The same literary events can be told in the first person or the third, with nothing in the plot altered. It sounds like a grammatical decision. Researchers swapped the pronouns in real literary stories, recorded skin conductance while people read, and asked them afterwards how the reading felt. What does the swap do to a reader?
It moves where the reader stands. Stories using first person pronouns produced higher immersion, and two components in particular rose: into the story world, and while reading. Arousal measured through the skin tentatively ran the other way, slightly higher for third person. Appreciation of the stories did not move at all.
Pronouns have been shown to shift in single sentences: third person supports an observer’s viewpoint, second person an actor’s, and first person depends on context. Whether that survives in a real story, read for pleasure, is a different question.
The design holds everything else constant. Participants read literary stories in which the pronouns referring to the protagonist were first or third person, while was recorded, and afterwards they rated immersion and ranked the stories for appreciation.
Immersion rose with first person, and the two components driving it were transportation into the story world and mental imagery during reading. That is a specific result rather than a vague one: it names which parts of the experience the grammar touches.
Two things did not follow. Arousal measured at the skin tentatively leaned the other way, toward third person, and appreciation did not move on either measure. So a reader can be more inside a story without enjoying it more, which complicates the writing advice this result keeps getting turned into.
wat. In the stories tested, "I" raised immersion and imagery over "he", and did not make anybody enjoy the story more.
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One small word relocates the mental position a reader occupies, without touching the events, which is a real lever for anybody who writes.
How do we know?
Hartung and colleagues had participants read literary stories in a natural reading paradigm, with first or third person pronouns referring to the protagonist. They measured electrodermal activity and story immersion, and collected ratings and rankings of appreciation.
What is still unknown
The effect was found in particular stories on particular measures. It does not establish that first person is better, or that every reader responds the same way.
Learn something?
Where to next
Can a few minutes with a text change how well you read another person?reading
Does a spoiler really make a story more enjoyable?reading
Does reading literary fiction make us more empathic?reading