Shared and direct experiential iconicity in digital reading games

This paper deals with interactivity’s effects on certain instances of experiential iconicity in Gregory Weir’s digital reading game Silent Conversation. Two new terms are proposed in this paper: ‘shared experiential iconicity’ and ‘direct experiential iconicity’. The former term attempts to account for instances in which a reader’s interaction with signs in digital text enables a simulation of a text’s character’s interpreted emotive response to a given situation in the text. The latter term is one that describes a hypothetical situation in which signs are linked iconically to a reader’s psychological state during reading through a number of (bodily) measurements. This would lead to a continuous feedback loop being established between readers’ psychological states and signs, which could prove beneficial for readers with reading disorders.