Acknowledgements Introduction: Literature and Predictive Processing I: Narrative Design 1. Plots and Probability Transformations 2. Probability Designs 3. The Height of Drop II: The Embodied Reader III. Into the Mental Library 1. Intertextual Precision Expectations 2. Things That Did Not Happen 3. Reading by Proxy 4. Artificial, In the Best Sense of the Word IV: An Argument From Design 1.Otto's Novel 2. Literature as a Designer Environment 3. The Cognitive Work of Form Endnotes Bibliography

How can words on the page of a good novel create such exciting and immersive experiences? In Probability Designs Karin Kukkonen makes brilliant use of the latest developments in cognitive science to show how this is achieved. Through the management of our expectations, novels become extensions of our minds where we can watch ourselves think. With the help of Cinderella, she promises to turn us from detectives into princes. Who could resist?"-Chris Frith, Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology, Wellcome Centre for Human NeuroImaging, University College London

"How can words on the page of a good novel create such exciting and immersive experiences? In Probability Designs Karin Kukkonen makes brilliant use of the latest developments in cognitive science to show how this is achieved. Through the management of our expectations, novels become extensions of our minds where we can watch ourselves think. With the help of Cinderella, she promises to turn us from detectives into princes. Who could resist?"-Chris Frith, Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology, Wellcome Centre for Human NeuroImaging, University College London "Probability Designs is a brilliant examination of the multiple levels of embodied reading through the lens of predictive processing. Kukkonen not only deftly integrates her close analyses of specific literary texts into the predictive model, she brings a rich historical and philosophical perspective to her argument that is often missing in cognitive science. This is an important book for anyone who cares deeply about literature and how we read it."-Siri Hustvedt, Lecturer in Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College "What is a book? Using a ground-breaking mixture of literary theory, philosophy, and cognitive science, Karin Kukonnen argues that literary constructions and even intertextual references are best understood as probability designs - artificial structures that push, pull, and tweak our webs of probabilistic expectation. The result is a new and compelling way of looking at how minds like ours are affected by some of our most familiar, yet truly deeply strange, creations."-Andy Clark, author of Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action, and the Embodied Mind

Selling point: First comprehensive treatment of literature and predictive processing Selling point: Shows how literature goes beyond simulation and accomplishes specific cognitive work Selling point: Compares a broad range of historical manifestations of the novel on an equal footing

Karin Kukkonen is Professor in Comparative Literature at the University of Oslo. Her work investigates how the novel emerged as a genre designed for particular cognitive and emotional engagements and how the poetics of earlier periods and cognitive poetics today can speak to each other. At the University of Oslo, Kukkonen heads the interdisciplinary research and teaching initiative "Literature, Cognition and Emotions" (2019-2023).

Selling point: First comprehensive treatment of literature and predictive processing Selling point: Shows how literature goes beyond simulation and accomplishes specific cognitive work Selling point: Compares a broad range of historical manifestations of the novel on an equal footing