Measuring Suspense in Real Time: A New Experimental Methodology

Narrative suspense represents a multifaceted cognitive-emotional response triggered by unfolding storylines. Recognized as a critical aesthetic element in literary narratives, its investigation has gained momentum across psychology, narratology, and related disciplines, with a focus on its textual, emotional, and cognitive underpinnings. The empirical foundations of such studies hinge critically on our capacity to quantify suspense, establishing a dependable suspense arc for narratives. Despite a plethora of methods available within current literature, all with their respective merits and limitations, the empirical measurement of suspense, particularly for written texts, poses a substantial challenge. This paper introduces a novel experimental paradigm to construct a high-resolution suspense arc for extended literary narratives within a laboratory setting. The methodology is exemplified using a German translation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Brazilian Cat.