Cultural–historical knowledge and personal experience in appreciation of literature

Appreciation of literature (understanding beyond literal comprehension and inference) is hypothesized to depend on readers' application of knowledge derived from personal experiences, a cognitive process called personal resonance. The influence of cultural differences in personal experience on appreciating a literary work was studied through retrospective reports about remindings that occurred while reading. A Hungarian short story in which geographical and temporal location were left open was read by Danish (culturally distant) and Hungarian (culturally proximate) subjects. Cultural proximity was found to influence considerably readers' location and overall evaluation of the story as well as the nature of remindings during the reading process. The culturally proximate Hungarian readers exhibited a higher level of personal resonance: they had more vivid remindings and were reminded of more complete events (as opposed to decontextualized event elements), particularly more personally experienced events. The personal relevance, pleasantness, and aggressiveness of the evoked memories were important determinants of readers' overall evaluation of the story, but with very different patterns in the two cultural groups.