Articles

Abstract

The recipient perceives text always successively and linearly. The reader’s perception of the text most often lasts for the same duration that the text fulfills the expectations that the recipient has of it. The author, aware of this fact, builds (in proportion to his goals, aims, or preferences) the text in order to either (more or less) meaningfully fulfill the expectations the recipient has of the text according to the author’s knowledge, estimation, or presumptions or, on the contrary, to (more or less) intentionally violate these expectations. While the fulfillment of expectations results in a certain «comforting» impression on the recipient, its violation causes an arousal in the recipient. Violation of expectations does not have to have only a negative effect — it can also have communicative value. Thus, it can be said that a) the author incorporates stimuli into the text that lead to the violation of the recipient’s expectations and does so with communicatively-functional intent (including the artistic and aesthetic) and b) if an arousal is a consequence of violating the recipient’s expectations, then, if the relevant author’s plan (artistic, aesthetic, other) lies in a (multilayer, sequential, compositional, etc.) series of violations of the recipient’s expectations, the experience (aesthetic, other) induced by it is caused, amongst other things, by a series of arousals (that are induced by relevant violations).