Quote:
Originally Posted by meeera
I can find zero information on who these "subjects" were. I'm guessing, on the odds, that they were Psych 101 students. All we know otherwise is that people who had read the classic stories before were excluded. We also know that these were all short stories, not novels or movies or TV series.
Is that really going to be a representative sample? Can we happily apply it to other readers and to other situations? Across the board?
As far as anyone else wanting to decide for me whether spoilers are or aren't good for me: that is incredibly annoying  . How about just respecting whether or not other people want spoilers? |
I'm with Meeera on this. Not impressed with the study (I hope y'all didn't get paid a lot of money to run that thing). If I read certain spoilers, I won't even read the book. And short stories are completely different than novels in shape, style, plot, time committed and so on.
I like to know enough to know what kind of story I'm getting. For example, if I pick up a romance, I do expect a happily ever after. I don't regard that as a spoiler; I regard that much the same as if I order a pizza, I expect to get a flat bread with tomato sauce, toppings and cheese. If I read a mystery, I expect some element of clever sleuthing (and yes, I mean clever. Not just serendipitous) some type of crime and A RESOLUTION. The main mystery must be solved even if subplots aren't resolved.
But all readers are different. And it's also quite possible than a segment of non-readers (people who read one or two books a year--or none) have different criteria for reading.