ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on the way the concrete predictions were derived from the analyses of the poems. The 'Von Restorff effect' seemed to offer a ready parallel to foregrounding effects. According to this theory words written in another colour, or printed in a different type, or deviating from the normal way of presentation in a text, are easier to remember. From the earliest formulations of the theory it has been stressed that foregrounding may be characterized by its strikingness: what is in the 'foreground', what is de-familiarized or de-automatized, what is 'made strange', etc. will generally strike the reader. Relevant as the semi-affective postulate of strikingness may be, this notion should be complemented by a more cognitively oriented measure. Test instruments were then needed to examine the claims the theory makes with regard to these variables. For some of these, no special measuring instruments needed to be developed.
