Fig 1.
One trial of the experiment: a segment of the text was presented, followed by a rating screen on which the suspense experienced while reading the text segment was selected on a 10-point scale using two buttons (for moving the selected point on the rating scale to the left or right).
Timing was self-paced, i.e., participants pressed a button in order to proceed to the next text segment / rating screen. A total of 65 text segments was presented during the experiment.
Fig 2.
Average suspense ratings (N = 23) and standard errors for each segment of the text.
Fig 3.
Statistical parametric maps (p <. 05, cluster-level FWE-corrected, shown in neurological convention) for (A) the contrast reading > rating and (B) the parametric suspense regressor capturing participants' experience of suspense during reading.
Table 1.
GLM analysis: anatomical locations, peak MNI coordinates, T-values, and cluster sizes (number of voxels) of significant clusters for the reading > rating contrast and the parametric suspense regressor.
Table 2.
PPI analysis: anatomical locations, peak MNI coordinates, T-values, and cluster sizes (number of voxels) of brain areas in which suspense (high vs. low) significantly modulated the functional connectivity to the seed region.