Hypertext narrative and the reader: a view from cognitive theory

Abstract

The phenomenon of literary hypertext was greeted in literary scholarship with claims for new concepts of authorship, textuality and readership. A view on hypertext readership based on cognitive theory directs the focus of attention to the procedural differences between reading print and hypertext narratives. Using concepts provided by cognitive psychology, in which reading is viewed as information processing, these differences can be described more satisfactorily than by relying on descriptions of the textual properties of hypertext. This article concentrates on the questions of interactivity and non-linearity, as well as the potential disorientation of the hypertext reader through lack of coherence, from the standpoint of cognitive theory.1 This essay is a considerably modified and extended version of an article (in German) that is scheduled to appear in Literarische Hypertexte, edited by Thomas Rommel and Peter Paul Schnierer (forthcoming).

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