Understanding others' mental states is a crucial skill that enables the complex social relationships that characterize human societies. Yet little research has investigated what fosters this skill, which is known as Theory of Mind (ToM), in adults. We present five experiments showing that reading literary fiction led to better performance on tests of affective ToM (experiments 1 to 5) and cogni...

Cursor tracking data contains information about website visitors which may provide new ways to understand visitors and their needs. This paper presents an Amazon Mechanical Turk study where participants were tracked as they used modified variants of the Wikipedia and BBC News websites. Participants were asked to complete reading and information-finding tasks. The results showed that it was poss...

BACKGROUND Estimating engagement levels from postural micromovements has been summarized by some researchers as: increased proximity to the screen is a marker for engagement, while increased postural movement is a signal for disengagement or negative affect. However, these findings are inconclusive: the movement hypothesis challenges other findings of dyadic interaction in humans, and experimen...

Among foreign language educators interest in extensive reading is growing along with questions about learner motivation to read. Maintaining learner motivation over long periods of time is influenced by many variables suggesting that multiple means of stimulating motivation is needed. The psychological theory of flow has been suggested to influence motivation and engagement in reading. This stu...

Recently, there has been increased interest regarding how pretend play contributes to children’s cognitive development. This study examines the efficacy of a pretend play intervention on self-regulation and language skills of 4to 5-year-olds and explores parents’ perceptions about children’s engagement in pretend play. The small-scale intervention includes eight 30minute sessions over 6 weeks, ...

I n the 1970s, Alan Kay and his colleagues at Xerox PARC envisioned a dynamic, interactive electronic book. Now, nearly 30 years later, that vision has become a reality. A new kind of personal information appliance—the reading appli-ance—is emerging as a tool for serious readers. But is the world ready for reading appliances? Paper books are not only useful but are also a romantic icon of moder...