Seratonin

Variations in seratonin levels affect our perception of intimacy -- including our own. Low seratonin is associated with poor personal relationships and depression. One would expect a few things, then, from this. First, authors who were chrinocally depressed may be expected to write stories in which there are primarily poor personal relationships. Second, we should see these correlations -- and their opposites -- in stories' characters. Third, seratonin levels may also affect our perception, and thus our interpretation, of relationships in literature. Now that would be an interesting reformulation of reader-response theory!