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A new analytical framework for understanding literary videogames, the literary-ludic spectrum, illustrated by close readings of selected works. In this book, Astrid Ensslin examines literary videogames—hybrid digital artifacts that have elements of both games and literature, combining the ludic and the literary. These works can be considered verbal art in the broadest sense (in that language plays a significant part in their aesthetic appeal); they draw on game mechanics; and they are digital-born, dependent on a digital medium (unlike, for example, conventional books read on e-readers). They employ narrative, dramatic, and poetic techniques in order to explore the affordances and limitations of ludic structures and processes, and they are designed to make players reflect on conventional game characteristics. Ensslin approaches these hybrid works as a new form of experimental literary art that requires novel ways of playing and reading. She proposes a systematic method for analyzing literary-ludic (L-L) texts that takes into account the analytic concerns of both literary stylistics and ludology. After establishing the theoretical underpinnings of her proposal, Ensslin introduces the L-L spectrum as an analytical framework for literary games. Based on the phenomenological distinction between deep and hyper attention, the L-L spectrum charts a work's relative emphases on reading and gameplay. Ensslin applies this analytical toolkit to close readings of selected works, moving from the predominantly literary to the primarily ludic, from online hypermedia fiction to Flash fiction to interactive fiction to poetry games to a highly designed literary “auteur” game. Finally, she considers her innovative analytical methodology in the context of contemporary ludology, media studies, and literary discourse analysis.

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There is some debate as to whether responding to objects in our environment improves episodic memory or doesn't impact it. Some authors claim that actively encoding objects improves their representation in episodic memory. Conversely, episodic memory has also been shown to improve in passive conditions, suggesting that the action itself could interfere with the encoding process. This study looks at the impact of attention and action on episodic memory using a novel WWW task that includes information about object identity (What), spatial (Where) and temporal (When) properties. With this approach we studied the episodic memory of two types of object: Target, where attention or an action is defined, and Distractor, object to be ignored, following two selective states: active vs. passive selection. When targets were actively selected, we found no evidence of episodic memory enhancement compared to passive selection; but instead memory from irrelevant sources was suppressed. The pattern was replicated across a 2D static display and a more realistic 3D virtual environment. This selective attention effect on episodic memory was not observed on non-episodic measures, demonstrating a link between attention and the encoding of episodic experiences. Keywords:What-Where-When task; episodic memory; recognition and cue recall; sensorymotor implication; inhibition. 2In our daily experience we often need to avoid responding to objects in an automatic manner in order to pursue a goal. When shopping for groceries, we may find ourselves actively avoiding the cream cakes in order to get the items on the fruit and vegetable list. In a pub, we may need to suppress grasping other glasses on the table to pick our own. In many cases, these situations occur without us being aware of it; but at other times they can become part of our autobiographical experience. While most would agree that selected objects can be stored in episodic memory, it is less clear what happens with the objects that we reject. The purpose of this research is to study how the active selection of a target among distractors is represented in episodic memory.The most common view is that objects which are the targets of goal-directed actions receive a boost in processing that enhances their representations in episodic memory (Engelkamp & Zimmer, 1994;Zimmer, et al, 2001). But there is little account of how distractors are represented. Here we present a set of three experiments to demonstrate that, contrary to the previous view, responding to an object does not influence target encoding but acts instead upon distractors, inhibiting them and preventing them from being represented in the episodic trace. Measures of Episodic MemoryBefore we analyse how distractors can be affected by responses to the targets, we need to clarify a few theoretical points. The first problem that we encounter is the multiplicity of tasks used to measure episodic memory, and even the concept itself. Originally, Endel Tulving (1972) coined the term 'episodic memory' with reference to the ...

This article contributes to empirical literary studies by offering a new reader response method for examining targeted textual features. With the aim of further establishing the new paradigm of reader response research in stylistics, we utilise a Likert scale – a tool that is usually used to generate data that is analysed quantitatively – to elicit qualitative data and, crucially, show how that data can be synthesised with an analysis of the primary text to provide empirically based conclusions relevant to particular textual features for cognitive narratology and stylistics. While we offer a new method that can be used to investigate textual features in all kinds of text, we exemplify our approach via the investigation of second-person narration in geniwate and Larsen’s digital fiction The Princess Murderer and provide a new understanding of the experiential nature of ambiguous forms of ‘you’ in fiction. Our stylistic analyses show how responses can be generated by linguistic features in the text. We then analyse reader responses to those examples and show that this can provide a more nuanced account of ‘you’ narratives than a stylistic analysis alone because it affords insight into how different readers do or do not psychologically project into and/or assume the role of ‘you’. Our results represent the first time that current typologies of the second person have been empirically tested and we are the first study to find an empirical basis for doubly deictic ‘you’. We therefore contribute a new empirically based understanding of how readers experience ambiguous forms of ‘you’ in fiction.