Editing Reader-response criticism (section)

==Extensions==

Reader-response criticism relates to psychology, both [[experimental psychology]] for those attempting to find principles of response, and [[psychoanalytic psychology]] for those studying individual responses.  Post-[[behaviorist]] psychologists of reading and of [[perception]] support the idea that it is the reader who makes meaning. Increasingly, [[cognitive psychology]], [[psycholinguistics]], neuroscience, and [[neuropsychoanalysis]] have given reader-response critics powerful and detailed models for the aesthetic process. In 2011 researchers found that during listening to emotionally intense parts of a story, readers respond with changes in [[heart rate variability]], indicative of increased activation of the [[sympathetic nervous system]]. Intense parts of a story were also accompanied by increased brain activity in a network of regions known to be involved in the processing of fear, including the [[amygdala]].<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Wallentin M, Nielsen AH, Vuust P, Dohn A, Roepstorff A, Lund TE |title=Amygdala and heart rate variability responses from listening to emotionally intense parts of a story |journal=NeuroImage|volume=58 |issue=3 |pages=963–73 |year=2011 |doi=10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.06.077 |pmid=21749924|s2cid=8811261 |url=https://pure.au.dk/ws/files/40510322/Wallentin_2011_NeuroImage_10.1016j.neuroimage.2011.06.077.pdf }}</ref>

Because it rests on psychological principles, a reader-response approach readily generalizes to other arts: [[film|cinema]] ([[David Bordwell]]), music, or visual art ([[E. H. Gombrich]]), and even to history ([[Hayden White]]). In stressing the activity of the reader, reader-response theory may be employed to justify upsettings of traditional interpretations like [[deconstruction]] or [[cultural criticism]].

Since reader-response critics focus on the strategies readers are taught to use, they may address the [[teaching]] of reading and literature. Also, because reader-response criticism stresses the activity of the reader, reader-response critics may share the concerns of [[feminist theory|feminist]] critics, and critics of [[Gender studies|gender]] and [[queer theory]] and [[postcolonialism]].