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Research in cognitive science has focu sed on expert perform ance in various d om ains, but there has been no expert-novice stud y on how m eaning is constructed w hen read ing poetry. In the present stud y "experts" w ere eight Ph.D. English cand id ates and "novices" w ere eight und ergrad uates or advanced high school stud ents. Participants thought aloud as they attem pted to m ake sense of tw o period poem s. The protocol analysis, fram ed by four research questions, resulted in four broad find ings: As in stud ies of expertise in other d om ains, for the experts, know led ge is an im portant com ponent of poetic com m unication. N ovices d id , how ever, have w ell d eveloped expectations for und erstand ing the category of poetry as d iscourse. The experts em ployed prod uctive interpretive strategies in m aking the poem s coherent. The d ifficulty novices had in m aking sense of the texts, d im inished their appreciation of the poem s.
Joan Peskin (Tue,) studied this question.