The Reader's Attentional State
The subject's attentional state has three major manifestations. The first
is a heightened sense of the reality of the attentional object; in other
words, an effect of concentrated attention (characteristic of both hypnosis
and of reading trance) is to endow its object with a peculiar vividness
and intensity. The full commitment of attention leads in turn to the second
correlate, imperviousness to normally distracting events. The third correlate
is "an altered sense of reality in general and of the self in particular"
because "the vivid subjective reality experienced during episodes of
absorbed attention may...during more 'decentred' normal states of wakefulness
inpress on as 'altered,' 'unreal,' or 'imaginary.'"
Nell, p. 214 (Tellegen and Atkinson)
