New Citizen Science Project Launched: The Senses of Stories

What happens in your mind when you read a sentence like “The wind carried the scent of pine through the open window”? Do you see the trees? Smell the air? Feel the breeze?

At The Senses of Stories, we’re launching a new citizen science project to explore exactly that question. In partnership with the Center for Humanities Computing at Aarhus University, Denmark, we are investigating how literature engages the senses and sparks the imagination — and we’re inviting all passionate readers to join us.

Stories are more than words on a page. They can make us see, hear, touch, taste, and feel. They can create vivid inner worlds, evoke bodily sensations, and transport us across time and space. But how exactly does language accomplish this? And do different kinds of writing — novels, biographies, fanfiction — engage the senses in different ways?

Why the Senses?

For centuries, writers have known that sensory detail brings stories to life. But surprisingly, we still know very little — at scale — about how sentences evoke sensory experience.

• What makes a sentence highly imageable?
• Are fictional texts more sensory than nonfiction?
• Do certain genres rely more on sight, sound, or touch?
• How does sensory language relate to emotion and narrative structure?
• And crucially: can AI models recognize or reproduce these embodied dimensions of storytelling?

The Senses of Stories is designed to help us map the sensory fabric of literature — one sentence at a time.

What You’ll Be Rating

Our data comes from individual sentences sampled from a diverse range of writing, including:

• World Literature
• North American contemporary literature across diverse genres
• Fanfiction
• Narrative Nonfiction

Together, they form a rich and varied archive of how writers craft sentences across genres, cultures, and time periods.

Each sentence has its own distinctive rhythm, imagery, and texture. Some may feel concrete and grounded; others abstract and reflective. Some may immediately spark a sensory image; others may remain more conceptual.

How It Works

Readers can choose their preferred workflow — or mix and match across tasks. Each sentence is rated in one of three ways:

1. Imageability

How strongly does the sentence evoke a sensory experience of any kind?

2. Concreteness

Does the sentence refer to tangible things and experiences, or to more abstract ideas and concepts?

3. Specific Senses

How strongly does the sentence evoke each of six senses?

• Sight
• Hearing
• Touch
• Smell
• Taste
• Interoception (internal bodily sensations, such as hunger or tension)

All ratings use a simple, intuitive 7-point scale. We’re interested in readers’ first impression — there are no “right” answers. What matters is your experience as a reader.

Why Your Participation Matters

Your contributions will allow us to:

• Study sensory immersion in storytelling
• Explore how sensory language interacts with emotion and other narrative features
• Compare fictional and nonfictional writing across genres, periods, and cultures
• Investigate how well AI systems capture the embodied dimensions of stories

Importantly, this project is not about building AI systems or robot storytellers. Our aim is academic: to deepen our understanding of human storytelling. Your annotations will help us study whether AI models interpret stories in ways that align with human sensory judgments — and where they fall short.

If you’re curious about our broader commitments, you can read our responsible AI pledge on the Citizen Readers organization page.

Slow Down and Notice

One of the unexpected pleasures of this project is how it changes the way you read. Taking a moment to notice how a sentence makes you imagine, see, hear, feel, or even taste can be surprisingly fun. It can sharpen your attention to language — not just in literature, but in everyday life.

And who knows? You might even stumble across a sentence you recognize along the way.

If you’ve ever wondered how stories feel from the inside, we’d love to have you join us.

Come explore the senses of stories — one sentence at a time.