ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author lay out generalizations for the noninferential participatory responses that readers generate while experiencing narrative worlds. The chapter also shows that an analysis of certain types of p-responses is critical to adequate cognitive psychological models of narrative understanding because p-responses have exactly the sorts of consequences that have been the objects of these models. It considers p-responses that consist of readers' expressions of hopes or preferences. The chapter examines the way suspense presupposes reader participation. The experience of suspense should occur when a reader lacks knowledge about some sufficiently important target outcome. Feelings of suspense will be heightened to the extent that the target outcome maps out a challenging problem space and the author is able to sustain participatory responses over a period of delay. The chapter also examines the process by which readers replot the events of a narrative both within and without the narrative world.
