Mind Wandering and Water Metaphors: Towards a Reconceptualisation of Immersion and Fictional Worlds

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article argues 1) that the concept of the fictional world should be conceptualised as a fluid, stream-like mental construct shaped by imaginative engagement and mind wandering, and 2) that mind wandering in fiction is evoked by water-related metaphors and imagery.

The article succeeds in thoroughly explaining the concept of mind wandering, on the level of the reading mind, within the field of cognitive science and literary studies, and in that sense it forms a valuable contribution to the research domain. It contends that mind wandering is not a hindrance to the immersion process while reading, and that immersion should be understood in a more nuanced and multifarious way than is previously done. For this part of the paper the author draws on relevant sources, although Nell (1988) is rather old and it is more recent publications can be found on the role of imagination (in the reading process or reception of fiction), and that Nell's own concepts of "trance" and "fantasy" have become outdated. The first part of the paper focuses on the workings of the reading mind. However, the article tries to combine the level of the reader with the level of the fictional mind, showing how water-related imagery in fictional narratives evoke that sense of mind-wandering, and thus also evoke this (idea of) mind-wandering in the reader. This line of argumentation, however, is sometimes difficult to follow and, overall, not convincing.

The author mentions (l. 239-50) Karin Kukkonen and Sybil Baumbach, who talk about the narrative strategies ("distractors") that can induce mind wandering in readers. Although these strategies do not include metaphors and images, the author does contend that the latter can play the role of this kind of narrative strategy and builds the entire second half of the paper, and thus, the analysis of the case studies, on that contention, claiming that "water-related metaphors and images in fiction have been traditionally used to show the immersive power of fiction in a more attention-oriented sense" and then attempting to rectify that interpretation by showing that these metaphors and images actually "function as mind-wandering related devices, in this way providing a vaster and more multi-faceted account of the mental engagement with fictional worlds" (l. 249-50). Although this statement clearly involves the level of the reading mind, the rest of the paper does not sufficiently come back to the manner in which the reading mind engages with these images and metaphors, but primarily focuses on the importance of water and water imagery within the fictional narratives. Thus, the close reading is limited to an analysis of these images without fully accounting for the connection between the two levels. To improve the paper, this connection should be more thoroughly researched and explained to the reader.

Methodologically, the paper is not yet solid enough, and a clear reasoning is missing for 1) the selection of the case studies, 2) the inclusion of a film, and 3) specific close reading interpretations.

The corpus is not sufficiently motivated, and the exact meaning of "water imagery" in the different novels and film seems rather divergent. Woolf's stream of consciousness technique is different from the symbolic load that the sea receives in the other novels, and overall, the paper does not sufficiently account for the similarities and differences between the different novels and film. A more transparent definition of certain narrative strategies or concepts, and a categorization of the different devices that can be used to evoke a sense of mind-wandering, may improve the scientific credibility of the paper as well as the general reading experience.

The addition of a film into the corpus is unexpected and raises questions about the value of the paper and the scope of its theoretical framework more generally, since the concept of "immersion" does work differently according to a specific medium and the diverse senses that are used in the reader's / viewer's experience. This is a distinction and line of research that the author does not address in any way, and this lack of nuance undermines the scientific value of the paper.

Although the author makes some perceptive remarks about the case studies, the arguments in the close reading section can also be quite vague or too generalizing. Here are some examples:

- The author claims that verbs and aquatic images evoking physical actions like swimming, plunging, diving, immersing, drowning, ebbing and flowing, etc. induce embodied mental responses in readers that imply a mental state of fluidity and wandering. These kinds of verbs may lead to "corporeal imagining", but the author claims that they may just as well stimulate similar kind of mental acts (l. 308). Throughout the close reading section this forms an important cornerstone to bridge the levels of the reading mind and the fictional mind, but the author does not provide any proof for this assertion. It's not because these kinds of images evoke corporeal imagining that they will also automatically convey mental acts that can be metaphorically related to these physical acts. This seems like too far of a stretch and is not supported by secondary sources.

- The initial interpretation of The Starless Sea (l. 60-78) is not sufficiently substantiated and does not contain any references with page numbers to the primary source (which is also not included in the bibliography).

- In the author's reading of The Waves, the reference to the earlier title The Moths is interesting but leads attention away from the main argument of the paper. The author states that "the figure of the moth seems to be a key metaphor employed by Woolf in an essay in which she explains how mind wandering is an integral part of the reading experience – the fact that The Waves, which I would define as a crucial novel for the depiction and evocation of mind wandering, was to be named The Moths, strengthens this claim" (l. 418-22). It can be agreed that this shows how Woolf uses the metaphor of the moth hunt to talk about the experience of reading, but it is not fully shown how this contributes to the interpretation of the aquatic images in The Waves, and so the entire section seems like a digression that is trying to draw the reader's attention away from the flaws in the paper's main argumentation.

- A particularly vague statement is the following: "However, this is a less extreme case than it may seem: the fictional and the real are constantly interwoven thanks to how our mind always wanders and intermingles things" (l. 556-7).

- Another confusing statement is the following: "This meaning appears to be the recognition of interconnection of the mind and the ocean and their intrinsic ineffable nature, their incessant dynamicity – it can be relevant to point out that the name Ruka can be roughly translated as “flow”, while Umi and Sora are translated as “sea” and “sky”. This can also resonate with Peter Boxall’s words (as quoted in Royle) about the kind of imagination fiction inspires: he writes that through fiction it is possible to imagine “unthought conjunctions between human memory and the blue sea, the blue sky, our planet of the sheerest, wildest blue” (352 – 53)" (l. 523-30).

Quite some statements in the paper are not supported by secondary sources, and thus, there is a clear lack of references. Although the paper builds on useful sources, quite some essential statements are made without providing a clear reference. Here are the most striking instances:

- "Mind wandering often equates with distraction, and it may thus appear as the opposite kind of mental state immersion requires" (l. 149-50).

- "Traditionally, research in neuropsychology and cognitive science has stressed the negative implications of mind wandering, showing that it can disrupt short-term memory, reading comprehension, and working memory" (l. 171-3).

 - "[...] that is the kind of cognitive state more strongly associated with creativity. In this sense, mind wandering can be somehow induced and guided, and a partial cognitive control (or meta-cognitive engagement) can be operating in conjunction with it" (l. 193-8).

- "In this sense, water-related metaphors and images in fiction have been           traditionally used to show the immersive power of fiction in a more attention-  oriented sense" (l. 246-7).

Finally, not all the references in the paper show up in the bibliography, and this is the case for:

• Currie and Ravenscroft (l. 97)
• Seli, Carriere and Smilek (l. 194)
• Alice Bennett (l. 209)
• Herman (l. 259)
• Richardson (l. 372)

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, 

Thank you so much for your feedback and suggestions. I attach here my full reply :) 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I recommend that Humanities publish this article if the author is willing to make significant revisions.

The essay makes a welcome contribution to cognitive literary studies by drawing attention to how water metaphors are used to characterize mind-wandering as an active, exploratory, imaginative process. It is always worth analyzing metaphorical patterns because of the underlying cultural and epistemological assumptions they reveal. This author asks a good question: Why immersion? Why convey the experience of intense reading by comparing it to being surrounded by liquid?

The author makes a valuable point by presenting scientific and literary evidence against the traditional notion that mind-wandering means inattention. S/he makes a convincing case that in literary reading, mind-wandering occurs because of readers’ close attention to the text.

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of this study is its wide cultural outlook, drawing attention to revealing figurative expressions for mind-wandering in Asian, European, and South American languages. One can sense the author’s intellectual curiosity and his/her courage in connecting studies in different fields to advance knowledge.

The essay still needs considerable work, in my judgment, before it can be published, but its observations of metaphorical patterns and its cross-cultural reach make it worthy of publication. Here are my recommendations for revision:

• As early as possible in the essay, the author should define mind wandering clearly and concisely and indicate whether the definition differs across the fields of knowledge s/he is connecting (neuropsychology, cognitive literary studies, and literary writing). In the current draft, the definition seems to be largely assumed. The author might quote and compare a few definitions, such as Kukkonen and Baumbach’s, and then forge one of his/her own.
• The author should incorporate a reference to George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s classic studies of conceptual metaphors (Metaphors We Live By) because their studies of how embodied metaphors shape thought are so relevant to this argument.
• The research presented here overlaps with cognitive, philosophical, and literary studies of imagination as enactive, but the author is not yet engaging this work. The concept of imagination as active and exploratory (rather than mimetic and representational), as associated here with mind wandering, is being studied by scholars in several fields. I recommend Emily Troscianko’s Kafka’s Cognitive Realism as a portal into this research. Her book is about much more than Kafka and cites a wealth of scientific and philosophical studies that could inform this argument on mind reading.
• The scientific sources cited to support the author’s argument come largely from books and essay collections written for a wide readership (such as Wolf’s book on reading) and need to be reinforced with peer-reviewed journal articles written for other scientists, which tend to avoid speculation and make more modest claims.
• To convince readers, this argument about mind wandering urgently needs support from empirical studies of readers’ experiences of immersion such as those of David S. Miall, Don Kuiken, and Moniek M. Kuijpers. Their work can be found in the open-access Handbook of Empirical Literary Studies (2021). In psychological studies of reading, do participants spontaneously use metaphors of fluid movements? Knowing the answer to that question could greatly enrich this article.
• Because the author is analyzing works across several genres (literary fiction, speculative fiction, film), s/he should briefly address the issue of genre. How might mind wandering while viewing an animated film differ from mind wandering while reading a novel, and while reading works as different as Woolf’s and Gaiman’s?
• The author engages some literary scholars’ studies of Woolf’s The Waves, but I didn’t notice references to critical studies of Gaiman’s, Morgenstern’s, or Watanabe’s work. If critics of these works have addressed any issue relevant to mind reading, it would be good to know.
• The exchange of ideas between literature and science flows in both directions, and I recommend playing up a potential benefit of this research that so far remains undeveloped: What can neuropsychologists and other scientists of the mind learn from the pattern of metaphors the author has observed here? Knowing that writers across cultures describe mind wandering as an active process comparable to the movements of water, what experiments might be conducted to learn more about how literature invites mind wandering and how imagination contributes to the reading process? What can scientists learn from what the author is reporting here?
• The author should carefully check each parenthetical citation against the References list. I found several citations that did not appear on the list (Currie and Ravenscroft, Simor et al., Seli, Carriere and Smilek), and there may be more. I also saw several instances in which the spelling of an author’s name differed in the parenthetical and the bibliographical reference. A copy-editor would probably catch these problems, but a careful, systematic cross-check should be run before resubmitting this article for publication.
• Consider making the title more concise. I hope that when published, this article will be widely cited, and a concise, memorable title will help future scholars refer to this study. I recommend dropping the literary quotation and using just what comes after the colon, maybe introducing a verb to clarify the relationship among the terms.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, 

thank you so much for your helpful comments. I attach here my full reply :) 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In just a short time, the author has made a conscientious effort to engage empirical studies relevant to the research presented. S/he has made major revisions in the text to incorporate and analyze the work of Lakoff and Johnson as well as numerous other cognitive scientists and cognitive literary scholars who study immersion and mind-wandering. The author has respectfully and seriously addressed every point I raised in my initial review comments. I especially appreciate the change to the title, which is now much better. I believe this new title will attract more readers to this thought-provoking article that calls for a rethinking of immersion, mind wandering, and attention in relation to literary reading. Please check this revised manuscript one more time for typographical and grammatical errors. I spotted several subject-verb agreement errors that may have been introduced during the revision process.

Author Response

I want to thank you again for your thorough help with this revision process :) . If allowed by the journal, I will add acknowledgements thanking the careful and helpful work of the reviewers. Thanks again!