This study explored reader responses to different literary depictions of rape. Four literary excerpts were used, divided in aesthetic versus non-aesthetic (STYLE) and allusive versus explicit (DETAIL). The general question was how readers react to literary fragments depicting rape and whether the level of aesthetics and the level of explicitness influenced readers' thoughts andfeelings. An open-ended question asked readers to report how the style had influenced their thoughts and feelings, while 7-point scales addressed the following variables: experienced distance, perceptions of realism and of beauty, emotional versus intellectual reaction, empathy, tension, and arousal. In a 2 (DETAIL: explicit vs. allusive) x 2 (STYLE: aesthetic vs. nonaesthetic) within-subjects design (N=34), gender functioned as a between-subjects variable.Results indicate that the personal tendency to feel engaged with fiction overrides effects of aesthetics and explicitness. Factor analysis suggests that readers who are easily engaged with the characters feel unsettled when reading rape scenes they find brutal and intellectualize in order to handle these feelings. These 'high empathizers' are not likely to be detached or to appreciate the fragment negatively: once absorbed, they will try to take something positive even from an unsettling experience.

This study explored the role of affective/physiognomic perception in emotion perception, and its contribution to meaning construction in the absence of any representation. Following Werner's microgenetic paradigm, by peeling away the fossilized representational level in the drawings, we attempted to link both the "subjective" emotion experience of the artists, articulated in line-drawings that functioned as the spectators' perceptual stimulus. Subsequently, a cross-cultural study was performed using 12 non-representational, emotion drawings as experimental stimuli of the emotion at hand, to investigate any correspondence of feeling between spectators (152 Canadian, 48 Greek, and 72 Japanese participants) and emotions expressed in the drawings. The results suggested a relative congruence of feeling reflected in the gross classification of the stimuli, and coordination in the organization of perceived affect across cultures. Mood-state and mood-trait played differential roles in recognition accuracy. Greeks showed impaired classification for negative drawings, not modifying internal structures accordingly to external constraints, and being oversensitive to subjective arousal in the aversive ambiguous stimuli. Japanese coped with aversion in an implicit aesthetic manner, being task oriented while not flattening the experiential impact of the stimuli. Canadians were not insensitive to body cues, but their impact was overridden by the salience of the attended object.Key words: affective perception, affective symbolism, aesthetic experience, experiential-embodied meaning, cross-cultural research.This study begins with a simple question that is then considered in terms of cultural variations in response to the expressive qualities of non-representational images, in this case "doodles." It is accepted in art historical circles that the subject matter or "iconography" in

In the 1940s and 50s, melodrama was described as "the lady's film," whereas men were the supposed fans of film noir. No empirical studies were conducted with filmgoers of that era to validate such claims. This study examined responses of modern-day audiences comprising 16 females and 16 males to these classic genres. An experimental montage technique was developed to compare problem and solution scenes excerpted from 4 melodrama and 4 film noir movies. Participants rated each scene on fifteen 5-point scales related to cognitive and emotional responses and interpreted the meaning of each scene open-endedly. Quantitative analyses indicated that subjects were more sensitive to the character's emotions in melodrama, found this genre to be more complex, and were more apt to experience personal memories. Qualitative analyses revealed that subjects were more aware of the character's emotions and were more likely to identify with the character in melodramas. Interactions showed that participants judged the solution scenes in film noirs to be unrealistic and criticized the main character's actions. Male and female participants did not differentially respond to the two genres.

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