Winfried Menninghaus
Biographic Data
| ID | 316575 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Winfried Menninghaus |
| GIVEN NAMES | Winfried |
| FAMILY NAME | Menninghaus |
| SIGNATURE | MENNINGHAUS W |
| AFFILIATIONS | Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3585-8544 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 28 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 30 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Response to “What Poetry Reveals About the Sciences of the Mind”
This response addresses what we consider misinterpretations of our empirical studies in the article “What Poetry Reveals About the Sciences of the Mind.” To start with, the studies are about the aesthetic dimensions of poetry reading, not about the creation of art, let alone about “creativity” in general. The article time and again conflates the terms creativity and aesthetics. Our study tracking eye movements during poetry reading reveals correl…
Melody in poems and songs: Fundamental statistical properties predict aesthetic evaluation
The final lengthening of pre-boundary syllables turns into final shortening as boundary strength levels increase
Phrase-final syllable duration and pauses are generally considered to be positively correlated: The stronger the boundary, the longer the duration of phrase-final syllables, and the more likely or longer a pause. Exploring a large sample of complex literary prose texts read aloud, we examined pause likelihood and duration, pre-boundary syllable duration, and the pitch excursion at prosodic boundaries. Comparing these features across six predicted…
Poetics of reduplicative word formation: Evidence from a rating and recall experiment
Reduplicative words like chiffchaff or helter-skelter are part of ordinary language use yet most often found in substandard registers in which attitudinal and expressive meaning components are iconically foregrounded. In a rating experiment using nonwords that either conform to, or deviate from, conventional reduplicative patterns in German, the present study identified affective meaning dimensions, judgments of familiarity and esthetic evaluatio…
Reading Poetry and Prose: Eye Movements and Acoustic Evidence
We examined genre-specific reading strategies for literary texts and hypothesized that text categorization (literary prose vs. poetry) modulates both how readers gather information from a text (eye movements) and how they realize its phonetic surface form (speech production). We recorded eye movements and speech while college students (N = 32) orally read identical texts that we categorized and formatted as either literary prose or poetry. We fur…
At the Heart of Optimal Reading Experiences: Cardiovascular Activity and Flow Experiences in Fiction Reading
Fiction reading is a popular leisure activity associated with a variety of pleasurable experiences, including suspense, narrative transportation, and—as indicated by recent empirical studies—also flow. In the context of fiction reading, flow—generally defined as a pleasurable state of mind experienced during an optimally stimulating activity—is specifically related to an optimal balance between text‐driven challenges and the reader’s capabilities…
Who reads contemporary erotic novels and why
In the wake of EL James’s series Fifty Shades of Grey , the book market has seen a veritable surge of bestselling erotic novels over the past decade. The online study reported here pursued two questions: (1) Who reads these erotic novels? (2) What are the reasons underlying this preference? Most of the readers of erotic novels that responded to our survey are heterosexual women in committed relationships. They are highly educated, from a broad ag…
The Feel-Good Film: Genre Features and Emotional Rewards
In film criticism, “feel-good films” are widely dismissed as intellectually undemanding and sentimental entertainment. This study identifies key characteristics, emotional effects, and aesthetic qualities of feel-good films from the audience’s perspective. Although the feel-good film does not appear to be a genre in its own right, it is more than just a rather vague category. Romantic comedy films with a substantial share of drama are shown to be…
The Feel-Good Film – Online Supplemental Material
The pleasures of reading fiction explained by flow, presence, identification, suspense, and cognitive involvement
The present study proposes that flow is not only a key predictor of the pleasures of reading narratives but also modulates other important dimensions of the fiction reading experience, such as a sense of being present in the story world, identification with protagonists, feelings of suspense, cognitive involvement with the story, and text comprehension. All of these aspects, which until now have mostly been investigated separately, were assessed …
How perfect are imperfect rhymes? Effects of phonological similarity and verse context on rhyme perception
Rhyme occurs when two or more words are phonologically identical from the final stressed vowel onward. However, there are several types of so-called imperfect rhymes in which vocalic and/or consonantal segments are allowed to differ. Some of these types frequently replace perfect rhymes in verse-final positions in the German poetic tradition, which suggests that they are licensed by genre conventions. Thus far, however, there is little empirical …
Text type attribution modulates pre-stimulus alpha power in sentence reading
Effects of continuous self-reporting on aesthetic evaluation and emotional responses
What the eyes reveal about (reading) poetry
This study investigated how rhyme and meter affect eye movements and subjective aesthetic evaluations while reading poems. Earlier findings suggest that the effects might include prosodic predictability-driven cognitive and affective rewards from increased processing fluency (Blohm, Wagner, Schlesewsky and Menninghaus, 2018, McGlone and Tofighbakhsh, 2000), but also semantic and syntactic disfluency, as rhyme and meter are often implemented at th…
A good, a bad, and an evil character: Who renders a novel most enjoyable?✰
The choice, or invention, of protagonists is an important part of the poetics and aesthetics of narratives and dramas. Aristotle stipulated that, for the purposes of engaging the readers or onlookers, protagonists should neither be excessively good nor excessively bad, leaving room for much variation in the middle-ground ( Aristotle, 1961 ). A theoretical model of the enjoyment of negative emotions in art reception (Menninghaus et al., 2017) supp…
In Praise of Nonsense: Kant and Bluebeard
Ludwig Tieck's 1797 rewriting of Charles Perrault's famous Bluebeard tale (1697) explicitly claims to be an "arabesque" book "without any sense and coherence." The author's close reading of this capricious narrative, based on Kant's theory of what it means to produce nonsense, reveals a specifically Romantic type of nonsense.
What are aesthetic emotions?
This is the first comprehensive theoretical article on aesthetic emotions. Following Kant's definition, we propose that it is the first and foremost characteristic of aesthetic emotions to make a direct contribution to aesthetic evaluation/appreciation. Each aesthetic emotion is tuned to a special type of perceived aesthetic appeal and is predictive of the subjectively felt pleasure or displeasure and the liking or disliking associated with this …
Sentence judgments and the grammar of poetry: Linking linguistic structure and poetic effect
The Distancing-Embracing model of the enjoyment of negative emotions in art reception
Why are negative emotions so central in art reception far beyond tragedy? Revisiting classical aesthetics in the light of recent psychological research, we present a novel model to explain this much discussed (apparent) paradox. We argue that negative emotions are an important resource for the arts in general, rather than a special license for exceptional art forms only. The underlying rationale is that negative emotions have been shown to be par…
Measuring aesthetic emotions: A review of the literature and a new assessment tool
Aesthetic perception and judgement are not merely cognitive processes, but also involve feelings. Therefore, the empirical study of these experiences requires conceptualization and measurement of aesthetic emotions. Despite the long-standing interest in such emotions, we still lack an assessment tool to capture the broad range of emotions that occur in response to the perceived aesthetic appeal of stimuli. Elicitors of aesthetic emotions are not …
The emotional and aesthetic powers of parallelistic diction
Enjoying trash films: Underlying features, viewing stances, and experiential response dimensions
"Mapping the aesthetic space of literature "from below
The present paper aims to elucidate the conceptual structure of the aesthetics of literature.Following Fechner's "aesthetics from below" (1876) and adopting a method introduced by Jacobsen, Buchta, Kohler, and Schroeger (2004), we asked 1544 German-speaking research participants to list adjectives that they use to label aesthetic dimensions of literature in general and of individual literary forms and genres in particular (novels, short stories, …
Towards a Psychological Construct of Being Moved
The emotional state of being moved, though frequently referred to in both classical rhetoric and current language use, is far from established as a well-defined psychological construct. In a series of three studies, we investigated eliciting scenarios, emotional ingredients, appraisal patterns, feeling qualities, and the affective signature of being moved and related emotional states. The great majority of the eliciting scenarios can be assigned …
Walter Benjamin’s Variations of Imagelessness
Strongly positive uses of terms that designate an absence, a cognitive or ontological impossibility or a sensory privation are among the persistent conceptual figures of Benjamin’s thought. This article analyses the moves by which Benjamin gave his concept of ‘the expressionless’ (das Ausdruckslose) its intriguing semantic meaning and moral value. Drawing on the poetics and philosophy of the sublime from Greek antiquity through modern times, the …
"Mapping the aesthetic space of literature "from below
The present paper aims to elucidate the conceptual structure of the aesthetics of literature.Following Fechner's "aesthetics from below" (1876) and adopting a method introduced by Jacobsen, Buchta, Kohler, and Schroeger (2004), we asked 1544 German-speaking research participants to list adjectives that they use to label aesthetic dimensions of literature in general and of individual literary forms and genres in particular (novels, short stories, …
The emotional and aesthetic powers of parallelistic diction
The final lengthening of pre-boundary syllables turns into final shortening as boundary strength levels increase
Phrase-final syllable duration and pauses are generally considered to be positively correlated: The stronger the boundary, the longer the duration of phrase-final syllables, and the more likely or longer a pause. Exploring a large sample of complex literary prose texts read aloud, we examined pause likelihood and duration, pre-boundary syllable duration, and the pitch excursion at prosodic boundaries. Comparing these features across six predicted…
What the eyes reveal about (reading) poetry
This study investigated how rhyme and meter affect eye movements and subjective aesthetic evaluations while reading poems. Earlier findings suggest that the effects might include prosodic predictability-driven cognitive and affective rewards from increased processing fluency (Blohm, Wagner, Schlesewsky and Menninghaus, 2018, McGlone and Tofighbakhsh, 2000), but also semantic and syntactic disfluency, as rhyme and meter are often implemented at th…
Sentence judgments and the grammar of poetry: Linking linguistic structure and poetic effect
A good, a bad, and an evil character: Who renders a novel most enjoyable?✰
The choice, or invention, of protagonists is an important part of the poetics and aesthetics of narratives and dramas. Aristotle stipulated that, for the purposes of engaging the readers or onlookers, protagonists should neither be excessively good nor excessively bad, leaving room for much variation in the middle-ground ( Aristotle, 1961 ). A theoretical model of the enjoyment of negative emotions in art reception (Menninghaus et al., 2017) supp…
Enjoying trash films: Underlying features, viewing stances, and experiential response dimensions
Reading Poetry and Prose: Eye Movements and Acoustic Evidence
We examined genre-specific reading strategies for literary texts and hypothesized that text categorization (literary prose vs. poetry) modulates both how readers gather information from a text (eye movements) and how they realize its phonetic surface form (speech production). We recorded eye movements and speech while college students (N = 32) orally read identical texts that we categorized and formatted as either literary prose or poetry. We fur…
Walter Benjamin’s Variations of Imagelessness
Strongly positive uses of terms that designate an absence, a cognitive or ontological impossibility or a sensory privation are among the persistent conceptual figures of Benjamin’s thought. This article analyses the moves by which Benjamin gave his concept of ‘the expressionless’ (das Ausdruckslose) its intriguing semantic meaning and moral value. Drawing on the poetics and philosophy of the sublime from Greek antiquity through modern times, the …
Unendliche Verdopplung: Die fruhromantische Grundlegung der Kunsttheorie im Begriff absoluter Selbstreflexion
Lob des Unsinns: Uber Kant, Tieck und Blaubart
Mitologia do Caos no Romantismo e na Modernidade
DOAJ is a unique and extensive index of diverse open access journals from around the world, driven by a growing community, committed to ensuring quality content is freely available online for everyone
Literaturwissenschaft und politische Kultur
Literaturwissenschaft und politische Kultur: Für Eberhard Lämmert zum 75. Geburtstag
Disgust: Theory and History of a Strong Sensation
Examines this forceful emotion from philosophical, literary, and art historical perspectives. "Disgust satiates." — Kant "Writers only talk stench." — Kafka "Disgust is the very fundament of social communication." — Bataille Disgust (Ekel, dégoût) is a state of high alert. It acutely says "no" to a variety of phenomena that seemingly threaten the integrity of the self, if not its very existence. A counterpart to the feelings of appetite, desire, …
Walter Benjamin’s Variations of Imagelessness
Strongly positive uses of terms that designate an absence, a cognitive or ontological impossibility or a sensory privation are among the persistent conceptual figures of Benjamin’s thought. This article analyses the moves by which Benjamin gave his concept of ‘the expressionless’ (das Ausdruckslose) its intriguing semantic meaning and moral value. Drawing on the poetics and philosophy of the sublime from Greek antiquity through modern times, the …
Towards a Psychological Construct of Being Moved
The emotional state of being moved, though frequently referred to in both classical rhetoric and current language use, is far from established as a well-defined psychological construct. In a series of three studies, we investigated eliciting scenarios, emotional ingredients, appraisal patterns, feeling qualities, and the affective signature of being moved and related emotional states. The great majority of the eliciting scenarios can be assigned …
Enjoying trash films: Underlying features, viewing stances, and experiential response dimensions
"Mapping the aesthetic space of literature "from below
The present paper aims to elucidate the conceptual structure of the aesthetics of literature.Following Fechner's "aesthetics from below" (1876) and adopting a method introduced by Jacobsen, Buchta, Kohler, and Schroeger (2004), we asked 1544 German-speaking research participants to list adjectives that they use to label aesthetic dimensions of literature in general and of individual literary forms and genres in particular (novels, short stories, …
The Distancing-Embracing model of the enjoyment of negative emotions in art reception
Why are negative emotions so central in art reception far beyond tragedy? Revisiting classical aesthetics in the light of recent psychological research, we present a novel model to explain this much discussed (apparent) paradox. We argue that negative emotions are an important resource for the arts in general, rather than a special license for exceptional art forms only. The underlying rationale is that negative emotions have been shown to be par…
Measuring aesthetic emotions: A review of the literature and a new assessment tool
Aesthetic perception and judgement are not merely cognitive processes, but also involve feelings. Therefore, the empirical study of these experiences requires conceptualization and measurement of aesthetic emotions. Despite the long-standing interest in such emotions, we still lack an assessment tool to capture the broad range of emotions that occur in response to the perceived aesthetic appeal of stimuli. Elicitors of aesthetic emotions are not …
The emotional and aesthetic powers of parallelistic diction
Sentence judgments and the grammar of poetry: Linking linguistic structure and poetic effect
What are aesthetic emotions?
This is the first comprehensive theoretical article on aesthetic emotions. Following Kant's definition, we propose that it is the first and foremost characteristic of aesthetic emotions to make a direct contribution to aesthetic evaluation/appreciation. Each aesthetic emotion is tuned to a special type of perceived aesthetic appeal and is predictive of the subjectively felt pleasure or displeasure and the liking or disliking associated with this …
In Praise of Nonsense: Kant and Bluebeard
Ludwig Tieck's 1797 rewriting of Charles Perrault's famous Bluebeard tale (1697) explicitly claims to be an "arabesque" book "without any sense and coherence." The author's close reading of this capricious narrative, based on Kant's theory of what it means to produce nonsense, reveals a specifically Romantic type of nonsense.
Who reads contemporary erotic novels and why
In the wake of EL James’s series Fifty Shades of Grey , the book market has seen a veritable surge of bestselling erotic novels over the past decade. The online study reported here pursued two questions: (1) Who reads these erotic novels? (2) What are the reasons underlying this preference? Most of the readers of erotic novels that responded to our survey are heterosexual women in committed relationships. They are highly educated, from a broad ag…
The Feel-Good Film: Genre Features and Emotional Rewards
In film criticism, “feel-good films” are widely dismissed as intellectually undemanding and sentimental entertainment. This study identifies key characteristics, emotional effects, and aesthetic qualities of feel-good films from the audience’s perspective. Although the feel-good film does not appear to be a genre in its own right, it is more than just a rather vague category. Romantic comedy films with a substantial share of drama are shown to be…
The Feel-Good Film – Online Supplemental Material
The pleasures of reading fiction explained by flow, presence, identification, suspense, and cognitive involvement
The present study proposes that flow is not only a key predictor of the pleasures of reading narratives but also modulates other important dimensions of the fiction reading experience, such as a sense of being present in the story world, identification with protagonists, feelings of suspense, cognitive involvement with the story, and text comprehension. All of these aspects, which until now have mostly been investigated separately, were assessed …
How perfect are imperfect rhymes? Effects of phonological similarity and verse context on rhyme perception
Rhyme occurs when two or more words are phonologically identical from the final stressed vowel onward. However, there are several types of so-called imperfect rhymes in which vocalic and/or consonantal segments are allowed to differ. Some of these types frequently replace perfect rhymes in verse-final positions in the German poetic tradition, which suggests that they are licensed by genre conventions. Thus far, however, there is little empirical …
Text type attribution modulates pre-stimulus alpha power in sentence reading
Effects of continuous self-reporting on aesthetic evaluation and emotional responses
What the eyes reveal about (reading) poetry
This study investigated how rhyme and meter affect eye movements and subjective aesthetic evaluations while reading poems. Earlier findings suggest that the effects might include prosodic predictability-driven cognitive and affective rewards from increased processing fluency (Blohm, Wagner, Schlesewsky and Menninghaus, 2018, McGlone and Tofighbakhsh, 2000), but also semantic and syntactic disfluency, as rhyme and meter are often implemented at th…
A good, a bad, and an evil character: Who renders a novel most enjoyable?✰
The choice, or invention, of protagonists is an important part of the poetics and aesthetics of narratives and dramas. Aristotle stipulated that, for the purposes of engaging the readers or onlookers, protagonists should neither be excessively good nor excessively bad, leaving room for much variation in the middle-ground ( Aristotle, 1961 ). A theoretical model of the enjoyment of negative emotions in art reception (Menninghaus et al., 2017) supp…
Psychology (21 works) · Aesthetic Perception and Analysis (13 works) · Social Psychology (13 works) · Cognitive psychology (12 works) · Linguistics (12 works) · Art (11 works) · Computer Science (11 works) · Aesthetics (10 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Poetry (9 works)