the laboratory,subjectslay with
their backs to an observationwindow, through
ReadingMood Questionnaires.The first of which page numberscould be noted, and beside
these, incorporatingthe Reading Habits Ques- a mirror which showed the unmistakableup-
tionnaire described in Study 1, was adminis- ward saccade that brought the subject's gaze
teredbefore the first laboratorysession; another from the bottomof a left-handpage to the top of
followed the second laboratorysession. In both, a right-handpage. Completionof a right-hand
readersassigned enjoyment ratings to various page was of course indicatedby the turningof a
kinds of readingexperience, anchoredto a "best page. Timing was based on readingstakenfrom
book"question: the digital counterof an Ampex 2200 16-chan-
nel tape recorder,and was subject to a noncu-
Thinkof themostenjoyablereadingexperience mulative maximum error of 6.2 sec per page.
you'vehad duringthe past year or two. Take The worst effect this inaccuracycould have had
yourtime, andwhenyoufeel ready,tell me the is if all the fastest pages were read 6.2 sec
titleof the book.Don'tanswertill youfeel sure
slower, and all the slowest 6.2 sec faster. The
youhaveidentifiedthe bookthatgaveyouyour effect of such a worst-casesituationon the data
mostenjoyablereadingexperience.
in Table3 would be to leave 11 of the 30 readers
Subjectswere then asked to recountan epi- with a flexibility ratio larger than 2, still sub-
sode they remembered especially vividly, to stantiallybetterthanthe .05 chance level.
which an enjoyment rating of 100% was as-
signed. The scale was elaboratedby asking sub-
jects to rate well-remembered passages in a Results and Discussion
very recently readbook, a book readunderdis-
tracting circumstances, and the three books Natural reading and reading
brought to the first laboratorysession. In this in the laboratory
way, generalizations about reading enjoyment In the laboratory, subjects had 11 elec-
were avoided, and reading pleasure was tied trodes affixed to their persons (see Figure 4 in
back to a subjectively unambiguousscale, an- Study 4), somewhat constraining movement,
chored to remembered episodes in specified and there was considerableintrusivenovelty in
books. the situation, such as TV cameras and white
noise. Under these circumstances,it seems un-
Procedure likely thatreaderswould regardeven the second
The page-by-page reading speed of the 33 of the two laboratoryreadingperiods as equiva-
ludic readerswas monitoredfor 30 minutesdur- lent to naturalreading.However,in the Reading
ing the second laboratorysession. Reading in Mood Questionnaireseach subjectwas asked to
the laboratorybegan a few lines before the point make a series of directcomparisonsbetweenhis
at which the trial reading of the subject'smost or her usual ludic readingexperiencesand read-
preferred book had stopped, usually at about ing in the laboratory,and resultsshowedno sig-
page 50. In this study no attemptwas made to nificant difference between the most enjoyable

Table 3 Readingcomprehensionspeed perience of being able to lose themselves in a

(RCS), meanlaboratoryreading book, even undercompromisingconditions.
speed (in WPM), and flexibility
ratiofor 30 ludic readers Within-text flexibility
Table3 gives the RCS on the pre-laboratory
Mean Pages WPM Ratio test (Study 1) and the mean laboratoryreading
Subjecta RCS Lab Read (High/
Speed in Lab High Low Low) speed in words per minute during the 30 min-
utes of laboratory reading for each of the 30
202 281 345 19 420 229 1.83 subjects for whom complete data were availa-
203 521 543 39 735 396 1.85 ble, and the numberof pages each read. Read-
204 340 289 22 430 215 2.00
205 314 267 23 394 201 1.96 ing speeds for the fastest- and slowest-read
206 - 456 30 868 261 3.32 pages are then given, followedby the flexibility
107 378 375 24 463 304 1.52 ratio. It should be noted that reading speeds
208 348 344 25 697 246 2.83 were computedby counting the actual number
209 493 420 28 714 293 2.43 of words on each page read by the subject, so
111 - 492 32 922 189 4.87
112 582 598 47 1071 363 2.95 that speeds were not inflated by partialpages.
113 283 397 28 593 312 1.90 The mean flexibility ratio for the 30 subjects is
214 314 356 22 486 181 2.68 2.63, with a rangeof 1.46 to 7.79, indicativeof
215 331 329 22 424 238 1.78 a greatdeal of flexibilityduringnaturalreading.
116 388 312 28 485 198 2.44
118 695 794 58 1824 234 7.79 Figures 2 and 3 plot page-by-page reading
119 399 350 19 442 294 1.50 speeds for two readers. Figure 2 vividly illus-
220 472 921 62 2214 457 4.84 trates the degree of within-text flexibility that
221 261 316 25 489 269 1.81 may occur in natural reading, and Figure 3
222 364 365 26 606 243 2.49 shows that high speed (598 WPM) may be
223 247 386 27 655 202 3.24
124 536 427 28 1033 283 5.08 paired with moderateflexibility (2.95). None-
226 310 380 20 536 306 1.75 theless, Table3 also shows thatlower flexibility
127 412 550 48 835 361 2.31 ratios tend to be associated with lower reading
228 - 294 19 461 210 2.19
129 290 174 9 211 129 1.63
speeds: The 5 readerswith a mean speed below
230 244 384 16 656 283 2.31
300 WPM have a mean flexibility ratioof 1.89,
132 537 376 32 589 232 2.53 well below the samplemean of 2.63. Moreover,
133 203 366 20 516 258 2.00 reading speed and flexibility ratio are strongly
234 311 439 25 470 320 1.46 correlated,r(28) = .69, p < .001.
236 201 216 17 196 115 1.70
M 387 409 28 - - 2.63 Savoring
Do readers"savor"passages they most en-
aThefirstdigit indicatesgender(1 for malesand2 for females),and
the nexttwo digitsthe sequencein which subjectswere runin the joy by readingthem more slowly? In the post-
laboratory,which is the orderin which they arepresentedhere. laboratoryReading Mood Questionnaire,each
readerwas asked to identify the most-likedpas-
sage in the book read in the laboratory.For the
recent reading experience and reading in the 29 subjectsfor whom completedatawere avail-
laboratory,t(64) = 0.89, n.s., or between the able, mean readingspeed on the 113 pages they
extent of readinginvolvementin the laboratory specified as most liked was 394 WPM (SD =
and outside it, t(64) = 1.19, n.s. Moreover, 140), and on the 534 other pages it was 479
awarenessof distractionswas judged as signifi- WPM (SD = 245). The difference is signifi-
cantly less duringreadingin the laboratorythan cant, t(56) = 3.55, p < .01. Withthe available
during readingunder distractingcircumstances data, it is not possible to determinewhetherthe
outside the laboratory,t(64) = 2.83, p < .01. slowing on most-liked passages arose because
These findings, though at first sight surprising, of a reductionin readingrate, or because these
are compatiblewith ludic readers'everydayex- passages were rereadonce or more.

Figure 2
Subject220: High speed, high variability
2000
1200-
- - LAWBATORY
MEAN
SPEED
40-0 MOST
LIKED
PA-
--GE - - pA F,
55 75 105
•5
iii.....
85 I I 95 I zzz 1li5
ii ii
Figure 3
Subject 112: High speed, low variability
1000
A----MEAN
A - .LABORATORY
600 =- = ? . '-- - -PEED["" - =
400- - - -MOST
LIKED
"PAGES
200
PAGE
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110

It is strikingthat the standarddeviationon ess is not a free interactionbetween the skilled

the mean readingratefor most-likedpages is al- reader and the universe of reading matter
most half thatfor otherpages. It is possible that (Berelson, 1958; Chandler, 1973; Holbrook,
a good deal of the ludic reader'swithin-passage 1972). Readers are consumers of popular cul-
flexibility arises from moving into skimmingor ture (Lewis, 1978) and select their readingmat-
near-skimmingfor less-enjoyedpassages. If, as ter within the constraintsof a value system that,
seems likely, this were to cease when savoring, in most Westernsocieties, does not look kindly
the lower variabilityof reading speed in most- on the readingof fiction for pleasure. The six-
liked passages wouldbe explained. teenth-centuryProtestantreformationimposed
a revolutionary restructuring on the Western
Rauding and skimming conscience with regard to the proper use of
The upper limit at which readingwith full time, the importanceof work, and the sinful-
comprehensionof each thought(rauding)stops ness of pleasure. Squanderingtime and money
and some kind of partialreadingbegins is vari- on profaneworksof fiction for pleasurereading
ously estimatedat between 600 (Carver, 1972) is therefore an offense against every aspect of
and 800 WPM (Harris, 1968). If the lower of the Protestantethic (Weber, 1904/1965), and it
these figures is used, 11 of our readers (35%) is to these roots that we must trace the moraliz-
moved from raudingto skimmingin the course ing tone in which reading by "themasses"has
of their pleasure reading. Because the primary been condemned from the late eighteenthcen-
vehicle for ludic reading is formulaic fiction turyto the present.Taylor(1943) has assembled
(Cawelti, 1976)-that is, long, continuoustexts a book-lengthcollection of such condemnations
of moderatedifficulty (Kwolek, 1973) and high ("indulgence of sloth & hatred of vacancy,"
predictability-"bolting" the text is feasible, be- "beggarly day-dreaming");remarkably,some
cause experienced readershave little difficulty modern criticisms of reading for pleasureecho
capturingthe gist of the materialby skimming many of these sentiments(Mott, 1960; Pearce,
it. For example, Subject 206 wrote that she 1974) and even amplifythem (the emotions"be-
loves reading Silhouette romances "because come loose and deliquescent... and the un-
they'reso thin and go so fast. When it's boring aroused brain degenerates": Davis, 1973, p.
youjust turnover and go on because in any case 17). I have explored elsewhere the impact of
you know how it will turnout." thesejudgmentson public librarypolicy andthe
emergence of new critical trendsthatare under-
Conclusions
mining the elitist absolutes (Nell, 1985). In the
The data indicate that within-text flexibil- United States, though the ascendancy of cul-
ity, however achieved,is a predictableaccompa- tural relativism ("indiscriminatenessis a moral
niment of pleasure reading, and bring into imperative":Bloom, 1987, p. 30) may tempo-
question the view that naturalreadingproceeds rarily have obscured the tension between elite
at a constantpace. On the contrary,it seems that and popular culture, this tension is part of the
a markof the ludic readeris within-textreading fabric of American criticism (Bloom, 1987;
ratevariability. Fish, 1980) and remainsa core issue in cultural
value judgments and in public library policy
(Nell, in press; Schroeder,1981).
STUDY3 The pervasively negative judgments of
Readers' Rankings of Books for their favoredleisure activity affect the ways lu-
dic readers see their own readinghabit. When
Preference, the 33 ludic readers in this study were asked
Merit, and Difficulty what percentageof theirpleasurereadingwould
be ratedas "trash"by a suitably austere repre-
Although ludic readers see themselves as sentative of elite culture, such as their high
readingwhat they like, the book selection proc- school English teacher, their mean rating was

42.6% (SD = 26); 12 subjects rated 75% or Method

more of their pleasure reading as trash. It is a
strange reflection on our culture that pleasure Subjects
reading,so zealously inculcatedby school read- Three subject groups took part in these
ing programs,may later be judged by the prod- studies.
ucts of this educationas aestheticallyworthless,
in society's eyes if not their own. In a variety of Students. These are the 129 students de-
idiosyncraticways (Nell, 1985), readersresolve scribed in Study 1.
the dissonance (Festinger, 1957) between the
Librarians.There were two ratherdifferent
cognitions that, althoughone believes oneself to
have good taste, the reading matter one most groups of librarians.Twenty-threeheld posts as
professionallibrarians in areassuch as book se-
enjoys is trash.
lection, cataloging, and referencelibrarianship.
Despite these condemnations,readersseem Of these, 18 were BBib (Bachelorof LibrarySci-
to know quite clearly what they want to read:
The bestseller phenomenon and the universal ence) graduates,three held a graduatedegree in
appetite for narrative(Nell, in press) combine Librarianship,and only two, though graduates
to suggest that a ludic continuum might exist (BA and BA Honors), had no professionalquali-
that is relativelyinvariantacross taste and even fication in librarianship.Among these profes-
national cultures. In other words, it is possiblesionals, the 5 most senior were the book
that if the same 100 books were translatedfrom selectors, whose job it was to place book pur-
their original languages into Japanese, French, chase orders, relying partly on their own judg-
and Hebrew, and rankedon a ludic continuum ment and partly on reports from readers
by the citizens of Tokyo, Paris, and Tel Aviv, employed by the library service. The second
these ratings would show a statisticallysignifi- group comprised21 branch library assistants;
cant correlationwith one another. although 10 were BA graduatesin a variety of
fields, none held any librarianshipqualification,
and 11 othershad only a high school education.
Hypotheses Among these latterwere 5 assistantswith an av-
The series of studies reportedin this sec- erage of 7 years'experience. It will be useful to
tion aimed to determinewhethera ludic contin- contrastthis small
group of 5 "privates,"in the
uum could be demonstrated across two taste front line of library users'
questions and com-
cultures (Gans, 1974), and to determine plaints, with the 5 book selector "generals,"en-
whetherthe Protestantethic convictionthatpain joying comfortableback-linestatus.
and virtue are constant companions (and that, Behind these educational and professional
therefore, the best medicine tastes the worst: differences, however, there was considerable
Nell, 1985) would lead ludic readersto arrange homogeneityamong the librarians:All 44 were
works of fiction in a literarymerit sequencethat female, and all but 2 were
Afrikaans-speaking
is the inverse of their own ludic readingprefer- and had been educated in the Calvinist funda-
ence sequence. For the same reason, it was hy- mentalist traditionof the schools and universi-
pothesized that merit and difficulty rankings ties of the TransvaalProvinceof SouthAfrica.
would be closely related. Also, because both
the Fog Index and cloze measuresof readability Literary critics. Because of their training
claim to determine "ease of reading" (Chall, and experience, the 14 university English lec-
1958, p. 6) and thus seem likely to predict turers may be designated as professional crit-
readerinterest(Beyard-Tyler& Sullivan, 1980; ics, trained to distinguish between "literature"
Owens, Bower,& Black, 1979), it was hypothe- and "trash,"and also to make finer qualitative
sized that readability score rankings on both distinctions within the domain of literature-
measureswould be significantlycorrelatedwith perhaps by means of techniques such as those
readers'preferenceand merit rankings. advocatedby the New Critics (Richards, 1929/

1956) or the New Readers(Fish, 1980). Of the Presentation. A two-digit random number
14, 11 were membersof the faculty of the Uni- was allocatedto each extract, and extractswere
versity of SouthAfrica (UNISA); 6 were female presentedto subjects in a randomnumbersse-
and 5 male, and 2 held PhD degrees. The 3 oth- quence, and anonymously. Here, anonymity
ers, 2 with PhDs, were middle-aged males on was necessary not-as in Richard'sfamous ex-
the facultyof the small Universityof PortEliza- ercise in practical criticism (1929)-to show
beth (UPE). that trained minds could unerringlydetect the
qualityof literariness,but to determinewhether
Materials both trained and untrained minds shared the
Though no manageable sample of written same ludic readingtastes. The extractswere ac-
materialscan claim to representthe universe of cordinglytyped, and the wordshe or she substi-
reading matter, 30 books were selected to re- tuted for giveaways like James Bond or Mrs.
flect the main dimensionsand categoriesof En- Marple. Three specimen extracts-the most
glish-language reading matter. The Reading preferred,least preferred,and one rankedmid-
Preference Test comprised short extractsfrom way between these extremes-together with a
these 30 books. Because of time constraints, list of the sources from which the extractswere
each extractwas limitedto 20 typewrittenlines. drawn are reproducedin AppendixesA and B.
The complete set of 30 extracts is available
Categories. The selection categories were from the author.
fiction/nonfiction, genre (in the sense of a cer-
tain kind of subjectmatterthatdefines a style ofProcedure
literature), and historical period. In terms of Representativenessof extracts. No single
market share, nonfiction should have com- brief extract can be fully representative of a
prised 84% of the sample (Simora, 1980), or 25 complete book, and it was necessary to deter-
items. But fiction is the primaryvehicle for lu-mine whether, despite their anonymity and
dic reading, and only 7 nonfiction items were brevity, the extracts remained valid as repre-
included, of which 4 were textbooks(Codes 53, sentatives of the books from which they were
83, 17, 23), and 3 (63, 77, 43) were narrative drawn. Accordingly,39 of the librarianswere
nonfiction (Wolfe, 1975). The fiction genres also asked to rank21 actualbooks (2 fiction ti-
represented were crime-and-violence (encom- tles were unavailablein multiple copies) in se-
passing such subgenresas espionage, sex-and- quence of likely frequency of issue. The
sadism, gun-for-hire,etc.), Western,romance, questionof how well a single extractcan repre-
humor, and detective. Variations in period, sent an entire book was furtherprobed by in-
with their changes in diction, were represented cluding two extracts from the same book,
by including 5 works that spanned the nine- Hailey's Money Changers. Item 55 describes
teenth century(14, 76, 20, 46, 11). the detectionof fraud, and Item 84 is a detailed
description of an act of torture. Though mark-
Dimensions. The principal dimensions of
edly dissimilar, both extracts are by the same
variance were literary merit, difficulty, and hand, and both relate to central themes in the
trancepotential, defined as readers'perception novel.
of the powerof a book to carrythem off to other
worlds. For each of the three dimensions, the Preferencerankings. The 30-item Reading
poles at either extreme were well represented, Preference Test was presentedto the students
and a conscientiouseffort was made to provide and critics with the following instruction:
moderate variability across the midrange 20
items, to emulate the variability range from Imagineyouhavejustcomehomeaftera long
which library users customarilymake their se- and difficultday.Youhavean houror so free
lections. beforesupper.There'snothingyouwouldrather
do thancurlup witha goodbook, havea good
read- andforgetyourtroubles.

Fromthe pack, choosethe book you would Difficultyrankings.This task was presented
mostliketo relaxwith-andthebookyouwould to the 21 branch library assistants as follows:
leastlike to relaxwith.Thenarrangethe other
pagesin theorderof yourpreference. The 30 extractsyou havein frontof you vary
considerably in difficulty.Someareveryeasyto
To make the task easier, a methodadaptedfrom read,andothersareveryhard.Pleasesortthese
the Q-sort (Stephenson, 1967) was used: As extractsintoa difficultyorder,so thattheeasiest
noted in Study 1, subjects were asked first to areon topandthemostdifficultatthebottom.
sort the extracts into four categories, and then
to rankthe extractsin each category. This two- Readabilityscores. Readabilityscores were
stage ranking procedure was used for all the computedby a formulameasureand by a cloze
rankingtasks describedbelow. procedurefor each of the 30 extracts. The for-
For the librarians, the task was framed in mula used in the presentstudy is the Fog Index
terms of frequency of issue ("the most likely (Gunning, 1952). The Fog Index is based on
borrowerdemandfor each of these books").Be- sentence and word length (in order to identify
cause of their place in the social value system, the kind of writing that "fogs understanding":
librarians'judgmentsof borrowerbehaviorwere Gunning, 1964, p. 2-2), and it correlates well
regardedas more interestingthantheir personal with other formulameasures. Fog Index scores
preferences. It must be noted that this is not a were calculatedas the mean of scores on the two
projective test, because taste at variance with contiguous 100-wordpassages in each extract.
one's own can readily be attributedto the bor- For the cloze procedure (Taylor,1953), the 13
rowing public ("I can't stand Westerns,but the subjects were aged between 25 and 45; all had
kids take out nothingelse"). completed 12 years of schooling, and 9 of the
13 had university degrees or diplomas. Seven
Merit rankings. This task was given after were male, and 6 female. Six of these subjects
the preferencerankingshad been completedand also completed preference rankings; 3 were
the five nonfiction items (63, 53, 83, 17, 23) men and 3 women, and 5 of the 6 were univer-
had been removed from the pack. Instructions sity graduates. Cloze materials were prepared
to the students were as follows: by leaving intact the first five lines of each of
the 30 extracts, and deleting the fifth word of
Theliteraryqualityof the25 extractsin frontof the first new sentence
commencing on or after
youvariesconsiderably. Someareof thehighest
the sixth and each fifth word thereafter,
literaryquality,and othersare absolutetrash. line,
Yourtaskis to sortthese25 extractsintoa merit until a total of 20 words had been deleted.
sequence, withthoseof thehighestmerit on top
andthe trashiesttrashat the bottomof the pile
youmake.
For the librarians, the task was again framedin
terms of professionalratherthan personaljudg- Results and Discussion
ments:
Books and extracts
Popularfictionis notnecessarilygoodfiction- Table 4 shows that for the librarianswho
andmostlibrarians feelthatit is partof theirjob sorted both books and extractsinto
to lead adultreadersawayfromtrashand to- likely issue
frequency sequence, the extracts were indeed
wardsthe enjoymentof good books.Now sup-
valid representativesof the books from which
poseyouweregiventheopportunity of shelving
thebooksin thefictionsectionof yourlibraryin they were drawn, in that the popularitypredic-
a gradedsequence,leadingreadersfrom the tions made by sampling the brief 20-line ex-
trashiestbooks("rubbish")... to progressively tracts were significantly correlated with those
moreworthwhilefictionuntilthey were ready made in the presence of the copious extrinsic
... to enjoygoodliterature. cues providedby the book's cover design, title,

24 QUARTERLY * Winter1988
Table 4 Rankordercorrelationcoefficients(Spearman'srho) for librarians'mean rankingof

extractsand of books in orderof frequencyof issue
ExtractRanking Book Ranking

Itemsa rho pb
Subjects n Subjects n
All librarians 44 Professionallibrarians 10 19 .52 .05

All librarians 44 Branchlibraryassistants 21 21 .74 .001
Seniorbook selectors("Generals") Withthemselves 5 19 .65 .01
Experiencedbranchassistants("Privates") Withthemselves 5 21 .53 .05
aNumberof itemscompared. p.
bTwo-tailed
Table 5 Concordancecoefficients(Kendall'sW)for meanpreferenceand meritrankingsof

variousgroups
Subjects n Itemsa W X2
PREFERENCE
RANKINGS
Students
All students 129 30 .29 1067.7
UniversityFemaleEnglish 34 30 .39 389.4
UniversityFemaleAfrikaans 10 30 .42 124.1
UniversityMale English 14 30 .30 122.4
UniversityMale Afrikaans 5 30 .50 86.2
TechnicalCollege FemaleEnglish 3 30 .65 56.5**
TechnicalCollege Male English 36 30 .39 407.8
TechnicalCollege Male Afrikaans 19 30 .33 184.0
Universitystudentsin 1976 27 30 .35 277.5
Universitystudentsin 1978 27 30 .36 284.8
Librarians
Rankingof extracts 44 30 .52 670.2
Rankingof extracts 21 30 .54 334.0
Rankingof books 21 21 .73 295.5
Rankingof books 10 18 .89 151.2
Literary critics
UNISA Englishlecturers 11 30 .58 187.91
MERIT RANKINGS
UNISA Englishlecturers 10 25 .52 126.16
Englishstudents 27 25 .63 411.04
Professionallibrarians 23 25 .40 221.96
Branchlibraryassistants 21 22 .34 150.95
aNumberof itemsranked.
*All X2valuessignificantatp < .001, except **p < .01.

author,and publisher.(On the role of the cover Thoughthe limitedcultural diversityof the
in establishinga book'stone andmarket,see Pe- subject samples precludedtesting of the broad,
tersen, 1975.) cross-culturalform of the ludic continuumhy-
pothesis, the marked differences in language
Within- and across-group ranking patterns and values between the studentsubgroups, and
Table 5 gives Kendall'scoefficient of con- between these and the librarians,do allow ex-
cordance (W) for merit and preferencerankings aminationof ludic agreement across taste cul-
by the three subjectsgroups and the subgroups. tures. Table 6 shows that there is wide
Though some absolutevalues of W are low, in- agreement about what constitutes a good read
dicating considerableintragrouprankingvaria- across language, gender, and career choice dif-
bility, all except one are significant at the .001 ferences. This is especically striking in the
level of probability,indicatingthat group mem- higher correlationsbetween the predominantly
bers'rankingsare in strikingagreement. English-speakingstudents from Port Elizabeth
Table 6 Rankordercorrelationmatrix(Spearman'srho) for meanpreferencerankingsof various

groups
University TechnicalCollege
Subjects n Female Male Female Male
Eng Afr Eng Afr Eng Eng Afr
All students 129 .50** .37** .86*** .83*** .81*** .88** .92***
Universitystudents
Female
English 34 .81*** .50** .23 .56** .18 .27
Afrikaans 10 .45* .18 .49** .08 .19
Male
English 14 .76*** .60*** .74*** .75***
Afrikaans 5 .54** .87*** .84***
Tech. college students
Female
English 3 .61*** .78***
Male
English 36 .92***
Afrikaans 19
Subjects n All students
All librarians 44 .89***

Seniorbook selectors 5 .77**
("Generals")
Experiencedbranch 5 .74***
assistants("Privates")
"*p< .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

26 READINGRESEARCH *
QUARTERLY Winter
1988 XXIII/1
Table 7a Stepwise clusters in the mean preferencerankingsof 30 extractsby 129 students

Rank Step Range
Rank Cluster to within Book Author Genre
order M SD no. next cluster code
STUDENTS
1 8.81 6.9 1 1.1 - 98 WilburSmith Warand love
2 9.97 6.7 2 1.5 4.5 29 AynRand Humandrama

3 10.43 6.4 44 GrahamGreene Humandrama
4 10.88 7.2 51 PeterO'Donnel Crime and violence
5 10.95 6.8 86 Ian Fleming Crime and violence
6 11.77 8.1 85 ArthurHailey Crime and violence
(tortureextract)
7 12.22 9.1 13 Gavin Lyall Crime and violence
8 12.34 7.2 30 AgathaChristie Detective
9 12.82 7.7 52 SomersetMaugham Humandrama
(fraudextract)
11 13.22 7.2 71 James Michener Humandrama
12 13.34 7.5 62 Essie Summers Romance
13 13.37 7.8 43 HunterThompson Narrativenonfiction
14 13.93 8.2 38 Louis L'Amour Western
15 14.08 7.1 76 Joseph Conrad Humannature
16 14.11 8.6 16 Denise Robins Romance
17 14.40 6.6 36 RichardGordon Humor
18 14.44 8.9 22 JamesJoyce Humannature
19 15.95 6.4 3 2.6 0.7 66 DjunaBarnes Humannature

20 16.16 6.8 46 Henry James Humannature
21 16.22 8.8 11 HermanMelville Humannature
22 16.33 8.9 14 Jane Austen Humannature
23 16.53 7.7 49 Saul Bellow Humannature
24 16.66 7.2 20 CharlesDickens Humandrama
25 19.27 7.2 4 5.1 0.6 77 David Ogilvie Narrativenonfiction

26 19.87 7.8 63 LorenFessler Narrativenonfiction
27 24.90 6.3 5 - 1.4 83 Gray'sAnatomy Textbook:concrete

28 25.05 5.6 17 FranklinMoore Textbook:concrete
29 25.16 5.6 53 HarrisonGough Textbook:abstract
30 26.31 5.1 23 NathanRotenstreich Textbook:abstract
and the Pretoria librarians, who, as we have Preference ranking and preference clusters
noted, are a conservative, Afrikaans-speaking Tables7a and 7b give the mean rankorder
group. There are also some striking nonagree- assigned to each of the 30 extractsby students
ments. The two groups of universitywomen are and librarians in rank order sequence. The
especially idiosyncratic, agreeing with one an- genre categories in the table are self-explana-
other'schoices but not with the universityAfri- tory, except perhapsfor humandrama and hu-
kaansmales or with any of the technicalcollege man nature. By the formeris meanta character
males. Both these female groups agree more study which is carried by a strong narrative
stronglywith the technicalcollege females than line, allowingthe workto be readon two levels,
with the university English males, suggesting as an adventureand as a study of behavior. In
that gender differences may override language the latter,however,the focus is on characterit-
and value differences. self ratherthan on narrative,so that the story-

Table 7b Stepwise clustersin the mean preferencerankingsof 30 extractsby 44 librarians

Rank Step Range
Rank Cluster to within Book Author Genre
order M SD no. next cluster code
LIBRARIANS
1 6.3 4.7 1 1.1 2.2 13 Gavin Lyall Crime and violence
2 7.2 5.3 98 WilburSmith Warand love
3 7.9 5.0 51 PeterO'Donnel Crime and violence
4 8.2 7.2 16 Denise Robins Romance
5 8.5 6.3 30 AgathaChristie Detective
6 9.6 7.0 2 2.1 4.3 85 ArthurHailey Crimeand violence

(tortureextract)
(fraudextract)
8 10.3 5.2 44 GrahamGreene Humandrama
9 10.3 6.4 86 Ian Fleming Crime and violence
10 11.3 5.7 29 Ayn Rand Humandrama
11 11.6 7.8 38 Louis L'Amour Western
12 12.1 6.6 43 HunterThompson Narrativenonfiction
13 12.2 7.2 62 Essie Summers Romance
14 12.5 6.9 71 James Michener Humandrama
15 13.5 6.6 46 HenryJames Humannature
16 13.9 7.8 52 SomersetMaugham Humandrama
17 16.0 7.7 3 2.0 3.8 14 JaneAusten Humannature

18 17.2 6.0 66 DjunaBarnes Humannature
19 17.2 6.9 22 JamesJoyce Humannature
20 17.5 6.3 49 Saul Bellow Humannature
21 18.2 5.9 36 RichardGordon Humor
22 18.2 5.4 76 Joseph Conrad Humannature
23 18.8 7.3 11 HermanMelville Humannature
24 19.8 5.6 20 CharlesDickens Humandrama
25 21.8 6.2 4 3.5 0.8 63 Loren Fessler Narrativenonfiction

26 22.6 4.9 77 David Ogilvie Narrativenonfiction
27 26.1 5.0 5 - 2.1 17 FranklinMoore Textbook:concrete

28 26.5 3.3 83 Gray'sAnatomy Textbook:concrete
29 27.4 2.6 53 HarrisonGough Textbook:abstract
30 28.2 2.2 23 NathanRotenstreich Textbook:abstract
seeking readeris soon disappointed. are 1.1, 1.5, 2.6, and 5.1; and for the librari-
Reference to the mean rank column indians, they are 1.1, 2.1, 2.0, and 3.5. For both
cates that the progressionfrom one rank to the groups, these steps are unambiguously larger
next is uneven: In some cases the difference is than the other rank-to-rankincrements in that
as little as 0.03, and in other cases as much as section of the rankorderin which they occur.
5.1 (see Ranks 12-13 and 26-27 in Table 7a). Among the students, the 18 extractsin the
By observing where the relatively larger steps first and second clusters include all the best-
from rank to rank occur, it is possible to sepa- sellers and genre works, and two twentieth-cen-
rate the 30 extractsinto rank clusters; the step tury classics. There is then a sharp step of 1.5
to next column indicates by how much the down to the next cluster, which takes in all the
mean rank is incrementedbetween that cluster nineteenth-century fiction, together with the
and the next. For the students,these increments near-classics, Bellow and Barnes. Narrative

nonfiction is well separated from this "heavy deviation on their rankingof this passage (7.0)
fiction"cluster by a step of 1.6: Despite Ogil- is almost identicalto that for the fraudpassage
vie's racy style and the bestseller performance (7.1). For the students,however,more ambiva-
of his Confessions, he is lumped together with lence attachedto the rankingof the torturepas-
Fessler's China. The largest step down (5.1) is sage (SD = 8.1) than the rankingof the fraud
to the textbook nonfiction, of which the con- passage (SD = 6.6), possibly reflecting the
crete material(anatomyand productioncontrol) moral conflict readersmay have felt about en-
appears to have been marginallymore accept- joying the reprehensible.
able to readers than the abstract (psychology In summary,the data show impressivesta-
and philosophy). bility of choice patternsacross importantmod-
Among the librarians, the nonfiction erator variables-age, gender, home language,
choice pattern(Ranks27 to 30) exactly follows and value system. But because of the limited
that of the students, and is indeed considerably cultural and linguistic diversity of the sample,
clearer, with a step of 0.9 separatingthe con- no conclusions can be drawn about the wider,
crete from the abstract.The narrativenonfiction cross-culturalstabilityof the ludic continuum.
fares equally badly, and above these, the clas-
sics now form a clear cluster,though, incongru- Merit, difficulty, and readability rankings
ously, Gordon's racy seafaring humor falls The availability of preference, merit, and
among these. It is strikingthat of the 16 items difficulty rankingsfor the same 30 extractsby a
falling into the librarians'first two clusters, all variety of different subject groups, in addition
except one are the same as the students'first 16 to two sets of readabilityscores, allows us to ad-
choices. dress questions about the impact of the social
The rankclusteringsuggests that, in select- value system (and especially the Protestant
ing reading matter,readersmay not attemptto ethic) on readers'perceptionsof literarymerit,
differentiatebetween all items in a bookshopor and the ways in which such meritjudgmentsare
library array,but instead may assign books to related to preferences, on the one hand, and
discrete classes of desirability, such that the perceiveddifficulty,on the other.
members of each class are largely undifferenti-
ated, whereas classes are clearly distinct from Intrinsicand extrinsicmerit criteria. Table
one another.It may be that clustering is essen- 5 shows thatmerit rankingshad high intragroup
tially dichotomous, separating books that are consistency (p < .01 for all Wvalues), and Ta-
desirable for leisure reading (here, the first 16 ble 8 shows that both professional critics and
to 18 items) from those that are undesirable- lay readers(studentsand librarians)rankedthe
namely, all or nearly all the classics, some of 25 fiction and near-fictionitems in significantly
the narrative nonfiction, and all the didactic similar merit sequences. This homogeneity
nonfiction. seems to mean that all groups shareda common
Table 7 shows that the student sample set of literary value judgments, and that the
ranked the two passages from The Money ability of the critics to distinguish good litera-
Changers(Items 55 and 85) within three places ture from trashis not an arcanegift, the product
of one another,whereasthe librarians,with the of their heightened sensitivity to textual quali-
clarity of vision given to those who judge others ties, but rather,an ability as universalas know-
ratherthan themselves, found the two passages ing the difference between a good story and a
to be virtually equivalent, placing the torture bad one. However,such a subversivededuction
extractin the 6th position, and the fraudextract might be incorrect. Groups such as the branch
7th. These near-equivalencessupportthe view library assistants who had only a high school
that brief extracts can reliably represent the education, for whom English was a second lan-
books from which they are taken. Also interest- guage, would have had very little exposure to
ing is the unanimityamongstlibrariansthat the the English classics or to elite style. If they and
torturepassage would be popular:The standard similar groups were, nonetheless, able to carry

Table 8 Rankordercorrelationcoefficients (Spearman'srho) for mean merit and preference

rankingsof various groups
Merit Ranking Merit Ranking
Subjects n Subjects n Itemsa rho p
UNISA English lecturers 10 UPE English lecturers 3 25 .88 .001

UNISA English lecturers 10 Professionallibrarians 23 25 .75 .001
UNISA English lecturers 10 Branchlibraryassistants 21 22 .51 .05
UNISA English lecturers 10 English students 27 25 .68 .001
UPE English lecturers 3 Senior book selectors ("Generals") 5 25 .66 .001
UPE English lecturers 3 Experiencedbranchassistants
("Privates") 5 25 .51 .05
UPE English lecturers 3 Professionallibrarians 23 25 .62 .001
UPE English lecturers 3 Senior professionallibrarians 10 25 .64 .001
UPE English lecturers 3 English students 27 25 .80 .001
Prof. librarianswith BBib degree 13 Prof. librarianswithoutBBib degree 9 22 .71 .001
Senior book selectors ("Generals") 5 Experiencedbranchassistants
("Privates") 5 22 .61 .01
Merit Ranking PreferenceRankingb
UPE English lecturers 3 All students 129 25 -.58 .001

UPE English lecturers 3 UniversityFemale English students 34 25 -.18 n.s.
UPE English lecturers 3 UniversityFemale Afrikaans
students 10 25 -.11 n.s.
UPE English lecturers 3 UniversityMale English students 14 25 -.57 .001
UPE English lecturers 3 UniversityMale Afrikaansstudents 5 25 -.72 .001
UPE English lecturers 3 Tech. College Female English
students 3 25 -.52 .01
UPE English lecturers 3 Tech. College Male English
students 36 25 -.84 .001
UPE English lecturers 3 Tech. College Male Afrikaans
students 19 25 -.73 .001
Professionallibrarians 23 All librarians 44 25 -.69 .001
Branchlibraryassistants 21 All librarians 44 25 -.46 .05
Prof. librarianswith BBib degree Withthemselves 13 25 -.64 .001
Prof. librarianswithoutBBib degree Withthemselves 9 25 -.03 n.s.
Senior book selectors ("Generals") Withthemselves 5 25 -.43 .05
Experiencedbranchassistants
("Privates") Withthemselves 5 25 -.08 n.s.
UNISA English lecturers Withthemselves 10 25 .90 .001
English students(1978) Withthemselves 27 11 -.63 .001
of itemscompared. bForthelibrarians,
aNumber thiswasanissuefrequency
ranking.
out merit rankings that matched those of the difficulty. The Protestantethic teaches that pain
critics (albeit at relativelylow rho values), they and virtue are constantcompanions, and there
may have drawnon a more accessible criterion are strong positive correlations between merit
thanthe complex and abstractconstructof liter- and difficulty rankings carried out by the
ary merit. A likely substitutecriterionmight be branchlibraryassistantswith only a high school

Table 9 Rankordercorrelationcoefficients Clearly, substitutingdifficulty for literary

(Spearman'srho) between Fog merit is improper,andwouldlead to the conclu-
Index rankingsand subjects'mean sion that the poetry of T.S. Eliot and a Chevro-
merit rankings let workshopmanual, being of equal difficulty,
are of equal merit. Increasedliterarysophistica-
Yrs. of tion mightthereforebe expectedto attenuatethe
Subjects n Degree School rho p
Librarians
spurious relationshipbetween merit and diffi-
Branchassistants culty. Table 9 makes use of the strong correla-
With high school tion between Fog Index readability scores
degree 9 h.s. 12 .53 .01 (reportedbelow) and subjects'difficulty rank-
Withuniversity
5
BAHons
BA 15 .43 .05
ings (rho = .71, p < .001, for the libraryas-
degree sistants) to suggest that this might be so: As
Professionallibrarians 23 BBib 16 .49 .05
Literarycritics
numberof years of educationincreases, correla-
UPE English tions between merit and difficulty tend to de-
lecturers 3 MA 19 .46 .05 cline.
UNISA English MA
lecturers 10 PhD 19 .35 n.s.
The best medicine tastes the worst. The
Note.df = 23. second part of Table 8 demonstratesa further
effect of values based on the Protestantethic-
namely, the belief that merit and preferenceare
inversely related:All 10 correlationcoefficients
are in the negativedirection, and of these, 8 are
significant, indicatingthat itemsjudged to have
education(rho = .78, p < .001), those with a more literarymeriteitherby professionalcritics
BA (.60, p < .01), and the "privates,"with a or by the subjects themselves were considered
high school degree but many years'experience to be less desirable for ludic reading. In rating
(.47, p < .05; df = 20 for all). the merit of their own relaxation preferences,
Table 10 Effects of educationon preference:Rankordercorrelationcoefficients (Spearman's

rho) for mean preferencerankingsof English studentsat initial testing and 2-year
follow-up
PreferenceRanking PreferenceRanking
English students 27 All students 129 30 .56 .01

(at first testing)
English students 27 All students 129 30 .37 .05
(at 2-yr. follow-up)
PreferenceRanking Merit Ranking
English students 27 UPE English lecturers 3 25 .19 n.s.

(at first testing)
English students 27 UPE English lecturers 3 25 .39 .01
(at 2-yr. follow-up)
aNumber
of itemscompared.

the 27 follow-up students, with a rho value of depravedand that literarymeritjudgmentsmay

-.63, also regardedthe materialthey prefer to therefore be derived from a mirror image of
relax with as devoid of merit. The librarians mass taste.
take a similarly pessimistic view of the public,
seeing preferenceas the inverse of merit. Effect of education on merit and
The data indicate that, for all subject preference rankings
groups, merit and preference rankings are in- The availabledata on the follow-up sample
versely related. The close association between of English studentsmay throwlight on an issue
difficulty and merit rankings supports the no- of interestto educators- namely,the effects of a
tion that these readers'value systems are under liberal arts educationon leisure readingprefer-
the sway of the Protestantethic conviction that ences andjudgmentsof literarymerit.
pain and virtue are allied. For some groups- The preference patterns of these 27 stu-
notablythose with libraryscience degrees- this dents were internally consistent both at initial
conviction seems to be supplementedby a so- testing and at follow-up 2 years later, with con-
cial pessimism which holds that mass taste is cordancesof .35 and .36 (p < .001 for both) in
Table 11 Extractsrankedfrom most to least readableby the cloze measureand the Fog Index
Cloze Ranking Rank Fog IndexRanking
Author Cloze SD Book Book Fog Author

score code code Index
CharlesDickens 14.08 1.94 20 1 51 5.20 PeterO'Donnel

SomersetMaugham 13.77 1.19 52 2 46 5.84 HenryJames
Louis L'Amour 12.69 2.02 38 3 30 5.90 AgathaChristie
Loren Fessler 12.08 2.30 63 4 44 6.64 GrahamGreene
Henry James 11.92 2.59 46 5 62 6.76 Essie Summers
"*Wilbur Smith 11.85 1.88 98 6 66 6.88 DjunaBarnes
"*JaneAusten 11.85 1.66 14 7 16 7.10 Denise Robins
David Ogilvie 11.69 1.98 77 8 86 7.26 Ian Fleming
Ayn Rand 11.54 1.60 29 9 71 7.55 James Michener
HunterS. Thompson 11.31 2.61 43 10 13 7.66 Gavin Lyall
RichardGordon 10.92 2.02 36 11 85 7.96 ArthurHailey (torture)
GrahamGreene 10.35 2.07 44 12 76 8.13 Joseph Conrad
Ian Fleming 10.46 3.20 86 13 29 8.80 Ayn Rand
"*EssieSummers 10.31 2.40 62 14 36 9.08 RichardGordon
"*DeniseRobins 10.31 1.14 16 15 22 9.52 JamesJoyce
"*Agatha Christie 10.23 1.76 30 16 38 9.68 Louis L'Amour
"*James Joyce 10.23 2.12 22 17 49 9.80 Saul Bellow
FranklinMoore 9.85 1.75 17 18 98 10.00 WilburSmith
James Michener 9.62 2.40 71 19 20 10.04 CharlesDickens
ArthurHailey (torture) 9.54 2.79 85 20 17 10.48 FranklinMoore
Gray'sAnatomy 9.46 2.40 83 21 77 11.03 David Ogilvie
"*Peter
O'Donnel 9.38 2.37 51 22 11 12.05 HermanMelville
"*Gavin Lyall 9.38 1.21 13 23 55 12.52 ArthurHailey (fraud)
Saul Bellow 8.38 1.50 49 24 43 12.84 HunterS. Thompson
Djuna Barnes 7.31 1.14 66 25 52 14.34 SomersetMaugham
Joseph Conrad 7.15 2.45 76 26 63 14.80 Loren Fessler
NathanRotenstreich 7.08 2.30 73 27 14 15.79 JaneAusten
ArthurHailey (fraud) 6.69 2.02 55 28 23 18.72 NathanRotenstreich
HermanMelville 5.46 1.86 11 29 83 20.25 Gray'sAnatomy
HarrisonGough 4.77 1.80 53 30 53 20.72 HarrisonGough
"*Tiedranks

Table 12 Rankordercorrelationco- providedby comparingthe initial and follow-up

efficients (Spearman'srho) for preferencerankingsof the 27 studentswith the
Fog Indexand cloze rankingsin merit rankingsof their teachers, the three UPE
relationto mean difficulty,merit, English lecturers. Initially, such a comparison
and preferencerankings produced a nonsignificant rho of .19, but 2
years later there was a correlationof .39 (p <
Fog Cloze .01)-again a substantialdifference, and statis-
Subjects n Itemsa rho rho
tically uncontaminated.These figures suggest
p p an internalizationof culturaljudgments, which
DIFFICULTY
RANKINGS may representan effect of the educationalproc-
(easiest to hardest) ess by which social values are propagated
Branchlibrary among adultsand internalizedby them.
assistants 21 30 .68 .001 .33 n.s.
Withuniversity Relation to readabilityrankings.Readabil-
degree 5 30 .59 .001 .36 .05
Withhigh school ity rankings, as assigned by the Fog Index and
degree 9 30 .71 .001 .22 n.s. the cloze test, are set out in Table 11. The rank
order correlation coefficient between these
MERITRANKINGS
rankingsis rho (28) = .01, effectively zero. Ta-
(worstto best) ble 12 gives the rankcorrelationcoefficients be-
UNISA English
lecturers 10 25 .35 n.s. .05 n.s. tween Fog and cloze rankings,on the one hand,
UPE English and difficulty, merit, and preferencerankings,
lecturers 3 25 .46 .05 .18 n.s. on the other. The Fog Index shows significant
Professional
librarians 23 25 .49 .01 .00 n.s. positive relations with all three variables,
Branchlibrary whereasthe cloze has low to very low and non-
assistants 21 25 .57 .01 significant correlationsin all cases except one.
Withhigh school On the cloze, such a failureto predictdifficulty
9 25 .54 .01 .19 n.s.
degree rankingsseems to supportthe "mostsurprising
PREFERENCE
RANKINGS
results" reported by Entin and Klare (1978),
(mostto least preferred) who found near-zero rho values for compari-
All students 129 30 .60 .001 .12 n.s. sons of dash-line cloze difficulty rankingswith
All librarians 44 30 .61 .001 .14 n.s. comprehensiontest difficulty.
aNumberof items in array. However,the claims made on behalf of the
cloze as a comprehensionmeasure are so en-
trenchedin the readabilityliteraturethat a fur-
each of these two years. Also, the rank order ther small study was undertaken,the results of
correlationcoefficient between their 1976 and which are reportedin Table 13. Six of the cloze
1978 preferencerankingsis .85 (p < .001). But subjects carried out preferencesorts, and their
behind this depressingfinding, which seems to preference rankings were compared with the
indicate that 2 years of expensive education rank sequence of their own cloze scores. Here
have left reading preferences untouched, lie the direct interactionof the readerwith the text
some subtle changes (Table 10). The initial during the cloze, which purports to measure
agreementof these English majorswith the stu- comprehensiondifficulty, is pitted against that
dent body from which they were drawn gener- same reader'spreferences,and yet the resultsin
ated an rho of .56; this fell to .37 on follow-up. 4 out of 6 cases are found to be nonsignificant.
This appearsto be a substantialmovementaway This result cannot be attributedto idiosyncratic
from the views of their peers, even allowing for preference rankings, because each subject's
contaminationof the initial result by the pres- preferencescorrelatedwith the mean preference
ence within the larger sample of these 27 sub- rank for all 6 subjects. The failureof the cloze
jects. A clue to the origin of this shift is to relate to readerratingsof passage difficulty,

Table 13 Rank ordercorrelationco- (Nell, in press) that derives from Sperry'swork

efficients (Spearman'srho) be- (1969, 1977) on brain-consciousnessrelation-
tween preferencerankingand ships, from attentiontheory (Kahneman,1973;
cloze rankingfor 6 subjects Pribram, 1986), and from optimal level-of-
arousal theories of personality functioning
Subject'sCloze Ranking (Eysenck, 1967; Zuckerman,1979).
One outcome of these trends is Daniel
Subject's Mean Group
Subject Preference Preference Berlyne's"newexperimentalaesthetics"(1973),
Codea Ranking Ranking which holds that collative conflict-producing
(n = 6) variables "seem to be the crux of the aesthetic
rho rho phenomenon"(1973, p. 9). When one pursues
p p an aesthetic gratification (such as reading a
511/521 .49 .01 .51 .01 book) "forits own sake,"arguesBerlyne (1969),
512/522 .30 n.s. .66 .001 the inner consequence that is rewardingto the
513/523 .12 n.s. .58 .001 central nervous system is arousal: His two-fac-
514/524 .32 n.s. .70 .001
515/525 .32 n.s. .46 .01
tor theory of hedonic value (1971) holds that
516/526 .52 .01 .66 .001 pleasure derives from arousalboosts (moderate
arousal increments) and arousal jags (relief
aFirstnumberis for cloze; second is for same subjectfor when an arousalrise is reversed).A useful phe-
preferencesort.
nomenologicalextension of Berlyne'sbehavior-
ist paradigmis reversal theory (Apter, 1979),
merit, or preferencecasts doubts on its appro-
priatenessas a measureof readability,and sug-
gests that it may be measuring an undefined
construct in the domain of language production
(Nell, in press).
Figure 4
Subjectduringminor sensory deprivation
STUDY 4 (PeriodsG and H)
(Beckmanelectrodes for EMG2 are visible at the mouth, and those
The Physiology of Ludic Reading for EMG3 underthe chin. Electrodeleads for EMG1 emerge from
underthe translucentgoggles. Also visible are the earthlead in the
right ear and the thermistorunderthe left nostril.)
In contrast to the phenomenological rich-
ness of the preceding and following sections,
the laboratory study of the physiological ac- p
companiments of ludic reading reported be-
low-which was the largest and most complex
of the five comprising this investigation-
threatensto trivialize the ludic reader'sexperi-
ence. Figure 4 suggests it may also have Si?
dehumanized it. However, a cognitive psy-
chophysiology (McGuigan, 1979) need not be
reductionist. On the contrary, linking enjoy-
ment to its biological roots allows the phenome-
nology of reading to be considered in the
context of the growing understandingof rela-
tions between thought, arousal, and pleasure

34 READING
RESEARCH * Winter1988
QUARTERLY XXIII/1
which can accommodatethe hedonic value of Electromyograms(EMGs) were recorded

prolonged arousalor relaxationas well as sud- from three sites, using three pairs of 16mm sil-
den reversalsfrom one to the other. One exam- ver/silver chloride Beckmanskin electrodes:
ple of such a reversalis providedby the bedtime
reader:Aftera long periodof pleasurablearousal 1. The occipitofrontalis(forehead) muscle
following the exploits of Magnus Pym, the per- (EMG1).
fect spy (Le Carr6, 1986), the reader lays the 2. Levator and depressor anguli oris, namely
book aside, switches off the light, and at once thesmiling/poutingmusclesatthecornersof
themouth(EMG2).
driftsinto a stateof delightfulrelaxation. 3. Theplatysma,the sheet-likemusclebetween
Operational hypotheses for Study 6 were chinandlarynx(EMG3).
derived from the literaturereviewedabove, and
are presented in the following section in the The other variables were as follows:
contextof the task periods to which they relate.
4. Respiration rate (RR): exhalations per 10
seconds, as monitoredby a thermistortaped
beneatha nostril.
Method 5. Skin potential (SPR), as recorded from a
plantarsite, thus avoidingthe movementarti-
Subjects facts that would have arisen had a palmarlo-
Subjects were the 33 ludic readers de- cation been used. Transducerswere a pair of
scribed in Study 1. zinc/zinc oxide plates, one under the arch of
the foot and one at an inactive site between
Apparatus the ankle and the tibia.
The electrophysiological transducers (de- 6. Heartrate(HR):beatsper 10 seconds.
scribed below) were led to an OTE 16-channel 7. Heart period (HP): mean beat-to-beatinter-
val per 10 seconds. Both these cardiacactiv-
polygraph, producing a hard-copy trace. The ity parameterswere monitored by stainless
polygraph was interfaced with an Ampex steel plate electrodes in the Lead II configu-
PR2000 16-channelanalog tape recorderand a ration(left arm and right leg).
Systron-Donnertime code generatoroperating
in a 10-second frame. The IRIG-B slow-code Some of these sites and transducersare illus-
format was user-legible and provided the time tratedin Figure4.
units for all subsequentdata analysis. A white
noise generatorproduceda high-intensitysound Taskperiods. The 9 taskperiods (F through
througha loudspeakerin the laboratory,mask- M, and Q) and the hypothesized response
trends in each for EMG, RR, and SPR, are de-
ing other sounds. scribedbelow (therewere no PeriodsA through
Procedure E). Cardiac responding is considered sepa-
Each subjectwas runfor two identicallabo- rately.
Period E Five minutes relaxing with eyes
ratory sessions one day apart. Total time per
shut, used as a baseline respondingrate.
subjectper laboratorysession, including initial
interview, electrode and debriefing, Periods G (10 minutes) and H (15 min-
placement,
was 3 hours. As noted in Study 2, subjects lay utes). Here, subjectskept their eyes open while
in a semisupineposition in the laboratorywith wearing translucentgoggles (Figure 4) and lis-
their backs to an observationwindow. tening to white noise. Following Berlyne'ssug-
gestion that boredom engenders high arousal,
Electrophysiological recording. Response (1960, p. 189), it was hypothesizedthat arousal
systems (selected following a taxonomyderived would rise steadily throughthis period of mild
from Berlyne, 1971, Lang, 1979, and sensory deprivation.
McGuigan,1978), recordingsites, andtransduc- Period I. Ludic reading for 30 minutes.
ers were as follows: This was the criterion period with which all

other task periods were compared. Stimulus tive task periods (K, L, M, Q), will be deter-
equivalence-the experience of ludic reading- mined by the outcome of competing and
was therefore achieved by having each reader simultaneous response tendencies. Decelera-
select a book, following the selection procedure tion (the bradycardia of attention: Lacey &
that was described in Study 2. Experimental Lacey, 1978, p. 99) accompaniesthe detection
aesthetics predicts that raised, fluctuating of external stimuli, whereas acceleration oc-
arousalwill be associatedwith perceivedpleas- curs during cognitive processing and respond-
urableness. In this context it is importantto re- ing (Lacey, 1967). The accelerative tendency
call the evidence produced in Study 2 that will be augmented if the reading content in-
readersfound ludic readingin the laboratoryto cludes action-instigatingcues (Lang, 1979). If
be functionally equivalent to ludic reading un- ludic reading is dominatedby cognitive proc-
der naturalconditions. essing, acceleration will ensue; if it is con-
Period J. Subjects were given the follow- cerned more with stimulus detection, as if the
ing instructionat the outset of this 5-minuteper- page were the world, decelerationwill win out.
iod of eyes-shut relaxation: "Lay the book For the other cognitive tasks, accelerationcan
aside, close your eyes, and relax completely for be anticipated in hard reading and mental
5 minutes. Go to sleep or stay awake, just as arithmetic (K and M), and deceleration in the
you please."This task was designed to emulate visual tasks (L and Q). In the passive, nonpro-
the transitionfrom ludic readingto sleep; both cessing periods (F, G, H, and J), decelerationis
arousaland its lability were expected to drop to to be expected. It should be noted that heart
baseline levels or lower. period-mean beat-to-beatinterval in a speci-
Next came a set of four cognitive tasks, fied time period-is an imperfect reciprocalof
throughwhich it was hoped to determinewhich heart rate, which may remain relatively con-
kinds of mentalactivity elicited reading-likere- stant though period varies markedly (Hesle-
sponses, and which did not. Period K was a 3- grave, Ogilvie, & Furedy, 1979).
minute work reading task, using a cognitive
psychology text (Fodor's The Language of Digitization, score conversion, and
Thought, 1975). Subjectswere told they would data analysis
be asked at the end of the session to sum up the The tape-recordedanalog data were digi-
content of what they had read. In Period L, tized at a sampling frequency of 1,024 hertz,
subjects looked at a series of affectively neutral generating2,905 megabytesof raw data, which
photographsfor 2 minutes, and Period M con- were converted to 7 standard-unit scores per
sisted of 6 mentalarithmetictasks of increasing 10-second epoch for each of the 33 subjects.
complexity, with covert responding. In Period Standardization was achieved by referencing
Q, subjects were asked to perform 3 different area-under-curvescores (EMG and SPR) to a
visualizing tasks for a total of 90 seconds. calibrationsignal, so that scores for all 33 sub-
It was anticipatedthat arousal duringhard jects were comparable. Using these scores,
reading (Period K) and mental arithmetic (M) arousal and variability levels were calculated
would be higher than during ludic reading, for each subject separatelyand for all subjects
which is response-freeand subjectively effort- pooled for each of the 7 variables and for 8 of
less. Because one of the visualizing tasks in- the 9 task periods (L was omitted). For the
volved computation(e.g., "Whena red apple is pooled scores, mean standarddeviations were
cut in half and halved again, how many sides computed as an index of response lability, and
will be red and how manywhite?"),it was antic- are henceforthreferredto as variability scores
ipated that arousal in this period would be at (VS).
about the same level as during mental Determining which tasks differed signifi-
arithmetic(PeriodM). cantly from the criterionperiod of ludic reading
The course of cardiac responding, during called for multiple comparisonswith the crite-
ludic reading and during the four other cogni- rion. The methodological problems associated

36 READING RESEARCHQUARTERLY * Winter1988 XXIII/1
Table 14 Mean scores and variabilityscores on seven physiological variablesduringeight task

periods
Task Perioda
F G H I J K M Q
Relaxing Boredom Boredom Ludic Relaxing Work Math Visual
Reading Reading Tasks Tasks
Variable (30) (60) (90) (180) (30) (18) (4) (8)
EMGI1(n = 32)
M 214,765 296,187 304,716 314,220 212,823 310,443 244,998 251,061
VS 30,450 56,706 54,919 56,021 32,713 61,049 32,819 33,931
EMG2 (n = 32)
M 8,716.07 9,546.37 9,832.57 10,357.70 8,943.57 9,920.67 9,963.23 9,234.99
VS 1,318.94 2,298.18 2,547.06 5,472.58 1,869.39 3,822.75 1,630.29 1,560.74
EMG3 (n = 32)
M 189,081 201,978 207,082 210,498 177,669 211,639 182,759 174,767
VS 21,396 31,837 36,373 37,710 29,232 28,788 26,202 20,249
RR (n = 31)
M 2.8863 2.8772 2.8288 2.9491 2.7638 2.9768 2.9764 2.8825
VS 0.1587 0.2008 0.1324 0.1270 0.1035 0.1835 0.2656 0.1916
SPR (n = 26)
M 14,530.2 15,453.7 15,572.3 22,071.7 15,456.0 20,474.6 19,574.6 14,721.4
VS 7,151.9 6,438.9 6,744.5 10,510.1 3,669.2 7,956.3 5,256.5 4,458.2
HR (n = 29)
M 12.1325 11.6663 11.5398 11.8585 11.8680 12.3853 12.7436 12.3619
VS 0.2380 0.1425 0.2597 0.1626 0.1841 0.4361 0.2678 0.2050
HP (n = 29)
M 0.8767 0.8748 0.8939 0.8639 0.8667 0.8400 0.8019 0.8281
VS 0.0290 0.0221 0.0964 0.0866 0.0232 0.2221 0.0171 0.0165
aNumber
inparentheses
indicates of taskperiodin 30-secondepochs.
duration
with this repeated-measuresdesign (Abt, 1979) ing (I). A huge quantityof data- 1.395 million
were addressed by employing Dunnett'st test data points per row-has been consolidated in
for multiple comparisonsonly if there was sig- each plot unit of Figure 5.
nificant variance for all treatments (i.e., task
Arousal trends
periods) combined(Winer, 1971).
The most striking feature of the trends
thrown into relief by Figure 5 is that although
ludic reading (I) is experienced as effortless
Resultsand Discussion
(Study 5) and describedas "relaxed,"it is on the
contrary physiologically more aroused and
Graphic displays of individual subject re- more labile than baseline responding. Though
sponding on the 7 variables across the 8 task counterintuitive,this finding accords with the
periods were not helpful in demonstratingre- predictionsof experimentalaesthetics. The sec-
sponse trends. However, response means and ond strikingfeatureis the predicteddeactivation
variability scores for each of the 8 periods for that sets in immediately when subjects stop
all 33 subjects pooled did yield interpretable readingand close their eyes (J). The delights of
results. These are given in standardscore units bedtimereadingmay in partbe attributedto this
in Table 14, and are plotted in Figure 5. In this precipitous fall in arousal, not only in skeletal
plot, points overlaidby squaresare significantly muscle but also in skin potential, controlledby
differentfrom the criterionperiod of ludic read- the autonomicnervous system: Berlyne (1971)

Figure 5
Means and variabilityscores for all subjects
pooled on seven physiological variablesacross
eight task periods in standardscore units
(SquaresindicatesignificantDunnett'st values)
TREATMENT
VARIABLE
NUMBER
AND NAME (N) F I J K M O
EMG17.5
MUSCLE ACTIVITY 25 5.0
ON
FOREHEAD
(32)
EMG2
MUSCLE ACTIVITY 90
i 711- 5,0
AT
CORNER OFMOUTH
(32)
EMG3
MUSCLE ACTIVITY
UNDER
CHIN
(32) 12,
RR
RESPIRATION 290
15
RATE
(31)
285
SPR
25...75
SKIN POTENTIAL 20 5.0
RESPONSE
(26)
12.5 40
HEART RATE30
(29)
"HP
o?,' 75
HEART PERIOD 85,0 50
(29)
82,5 -1LMEA25 25(?.

has arguedthata suddendrop in arousalis pow-. 10 significantvalues of t, followed in sequence

erfully rewarding. by EMG1 (frontalis)with 7, heart rate with 3,
In skeletal muscle, and ratherless for skin heart period with 2, and skin potentialresponse
potentialresponse, arousalincreases over base- with 1. The failureof EMG2 to generatesignifi-
line during Periods G and H, supporting the cant differences with criterion is surprising,as
view that boredom is an unpleasantlyactivated many subjectsshowedgreatlyincreasedexpres-
state(Berlyne, 1960). The hypothesizedarousal sive lability, smiling, laughing, and grimacing
increase during hard reading (K) and mental while reading.The relativeinfertilityof cardiac
arithmetic(M) does not occur: Again counter- respondingshould be understoodin the light of
intuitively,these activities are not more aroused the heart'svery rapid responsivityto cognitive
than ludic reading, and are frequentlyless so. and affective events, so that cardiac activity is
This conflicts with Kahneman's(1973) well- most effectively used as a phasic measure, and
supportedview that increased effort entails in- not, as here, averagedover long periods.
creased arousal. The high level of activationof
EMG3, the platysmamuscle, duringludic read- Enjoyment and arousal
ing (I) and hard reading (K) is intriguing, sug- Are there discernibletrends in physiologi-
gesting that subvocalizationoccurs. However, cal arousal during the reading of most-liked
this electrode placementwas just as sensitive to pages, which Study2 showedwere read signifi-
swallowing, so it is equally possible that read- cantly more slowly than all other pages? Two
ing is associatedwith salivation! measures (mean response level for all subjects,
The outcome of the conflicting forces oper- and variability score, giving response lability)
ating on heartrateduringludic reading(I) is de- were availablefor each of 6 variables, as shown
celerative in relation to baseline, suggesting in Table 15.
that during ludic reading attentionto external
stimulitakesprecedenceover cognitive process- Table 15 Mean scores and variability
ing. Because the bradycardiaof attentionis pre- scores on six physiological varia-
eminently associated (Lacey, 1967) with the bles for most-likedpages and all
orientingresponse(Sokolov, 1963), this finding other pages
suggests that events on the printedpage have at
least some reality status, eliciting nonhabituat- Mean Score VariabilityScore
ing orienting responses in these readers. Meta-
Variable M SD M SD
phorically,the page thus standsto the readeras
a flower to a bee, and not, as one might have EMG1
argued, as a picture of a flower to a bee: flat, Most-liked 305,398 244,278 47,817 63,367
odorless, and hopelessly unchanging. All other 283,793 210,250 56,605 52,501
As predicted, heart rate acceleratesduring EMG2
the hardreadingand mentalarithmetictasks (K Most-liked 10,994 13,094 4,198 8,473
All other 9,262 6,191 3,677 3,314
and M), indicatingthathere, contraryto the sit- EMG3
uation in ludic reading, cognitive processing Most-liked 220,906 146,647 36,976* 32,674
has more importancethan stimulus detection. All other 210,503 109,823 53,177* 40,895
The periods of mixed visualizingtasks (Q) were RR
Most-liked 2.868 0.831 0.504 0.226
ratherless arousedthan PeriodsK and M. All other 2.828 0.805 0.561 0.159
SPR
Significance of differences Most-liked 13,872 8,251 7,434 5,639
Inspection of Figure 5 indicates that mean All other 14,506 8,610 8,318 6,557
scores produced more significant differences HR
Most-liked 11.065 2.745 0.816 1.063
from criterion than did variability scores. Of All other 10.933 2.980 0.750 0.458
the variables, that with the greatest relational
fertility was EMG3, the platysmamuscle, with *t(29) = -4.01, p < .01.

On 5 of the 6 measures (the exception was four sections, some fantasy process analogs of
skin potential response), mean respondingwas readingtranceare considered.
elevatedduringthe readingof most-likedpages.
Response lability was lower on 4 of the 6 varia- Dreaming and reading
bles, and higher for EMG2 (muscle activity at In Hildebrandt's1875 book about dreams,
the corner of the mouth) and for heart rate. which Freud cites with approval (1900/1968,
However,thoughthe trendis clear, only 1 of the pp. 9, 67), he writes that when we fall asleep,
12 differences reached statistical significance, our whole being, with all its forms of existence,
namely, the decreased lability of EMG3, the "disappears, as it were, through an invisible
platysmamuscle, t(29) = 4.01, p < .01. trapdoor."This is also the experience of the lu-
The trend of the means suggests that dic reader,who sinks "throughclamorouspages
heightenedphysiological arousal contributesto into soundless dreams" (Gass, 1972, p. 27).
the perceived pleasurablenessof most-enjoyed Clearly, dreaming-and especially daydream-
reading, as predicted by experimentalaesthet- ing-is in certain ways an analog of reading.
ics. The increased lability on EMG2 suggests The dreamerknowsthat even if his dreamshave
that facial expressiveness not only increases not come from anotherworld, they "atall events
during most-enjoyedreading, but is also more carried him off into another world" (Freud,
variable. However,the failureof responselabil- 1900/1968, p. 7). Moreover, reading and
ity on 4 of the 6 measuresto increaseas hedonic dreaming share a cognitive passivity, because
tone rises is countertheoretical. the work they do is subjectivelyeffortless.
The increase in heart rate during the read- Freud'smost importantstatementaboutthe
of
ing most-liked pages suggests that cognitive psychology of literarycreationand of readingis
processing takes precedence over stimulus de- TheRelationof the Poet to Daydreaming(1908/
tection in this period, though the large increase 1957); here, "poet"means "theless pretentious
in heart rate lability indicates that competing writers of romances, novels and stories, who
decelerative responses, which are associated are read all the same by the widest circles of
with the orienting response, are markedduring men and women"(p. 179). The task Freud sets
most-enjoyedreading. himself in this essay is to understand"thesecret
of popularityin art,"namely, how "thatstrange
being, the poet, is able to carry us with him in
STUDY 5 such a way and to rouse emotions in us of which
we thoughtourselvesperhapsnot even capable."
The Sovereigntyof the Reading The writer'sskill, concludes Freud, lies in over-
Experience coming the feeling of repulsiondaydreamshave
for others by disguises and aestheticbribes, "in
Little in the study of consciousness is as order to release yet greater pleasure arising
strikingas the economy of means and precision from deeper sources in the mind . .. puttingus
of outcome with which skilled readersare able in a position where we can enjoy our own day-
to exercise absolutecontrolover the contentand dreams without reproachor shame"(pp. 183-
qualityof their own consciousness. In the last of 184). The author's stratagems, adds Holt
these five studies, a phenomenology of ludic (1961), "enable us to obtain vicariously the
readingis derived from the literatureon dream- deeper pleasureof daydreaming"(p. 21).
ing, fantasy, and trance, and ludic readers'ac- The effortlessness of ludic reading is well
counts of the sovereigntyconferredon them by accounted for by analogy to Klinger's (1971)
their reading are considered in the light of this suggestion that fantasysegments are linked in a
phenomenology. In addition, quantitativedata respondentchain, "elicitedratherthan emitted,
derived from responses to questionnaireitems controlledby antecedentevents ratherthanrein-
and personality tests are analyzed. In the next

forcementsat their termination,and entail rela- a flower arrangementseen under the influence
tively little sense of effort"(p. 351). of mescaline:
However, reading is not dreaming: The
reader's volitional ability is unimpaired, and I was notlookingnowat an unusualflowerar-
both the formalcharacteristicsof primaryproc- rangement.I was seeingwhatAdamhad seen
ess thought (Rapaport, 1951) and the four on the morningof his creation-the miracle,
momentby moment,of nakedexistence. . a
mechanismsof the dream-work(condensation, bunchof flowersshiningwith theirown inner
displacement, representability,and secondary lightandall butquiveringunderthepressureof
elaboration:Freud, 1900/1968) are absent. Un- the significancewith whichtheywerecharged
like dreams, which may become so threatening (1954/1960,p. 17).
that they lead to depersonalization (Shapiro,
1978), readersterminatebook fantasyby lifting Finally, relatingtranceto personalitystructure,
their eyes from the page, at which the book Tellegenand Atkinsonarguethatthe state of in-
ceases to exist. In this sense, unlike real dream- tensely focused attentionarises from an absorp-
ing, reading guarantees the dreams of power tion trait, of which the motivationalcomponent
and invulnerability every reader would most is "a desire and a readiness for object relation-
like to have. ships, temporaryor lasting, that permit experi-
ences of deep involvement"(p. 275). Individual
Hypnosis variations among readers are thus accommo-
Hypnosis offers more useful parallels with dated, because all who can read well enough
reading trance. In both hypnosis and reading, will experience absorption,but not all readers
the subject maintains a continued, limited will have the "desireand readiness"for the real-
awareness that what is perceived as real is in ity-changing experience of total attentional
some sense not real (Hilgard, 1979): The en- commitment.
tranced reader,howeverdeep the involvement,
never feels threatenedby book material in the Imagery in ludic reading
way that the dreameris threatenedby a night- Is vivid imagery a prerequisite for ludic
mare (Fromm, 1977). Moreover, hypnotic reading?There are some indicationsthat it is,
trance (like reading trance) is mediated by in- such as the correlationthat has been found be-
tense, focused attention "during which the tween a subject'slack of vivid imagery and in-
availablerepresentationalapparatusseems to be susceptibility to hypnosis (Hilgard, 1979;
entirelydedicatedto experiencingand modeling Perry, 1973), suggesting that nonimagingread-
the attentional object," write Tellegen and ers are unlikely to be involved readers. Also,
Atkinson (1974, p. 274). They argue that this sinking throughthe page into the world of the
attentionalstatehas three majormanifestations, book might be difficult if the world into which
each of which parallels aspects of reading one is sinking is misty and ill-defined. On the
trance. The first is a heightenedsense of the re- other hand, consciousness is not a picture gal-
ality of the attentionalobject; the second is that lery (Huey, 1908), and charactersin fiction are
the full commitment of attention renders the "mostly empty canvas" (Gass, 1972, p. 45).
subject imperviousto distraction;and the third The issue is clarifiedby Kosslyn's(1981) paral-
is that the vivid subjective reality experienced lel race theory of imagery,which suggests that
during episodes of absorbed attention has the well-practiced propositional material is ac-
effect of transfiguringboth the observerand the cessed more rapidlyand more easily than imag-
attentional object, which acquires "an impor- inal material.Accordingly,imagerywould only
tance and intimacy normally reserved for the be used when propositional information was
self' (p. 275). This formulationsuggests paral- lacking, as for example in answeringthe ques-
lels between the ludic reader'sabsorptionand tion "Are a hamster'sears round or pointed?"
the otherness of alternate states of conscious- Because images are short-termmemory struc-
ness (Zinberg, 1977), as in Huxley'saccountof tures, fade rapidly,and are difficult to maintain

(Kosslyn, 1981), it seems that image look-up readers about their lifestyles and their reading
will seldom form partof ludic reading,which is habits will reflect the use of reading(thoughnot
response-free and often of highly stereotyped necessarily any awarenessof such use) as either
and overlearnedmaterials,and thereforereadily a block to self-awarenessor an enhancerof it. A
accessible in propositionalform. second hypothesis is that ludic readers will
prize ludic reading'seffortlessness, and the con-
The uses of reading trol they are able to exercise over the pace of
Readers may use the absolute control over their reading (as shown by Study 2), over its
fantasy processes ludic reading gives them in content, and over its safety. (One reason for
order to dull consciousness or to heighten it. A reading'ssafety is that readers have learned to
person's current concerns potentiate fantasy avoid reading matter that touches on non-neu-
content (Klinger, 1971), so that ongoing day- tralizedpersonalconcerns.) Third, it is hypoth-
dreamsmay reflect recenttriumphs,anticipated esized that readers will report greater use of
disasters, or incapacitatinganxieties. Singer's propositionalthan of imaginalstrategiesduring
(1976) factor-analytic study of daydreaming ludic reading.
types indicates that the concerns which color
fantasy are moderately stable, which in turn
suggests that a ludic reader'scurrent concerns Method
may determinethe use he or she characteristi-
cally makes of reading (though these bounda- Subjects
ries between types of readerare permeableand Subjects were the 33 ludic readers de-
changeable). Thus, readers with negatively scribed in Study 2. Four especially articulate
toned current concerns, analogous to the day- members of this group, to whom fictitious
dreamingtypes Singer (1976) identifiedas anx- names have been given, were invited to partici-
ious-distractibleand guilty, may be especially pate in a group discussion aboutthe readingex-
threatenedby periods of empty consciousness perience. They were OckertOlivier, 45, a clerk
duringwhich fantasycolored by fears and anxi- (Subject 119); his daughter Sanette, 19, also
eties may develop (Blum & Green, 1978). They doing clerical work (Subject206); Mary, 35, a
may fortify themselves against this threat by businesswoman(Subject 230); and Wendy,52,
carrying a book with them wherever they go, a universitylecturer in library science (Subject
taking absurdly large quantitiesof books with 215). Two other members of the Olivier fam-
them on vacation, and organizing their lives to ily-the wife and an elder daughter-also par-
allow for a great deal of consciousness-control- ticipated as subjects, and each member of this
ling busyness. extraordinarygroup reads a great deal: Ockert
Readerswith pleasantlytoned currentcon- (whose laboratory reading speed was 350
cerns, and fantasythat recycles enjoyableexpe- WPM) claimed30 books a month;his wife (316
riences, are on the contrary likely to use WPM), 25 a month; Sanette (465 WPM), 18 a
readingas a consciousness-heighteningactivity, month;and her elder sister (921 WPM) said she
for example by self-explorationthrough awak- reads 28 books a month. In the intakeinterview,
ened memories and aspirations,or by deep in- the sister remarkedthat their home is bursting
volvement with the book's characters and with books, and when you step through the
situations (Hilgard, 1979). In line with door, "it'sas if a reading fever suddenly grabs
Hilgard's (1979) findings, it seems likely that hold of you." This virus has deliberately been
such involved readers would have higher hyp- propagatedby the parents, who have socialized
notic susceptibilitythan those who use reading their childrento become heavy readers.
to block self-awareness. Mary claims that she reads 25 books a
Thus, the first hypothesis that emerges month, works 13 hours a day, is in bed by 8,
from the literatureand from the findings of the and reads for 2 hours before falling asleep.
previous studies is that the self-reportsof ludic Weekends, she brings home 6 feature-length

movies and 4 shorts, which she watcheson Sat- mechanics of readingdrops away: "Youget the
urdays and Sundays with her two young chil- feeling you'renot reading any more, you'renot
dren. Her holiday routine takes in 3 feature reading sentences, it's as if you are completely
movies a day and some window shopping. living inside the situation."Centralto Ockert's
Wendy,by contrast, says she reads only 4 or 5 interestin readingwell is his need to readfast so
books a month and often becomes deeply in- that he can forget fast. During the intake inter-
volved in her reading. view, he remarked,
Materials The moreI enjoya book,thequickerI wantto
Items in the Reading Habits Questionnaire forgetit so thatI canreadit again.LikeFallon
(described in Study 1) and the Reading Mood [LouisL'Amour], forexample:I'vealreadyread
Questionnaire(Study2), togetherwith the tran- it 10 times, and I enjoy it almostexactlythe
scribed 2-hour tape recordingof the group dis- sameeachtime.I readit as quicklyas I can,just
to getthestory.Somepeoplecantellyouexactly
cussion aboutreading,yielded the thematicand whattheyreada yearor twoyearslater.I tryto
quantitativedatareviewedbelow. forgetbecausethereareso fewbooksthatreally
In orderto determinewhetherpersons who giveyouthepleasureof reading.
read a greatdeal for pleasuredeviateas a group
from populationnorms on commonly measured Ockert is the model for a gluttonous reader, a
dimensions of personality, I administeredtwo text gobbler who swallows books whole,
inventories: the Sixteen Personality Factor achieving that pinnacle of gluttonous security,
Questionnaire (16PF: Cattell, Eber, & Tat- the ability to eat the same dish endlessly, pass-
suoka, 1970), and the Eysenck Personality In- ing it through his system whole and miracu-
ventory (EPI: Eysenck & Eysenck, 1964). For lously wholesome, ready to be re-eaten again
the 16PF, well-validated South African norms and again. The myth of the cornucopia,the in-
are available, but not for the EPI, for which exhaustible horn of plenty which Zeus pre-
the British norms provided by Eysenck and sented to Amalthea, is here literally achieved:
Eysenck (1964) were used. The book is an endless supply of nourishment.
Control
Results and Discussion In responseto an item in the ReadingMood
Questionnaireaboutbooks and movies, Ockert
writes,
The thematic ordering of the self-report
material in the following eight sections allows I can reada bookat my ownpace;I canput it
the hypothesesabout readers'needs and gratifi- downwheneverI like, andI canalwaysgo back
cations to be evaluated.It is also useful because to it. A moviecan'tbe switchedoff-same with
self-reports by introspectiveludic readers are TV-but perhapsthe most importantof all, I
rarein the researchliterature(Hilgard, 1979, is can'treplaythe enjoyableparts,or see it at my
a notableexception). pace.
Reading ability and reading gluttony Responding to the same question, his elder
Youhave to be able to read well in orderto daughter(Subject220) writes,
enjoy Louis L'Amour,argues Ockert, and to I finda totallydifferenttypeof enjoymentfrom
those who say it's not good reading matter,he booksthanfrommovies. . . . I savorthe con-
replies that they probably can't read well textof thebookandcanalwaysgo backandread
enough to enjoy it, thatthey are still at the stage it again,whichyoucan'tdo withmoviesor TV
of decoding letter-by-letter like children in programs.
school. The markof the absorbedreaderwho is
really enjoying readingis that awarenessof the And subject 101 responds,

I don't really enjoy movies-I feel I'm a captive miles aroundtheirhomes.That'sall his world
audience; if I get bored I feel compelled to stay consistsof. He can get no escapism. . . he's
to the end, as I've paid. ... The books one justbusywithhimselfall day.If I hadto be oc-
reads provide a pleasurethat is entirely at one's cupiedwithmyselfall dayI'dgo mad,crazy.I'd
beck-and-call. You read, stop .. . as the mood say our readingis like SigmundFreudsaid,
takes you. "Dreams arethemeanswherebywe compensate
for the harshnessof reality."
Youcan say "read-
Escapism ing"insteadof "dreams."
In responding to questionnaire items about
Of the ludic readers, 29 replied to the
reading pleasure, many subjects wrote about es- Frustration Index question about discovering,
capism (which, in turn, is often synonymous in a strangehotel, that one had nothing to read
with the blocking of self-awareness). Some of
these responses have a quality of pathos, de- (reportedin Study 1). Of the 29, 12 felt mild
emotion, using adverbs such as "frustrated,"
scribing a blighted life in which reading is an
island of delight. "restless,"or "annoyed,"and 9 were angry or
disappointed.But the other 8 readersdescribed
intense emotion, using terms such as "desolate,"
Reading removes me for a considerable time
from the petty and seemingly unrewardingirri- "dispossessed,""lostand miserable,"or "desper-
tations of living: I did not choose to be born, ate," which bring to mind the description
and cannot say (in all honesty) that I get 100% Bowlby (1973) offers of the separationanxiety
enjoymentfrom life. So, for the few hoursa day of early childhood. One may speculate that
I read"trash,"I escape the cares of those around these terms reflect the
intensity of the need
me, as well as escaping my own cares and dis- some readersfeel to escape from ruminationto
satisfactions. This is a selfish attitude, which I and the desperationthey feel when this
can justify only by saying that it contributesin reading,
no small measure to what I
need is frustrated.
preserving sanity
have. I'm not so sure, then, that I read for "re-
Affect and fear control
ward"as much as for "escape"(Subject 101).
Reading can move attentional focus from
Sanette, too, writes that what one wants of self to environment(Carver& Scheier, 1981),
the book world is not an extension of one's own, thus changingthe content of consciousness and
but a world that is nonthreatening because it is mediatingmood changes. Subject221 writes,
quite different.
I often feel sorry for myself and a book can
A love story is so near real life. When I wantto change my mood very quickly . ... Books
escape, I don't want to escape into the same
make'me happy,books makeme cry-after a
world again . . . I want to escape into a fiction goodcryI feel a newperson.
world, a worldthat was.
For many subjects, fear is an especially salient
For Sanette and her family, the question of emotion, and one of the principaluses of ludic
whether the world is passing them by or, on the reading is to master fear by delicately control-
contrary, passing by everyone else is an unre- ling it, so that the readerexperiencesthe goose-
solved and painful issue. At intake, Ockert said flesh of fear but not its terror. Sanette uses a
that his family's reading is "a kind of disease. double-reading technique-first a quick pre-
view and then a slower rereading-to make sure
. passes us by."In the group discussion,
S.Life
however, he took the view that the life that does nothing will go "bump"on the page and startle
pass him by is not worth living: her: "Suddenlythe horse comes upon him and
he sees the otherman. . . . I alwaysgo back be-
Like Mary said abouther husband,I can'timag- cause then I know what to expect."Both she and
ine how people keep themselves busy fishing her fathertake a theatricaldelight in describing
and so on every weekend in a little world 60 how well they control their fear. Sanette says,

WhenI wassmall... I readanAfrikaansbook is comfortable and soporific, remarks Subject

aboutwerewolves andI wasso frightened I had 226: One is already undressed and need only
to go andsit rightnextto my dad.I wasscared switch off the light when readingends. A recur-
to death,especiallywhenI readit at night. rent theme among ludic readersis the power of
But so delightfulwas the fear, so well-managed bedtime reading to shut out the day's activities
by the father'ssolid presence,thatshe rereadthe and problems and to induce the relaxationes-
werewolfstorythreeor four times! To neutralize sential for sleep. Reading in bed "takes my
movies, Mary practices a variant of Sanette's mind away from the day'stension and sends me
double-readingtechnique: Before seeing Cas- to sleep" (Subject 223), and this theme returns
sandraCrossing,she first"veryquickly"readthe in virtually the same words in at least 8 other
book "justto get an idea of who was going to die protocols. The quantitativedatasupportthe im-
when, so I could keep my eyes open." portance of bedtime reading: Of 26 respon-
Reading-inducedaffect becomes unpleas- dents, 13 said they read in bed "everynight"or
ant when it touches on non-neutralizedcurrent "always,"and 11 said "almostevery night"or
or childhood concerns. Thus, love stories are "mostnights."
painfully real for Sanette, who is a lonely ado- Old friends
lescent. Mary's sensitivity is to child maltreat-
ment: "I can take a murderstory with 10 dead Pilot studyinterviewswith ludic readersin-
dicated that rereading well-liked and well-
bodies, but don't have a child involved-then
I've had it." Thus, reading Dickens as a child, known books was an important part of their
she wept so copiously that her mother took the readingenjoyment.Two said they kept a pile of
book away from her "becauseI was a nervous these old friends on their bedside table, and
wreck."Dickens remains"justtoo horrible"be- turned to them in the minutes before falling
cause "thereare people who treat children like asleep.
that today." However,datafrom the main studyindicate
Psychodynamically,it is an interestingdis- that rereading is the exception ratherthan the
tinction Sanetteand Mary make between strong rule: 16 readers reportedthat rereadingis 5 %
emotions they enjoy ("agood cry,""Iwas scared or less of their monthly reading, and 9 of these
to death")andthose thatflood themwith unman- specify 2% or less. The group mean of 9.96%
ageableaffect. Becauseall subjectswho recalled (SD = 16.29%) is substantially exceeded by
overwhelmingreadingexperiencesrelatedthese only 2 readers, who reported50% and 25 % re-
to the distantpast and not to recentreading,it is reading, respectively.
possiblethatlearningto avoidsuch materialtook
place throughone-trialconditioning. Visualization
Thoughthe researchliteraturesuggests that
Reading in bed ludic readers are more likely to use proposi-
For most subjects,takinga book to bed is a tional than imaginal strategies(Kosslyn, 1981;
distillation of the delights of reading, and little Nell, in press), readers' self-reports indicate
of the guilt that may accompany reading at that the reversemay be true. For example, dis-
other times attachesto bedtime reading. It is a cussing The Poseidon Adventure(about a ship
privatetime, and, like play, it standsoutside or- turned topsy-turvy in a wreck), Mary, a poor
dinary life. For many readers, bedtime reading visualizer (as determined by scores on three
is a kind of addiction. Thus Wendy: "Evenif I imaging tasks), remarkedthat she had to see the
readfor only 5 minutes,I must do it - a compul- movie before she was able to make much sense
sion like that of a drug addict!"Similarly,Sub- out of the descriptions in the book. Ockert, a
ject 111: "My addiction to reading is such I vivid imager, says, "Do you know how I read
almost can't sleep without a minimum of 10 that book? You'llbe amazed. In the end, I lay
minutes (usually 30-60 minutes) of reading."It down on my back in the middle of the floor to

get my thoughts right, to get my images right, this question was 5.4% (SD = 9.0) for the
so I could see what was going on." Sanette re- most-enjoyedrecent book, 26.8% (SD = 40.7)
calls that she put the book down in orderto find for a book read with enjoymentbut under dis-
a picture of a flight of stairs, which she then tractingcircumstances,39.6% (SD = 51.5) for
turnedupside down and referredto as she was a recently read work book, and 67.2% (SD =
reading. 78.6) for failed pleasure reading ("a book you
These rather desperate remedies suggest found thoroughlydull, flat, and uninteresting,
that the detailed scene-setting in The Poseidon but thatyou nonethelessreadquitea chunkof"').
Adventuremay have imposed undue demands As shown by the low standard deviation
on these readers, who might have been happier (9.0), readerswere virtually unanimousin rat-
with less description. Indeed, Sanette had re-
ing concentrationeffort during ordinary ludic
marked earlier that Louis L'Amouris a great
reading at near zero; however, as Study 4
writer because he does not tell us that the hero shows, what is subjectively experienced as ef-
is riding through a dense forest and then give fortlessness is substantiallyaroused. It is also
descriptionsof the birds flying from branchto striking that reading enjoyment is compatible
branch and so on, but writes simply, "Sackett with considerableconcentrationeffort. Finally,
was ridingthroughthe forest,"so thatthe reader it should be noted that routine work reading is
may make of this whatever image he or she perceived as substantially less effortful than
chooses. She goes on to explain thatwith West- failed ludic reading, though the high standard
erns, because they are set in a landscapeshe has deviations around these means requirecaution
come to know well, it is the work of a moment in interpretation.
to see Indians rising up on the horizon, or
horsemen storming into a camp, and one does
Personality attributes of ludic readers
not need the author to do this work for you- Do people who read a great deal for plea-
indeed, if he or she does, it is unwelcome. sure share personality traits that distinguish
Imagery vividness, as ratedby readers in them as a group? Application of the Eysenck
self-reports, correlated at .35 (p < .05) with Personality Inventory and the Cattell Sixteen
the variability scores for muscle activity at the
corner of the mouth (EMG2), raising interest- Personality Factor Questionnaire to the 33 lu-
dic readers showed them to be introverts,with
ing questions about the role of facial expres- scores strikinglybelow the British norm on the
sions in imaginalactivity. Vividness of imageryEPI ExtraversionScale, reflecting negative an-
also correlated .47 (p < .001) with variability
swers to questions such as "Do you often long
scores for reading involvement, and correlated
for excitement?"or "Wouldyou do almost any-
at a value that approached significance (p <
thing for a dare?"This finding is confirmedby
.10) with activity of the foreheadfrontalismus-
cle (EMG1). These results, takentogether with loadings on three of the five 16PF scales (F-,
M +, and Q2+) associated with the second-or-
the self-report data reviewed above, indicate der introversionfactor.The strategiesintroverts
that imagerymay be an importantcontributorto use to reduce incoming stimulation(preferring
readingpleasure. their own companyor thatof old friendsand the
Attentional effort familiarto the novel: Gale, 1981, p. 184) have a
uses of formulaicfic-
A question in the prelaboratoryReading good fit with the possible
tion to give the reader dominion over exceed-
Mood Questionnaire(Study2) asked subjectsto
familiar landscapes. Thus, it is possible
rate a number of well-rememberedbooks for ingly
that avid readers prefer reading to doing be-
concentration effort, from 0% ("you concen-
as feel safer with the fa-
tratedeffortlessly")to 100% ("youhad to force cause, introverts,they
miliarand the readilycontrolledthanamong the
yourself to concentrateas hard as you could"). arousalevents of the real world.
Mean effort for the 25 subjects who answered unpredictable

CONCLUSION readingpreferencesfor type of theme and sex of charac-

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book tradeinformation(25th ed.). New York:Bowker. ported my research over a 6-year period with unfailing
SINGER,J.L. (1976). Daydreaming and fantasy. London: generosity.I thankthe RRQ reviewersand its editors for the
George Allen & Unwin. suggestionsthathave been incorporatedin this revision, and
SOKOLOV,Y.N. (1963). Perception and the conditioned re- the OutstandingDissertationAwardCommitteeof the IRA,
flex. Oxford: Pergamon. which selected this research for presentationat the 1984
SPERRY,R.W. (1969). A modified concept of consciousness. conventionin Atlanta,GA, and encouragedme to prepareit
Psychological Review,76, 532-536. for publication.A discursivetreatmentof the subjectmatter
SPERRY,R.W. (1977). Bridging science and values: A unify- of this paperand of relatedissues is to be publishedin 1988
ing view of mindand brain.AmericanPsychologist, 32, by YaleUniversityPress underthe title Lost in a Book: The
237-245. Psychology of Readingfor Pleasure.
STEPHENSON,W. (1964). The ludenic theory of newsread-
ing. JournalismQuarterly,41, 367-374.
ReceivedDecember 20, 1984

Revisionreceived December 12, 1986
AcceptedJune23, 1987

APPENDIXES
Appendix A Extractsources in authorsequence
Code
No. Source
14 Austen, Jane. (1813/1973). Pride and Prejudice. London:Collins.

66 Barnes, Djuna. (1936/1963). Nightwood. London: Faber& Faber.
49 Bellow, Saul. (1961/1965). Herzog. London:Weidenfeld& Nicholson.
30 Christie, Agatha. (1939/1968). TenLittleIndians [Americantitle]. London:Collins.
76 Conrad,Joseph. (1900/1955). LordJim. London:Dent.
20 Dickens, Charles. (1937/1964). PickwickPapers. New York:Dell.
63 Fessler, Loren. (1963/1968). China. New York:Time-Life.
86 Fleming, Ian. (1961). Thunderball.London:JonathanCape.
36 Gordon, Richard.(1954/1955). The Captain'sTable.London:MichaelJoseph.
53 Gough, HarrisonG. (1969). A LeadershipIndex on the CaliforniaPsychological Inventory.Journal of
CounsellingPsychology, 16, 283-289.
83 Gray'sAnatomy:Descriptiveand Applied. (1858/1958). London: Longman.
44 Greene, Graham.(1940/1962). ThePowerand the Glory. Harmondsworth:Penguin.
55/85 Hailey, Arthur.(1975). TheMoneychangers.London:Michael Joseph.
46 James, Henry. (1881/1936). ThePortraitofa Lady. Harmondsworth:Penguin.
22 Joyce, James. (1916/1954). A Portraitof the Artistas a YoungMan. London:JonathanCape.
38 L'Amour,Louis. (1967). TheSkyliners.London:Transworld.
13 Lyall, Gavin. (1965/1973). MidnightPlus One. London:Pan.
52 Maugham,W. Somerset. (1928/1967). Ashenden,or TheBritishAgent. London:Heinemann.
11 Melville, Herman. (1851/1952). Moby Dick, or The Whale. London:MacDonald.
71 Michener,James A. (1959/1964). Hawaii. London:Corgi.
17 Moore, FranklinG. (1951/1959). ProductionControl.Tokyo:McGraw-Hill.
51 O'Donnel, Peter.(1971/1975). TheImpossible Virgin.London:PanBooks.
77 Ogilvie, David. (1963/1964). Confessionsof an AdvertisingMan. New York:Dell.
29 Rand, Ayn. (1957). Atlas Shrugged. New York:RandomHouse.
16 Robins, Denise. (1974). Dark Corridor.London: Hodder& Stoughton.
23 Rotenstreich,Nathan. BetweenPast and Present:An Essay on History.New Haven:Yale.
98 Smith, Wilbur.(1974). Eagle in the Sky.London:Heinemann.
62 Summers, Essie. (1965). SweetAre the Ways. London:Mills & Boon.
43 Thompson, HunterS. (1966/1975). The Hell's Angels, a Strangeand TerribleSaga. In TomWolfe and
E.W. Johnson(Eds.), TheNew Journalism. London:Picador.

50 READING RESEARCHQUARTERLY * Winter 1988
XXIII/1
Appendix B Sample Extracts
Extract98. Mean studentrank: 1

WilburSmith, Eagle in the Sky
They piled the luggage into the Mustangand the girl's companionfolded up his long legs and piled into the back seat.
His name was Joseph- but David was advised by the girl to call him Joe. She was Debra, and surnamesdidn'tseem impor-
tantat thatstage. She sat in the seat beside David, with her knees pressedtogetherprimlyandher handsin her lap. Withone
sweeping glance, she assessed the Mustangand its contents. David watchedher check the expensive luggage, the Nikon
camera and Zeiss binoculars in the glove compartmentand the cashmerejacket thrownover the seat. Then she glanced
sideways at him, seeming to notice for the first time the raw silk shirt with the slim gold Piaget underthe cuff.
"Blessedare the poor,"she murmured,"butstill it must be pleasantto be rich."
David enjoyedthat. He wantedher to be impressed,he wantedher to makea few comparisonsbetweenhimself and the
big muscularbuck in the back seat.
"Let'sgo to Barcelona,"he laughed.
David drovequietly throughthe outskirtsof the town, and
Extract76. Mean studentrank: 15

Joseph Conrad,LordJim
She told me, "Ididn'twantto die weeping."I thoughtI had not heardaright.
"Youdid not wantto die weeping?"I repeatedafter her. "Likemy mother,"she addedreadily.The outlinesof her white
shape did not stir in the least. "My mother had wept bitterly before she died,"she explained. An inconceivable calmness
seemed to have risen from the groundaroundus, imperceptibly,like the still rise of a flood in the night, obliteratingthe
familiarlandmarksof emotions. Therecame uponme, as thoughI hadfelt myself losing my footing in the midstof waters, a
suddendread, the dreadof the unknowndepths. She went on explainingthat, duringthe last moments, being alone with her
mother, she had to leave the side of the couch to go and set her back against the door, in order to keep Cornelius out. He
desired to get in, and kept on drummingwith both fists, only desisting now and again to shout huskily:"Letme in! Let me
in! Let me in!"In a far corner upon a few mats the moribundwoman, alreadyspeechless and unable to lift her arm, rolled
her head over, and with a feeble movementof her hand seemed to command- "No! No!"and the obedientdaughter,setting
her shoulderswith all her strengthagainst the
Extract23. Mean studentrank:30

NathanRotenstreich,BetweenPast and Present:An Essay on History
The problematicnatureof the validity of empiricalknowledgeis inherentin the fact that concepts rendervalidity to a
knowledgewhich is a synthesisof both conceptsand percepts.The problematicnatureof empiricalknowledgelies therefore
in the very fact thatit is an empirical knowledge. It lies in the natureof the contactof the elements and in the impossibility
of deducingone of the elements fromthe other,or of justifying the contactof them throughsome thirdelement outsideboth.
The problematicnatureof this kind of knowledge lies in the fact that this knowledgewhich demandsvalidityis based on a
contactwhich in itself is not validated.Here the differencebetween mathematicaland empiricalknowledgebecomes appar-
ent. In mathematicalknowledgethe very fact that the object is constructedby thoughtguaranteesthe validity of that object,
since validity is a featureof thoughtas such; in empiricalknowledge it is thoughtwhich extends validity to a synthesis of
both thoughtand percept.
Criticalphilosophyis based on the assumptionthat althoughthe materialor the perceptis an indispensableelement of
valid knowledge, it is not this element which makes knowledgevalid.


6 The Psychology of Reading For Pleasure

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The Psychology of Reading for Pleasure: Needs and Gratifications

Author(s): Victor Nell

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The psychology of reading for pleasure:

La psychologie de lirepar plaisir: Besoins et satisfaction

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La psicologia de la lecturapor gusto: Necesidad y gratificaci6n

Die Psychologie des Lesens zum Vergniigen:Bediirfnisseund GenuB

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vehicle for ludic reading:a torn scrap of news- Figure 1

of vice" (Leavis, 1938/1965, pp. 8, 50; see also

Motivational analysis of ludic reading

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available alternativeactivities. The positive re- preconditionfor ludic reading, or as a conse-

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readingattainment;however,these variablesac- ing or research, followed by most Bachelor of

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Materials and procedure tablished, raw reading speed was allowed to

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Index was computedby summingthese feeling Hypotheses

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0)0 ~~ 0' 00 ~ ~ C's

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Third, there is no supportin these figures can'treplaythe enjoyableparts,or see it at my

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Table 3 Readingcomprehensionspeed perience of being able to lose themselves in a

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It is strikingthat the standarddeviationon ess is not a free interactionbetween the skilled

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42.6% (SD = 26); 12 subjects rated 75% or Method

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Table 4 Rankordercorrelationcoefficients(Spearman'srho) for librarians'mean rankingof

ExtractRanking Book Ranking

All librarians 44 Professionallibrarians 10 19 .52 .05

Table 5 Concordancecoefficients(Kendall'sW)for meanpreferenceand meritrankingsof

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Table 6 Rankordercorrelationmatrix(Spearman'srho) for meanpreferencerankingsof various

Subjects n Female Male Female Male

Eng Afr Eng Afr Eng Eng Afr

Subjects n All students

All librarians 44 .89***

"*p< .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

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Table 7a Stepwise clusters in the mean preferencerankingsof 30 extractsby 129 students

2 9.97 6.7 2 1.5 4.5 29 AynRand Humandrama

19 15.95 6.4 3 2.6 0.7 66 DjunaBarnes Humannature

25 19.27 7.2 4 5.1 0.6 77 David Ogilvie Narrativenonfiction

27 24.90 6.3 5 - 1.4 83 Gray'sAnatomy Textbook:concrete

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Table 7b Stepwise clustersin the mean preferencerankingsof 30 extractsby 44 librarians

6 9.6 7.0 2 2.1 4.3 85 ArthurHailey Crimeand violence

17 16.0 7.7 3 2.0 3.8 14 JaneAusten Humannature

25 21.8 6.2 4 3.5 0.8 63 Loren Fessler Narrativenonfiction

27 26.1 5.0 5 - 2.1 17 FranklinMoore Textbook:concrete

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This content downloaded from 91.229.229.158 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 04:05:26 AM

Table 8 Rankordercorrelationcoefficients (Spearman'srho) for mean merit and preference

"p< .05. p < .01. p < .001.