Cognitive and emotional processing of suspenseful narrative experience: The effect of uncertainty and repeated exposure

Abstract

Narrative suspense is a psychological response to watching suspenseful films or reading suspenseful novels. Preceding research supports suspense makes audience immersed in a story and more enjoyable even though suspense causes stressful and aversive responses. The factors generating suspense include uncertainty, discourse structure, threat and conflict toward liked characters, and information disparity between characters and audience. The paradox of suspense is also a controversial issue in that suspense may not be experienced repeatedly because repeated exposure to suspenseful texts will diminish uncertainty of narratives. This dissertation aimed to explore the cognitive and emotional processing of suspenseful narrative experience by adopting psychophysiological methodology measuring electrodermal activity and cardiac response, as well as self-report questionnaires. Three empirical experiments were conducted to investigate the fundamental research questions: the effect of uncertainty and information disparity in suspenseful narratives

the effect of repeated exposure to suspenseful narratives. The results demonstrated repeated exposure to suspenseful film led to habituation and desensitization and negative valence fostered suspense degree. The significance of the study includes contributions to the deeper understanding of the mechanism underlying reception process of suspenseful texts and films as well as the extension toward interdisciplinary research spanning literary, communication, media psychological and psychophysiological approach. The limitations and future works of the study were also discussed.