La rappresentazione mentale di personaggi letterari

Abstract

This study was carried out in iceland, a country with a strong literary tradition. From a pool of 289 participants we pre-selected 48, stratified by age, gender, and expertice. The materials included two literary texts. Participants read the two texts and responded to a structured interview on the main character of each. The answers were submitted to content analysis. Based on content categories, the similarity between participants' answers was computed and used for a cluster analysis. Four clusters of participants were identified for the contemporary text, and six for the medieval text. Cluster membership was significantly related to age, but not to gender and expertise.