Reader response, simulation, and assimilation theories offer insights to our emotional connections with characters. Findings from a study conducted with avid fourth-grade readers show that when the children feel they are next to the character, they acentrally imagine the narrative and experience sympathy. The children also participate and…

According to theories of embodied cognition, a critical element in language comprehension is the formation of sensorimotor simulations of the actions and events described in a text. Although much of the embodied cognition research has focused on simulations of motor actions, we ask whether readers form simulations of story characters' linguistic…