{"actors":["Reader-response scholars who make cohort-level reception claims","Instructors who design discussion prompts from reception patterns","Research facilitators who collect checkpoint responses","Volunteer readers whose interpretive trajectories are represented","Editors of study reports or teaching materials who summarize reader patterns"],"affected_objective":"Preserve a valid, stable cohort-level distribution of interpretations while preventing that equilibrium from being mistaken for persistent interpretive types or uniform individual reading paths.","arm":"ORDINARY_DIVERSE_P2","authority_safety":{"authorized_first_step":"A designated researcher may conduct a reversible, consented, non-graded pilot with adult volunteers reading one public-domain novella, collecting pseudonymous interpretation choices and confidence at predefined textual checkpoints.","decision_authority":"The responsible scholar retains authority over reception claims, the instructor retains authority over teaching prompts, and each participant retains authority to skip questions or withdraw their trajectory before analysis.","excluded_actions":["Assigning grades or participation penalties from response trajectories","Labeling readers publicly or permanently as interpretive types","Inferring sensitive identity, ability, or psychological traits from switching patterns","Changing a syllabus, assessment, or published reception claim from pilot results alone","Releasing identifiable response sequences or quotations","Treating forced-choice interpretations as exhaustive accounts of a reader's understanding"],"halt_rollback":"Stop collection if consent cannot be maintained, pseudonymous trajectories can be reidentified, response options repeatedly fail to represent readers' accounts, or participation affects grading; delete link keys, withdraw affected trajectories, and revert to the original non-trajectory teaching materials."},"baseline":"A reception study or seminar records the proportion of readers endorsing several interpretations at successive textual checkpoints. When those proportions remain similar, the stable split is summarized as persistent interpretive camps or shared settlement, even though reader identities are not followed through the aggregate counts.","candidate_id":"ensemble_and_population_level_equilibrium_versus_individual_level_heterogeneity__literature_literary_theory__ORDINARY_DIVERSE_P2","causal_chain":["A researcher fixes the reader cohort, public-domain text, interpretive options, textual checkpoints, and participation rules before collection.","Each consenting reader records a provisional interpretation, confidence, and optional rationale at every checkpoint under a stable pseudonym.","The researcher computes the cohort share endorsing each interpretation at each checkpoint and applies a predefined stability band to the sequence of aggregate shares.","Identity-preserving transitions are separately calculated to show persistence, switching, convergence, divergence, and return paths beneath the cohort shares.","A micro-macro crosswalk demonstrates how opposing individual switches can cancel in the aggregate and identifies the trajectory information discarded by checkpoint-level proportions.","A level boundary permits stable-share claims about the bounded cohort while requiring persistence evidence before describing individual readers as members of fixed interpretive camps.","Within-reader switching is separated from between-reader differences and mapped to textual checkpoints, confidence levels, and voluntarily supplied prior-familiarity bands.","A representative trajectory panel examines persistent, switching, uncertain, and returning paths to determine whether heterogeneity reflects interpretive development, forced-choice mismatch, or unstable measurement.","Only corroborated transition points inform text-specific discussion prompts or qualified reception claims, while later reviews monitor both cohort-share stability and reader-level movement."],"cell_id":"ensemble_and_population_level_equilibrium_versus_individual_level_heterogeneity__literature_literary_theory","consequence":"A true equilibrium in cohort-level interpretation shares becomes an unsupported theory of stable reader types, obscuring interpretive revision during reading and directing discussion or reception claims toward categories that may not describe individual readers.","diversity_from_prior_proposals":"This opportunity concerns reader-level interpretive migration beneath stable cohort response shares. Its problem, trajectory-preserving intervention, and cancellation-based causal path are distinct from the sealed proposal's period-level narrative profile, work distributions, and anthology-oriented crosswalk.","experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp13_second_slot_policy60_20260806","intervention":"Introduce a Reader Interpretation Flow Protocol that pairs stable checkpoint-level cohort shares with pseudonymous reader trajectories, transition matrices, within-reader versus between-reader decomposition, and representative trajectory review. Retain the aggregate reception finding when its shares meet the stability rule, but permit fixed-reader-type claims or targeted prompts only when identity-linked persistence supports them; otherwise act at the textual transition point rather than labeling readers.","mechanism_mapping":[{"counterfactual_removal":"Without the crosswalk, stable checkpoint shares cannot reveal whether the same readers remain in each interpretation or whether opposing switches continually reproduce the aggregate split.","mechanism_slug":"micro_macro_crosswalk","role":"Connect identity-linked reader transitions to cohort interpretation shares and specify what checkpoint aggregation discards."},{"counterfactual_removal":"Without the dashboard, reviewers see either the stable cohort split or isolated reader accounts rather than both levels in the same decision surface.","mechanism_slug":"distributional_dashboard","role":"Display aggregate interpretation shares beside switching rates, persistence lengths, confidence distributions, and trajectory classes."},{"counterfactual_removal":"Without decomposition, stable differences among readers and interpretive change within readers remain conflated, allowing either process to be misdescribed as fixed camps.","mechanism_slug":"variance_decomposition_table","role":"Separate between-reader heterogeneity from within-reader change across textual checkpoints and confidence states."},{"counterfactual_removal":"Without the panel, a dramatic conversion or unusually persistent reader could substitute for the range of trajectories compatible with the same aggregate equilibrium.","mechanism_slug":"representative_microcase_panel","role":"Review pseudonymous paths sampled from persistent, switching, returning, and uncertain portions of the trajectory distribution."}],"nearest_rivals":["Reader-response close reading: it can interpret individual rationales but does not require an explicit aggregation rule linking reader trajectories to a stable cohort distribution.","Variability characterization: it can catalog different readings but does not address a valid macro equilibrium whose stable shares may be generated by changing members.","Longitudinal audience segmentation: it classifies reader paths, whereas this intervention preserves the cohort equilibrium and restricts when trajectories license fixed reader categories.","Aggregation-bias correction: it would replace or repair an invalid cohort statistic; here the aggregate shares may be valid, while identity-erasing overinterpretation is the problem."],"negative_tests":{"intervention_falsifier":"The intervention is falsified for the stated decision if reviewers given identity-preserving flow reports make no fewer unsupported fixed-reader claims than reviewers given checkpoint shares alone, under a predefined claim-scoping rubric and comparable review time.","problem_falsifier":"The problem is falsified if nearly all readers persist in the same interpretation across checkpoints, aggregate summaries already state only cohort-level claims, and no pending teaching or theoretical decision attributes the stable shares to individual reader types.","risks":["Forced-choice options may manufacture apparent switching when readers hold blended interpretations.","Repeated elicitation may alter the reading process it is intended to observe.","Pseudonymous sequences and rationales may still be reidentifiable in a small seminar.","Low-confidence changes may be overinterpreted as substantive hermeneutic development.","Trajectory displays may encourage new reader typologies despite the level boundary.","Textual checkpoints may privilege plot revelation over other sources of interpretive change."],"strongest_counterevidence":"If identity-linked responses show durable individual persistence and independent reviewers find that the existing cohort summary already avoids claims about reader types or paths, the stable aggregate does not conceal action-relevant heterogeneity for this decision."},"next_evidence_step":"Recruit a consented, non-graded pilot cohort of 30 adult volunteers to read one public-domain novella. At six predefined checkpoints, collect a pseudonymous choice among four prewritten interpretive hypotheses, confidence, and an optional rationale. Freeze the options and stability band before analysis; compare aggregate shares with identity-linked transition matrices and have two blinded reviewers score paired share-only and flow-aware summaries for unsupported fixed-reader inferences. Record withdrawals, option-mismatch reports, review time, disagreement, and halt conditions without changing external teaching or scholarly materials.","observable_state":"Across predefined checkpoints in a bounded reading cohort, the proportion endorsing each interpretive hypothesis can remain within a fixed stability band while identity-linked records show that individual readers switch, return, or temporarily combine positions. A share-only summary preserves the cohort equilibrium but erases the flows that produced it.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","problem":"A reader-response scholar or instructor interprets stable cohort shares among competing readings as evidence that individual readers occupy persistent interpretive camps. The cohort equilibrium may be valid, but checkpoint aggregation discards reader identity and can hide offsetting interpretive migrations, so claims and teaching responses are assigned at the wrong level.","proposal_index":2,"remaining_contrastive_claim":"The proposal is warranted specifically when a valid, stable distribution of interpretations must be retained while identity-preserving trajectories determine whether that equilibrium represents persistent readers or offsetting interpretive movement; neither isolated close readings nor reader segmentation alone supplies that micro-macro boundary.","revision_record":{"claim_changes":[],"conceptual_changes":[],"evidence_changes":[],"operational_changes":[],"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":["Defined an independent reader-response problem centered on interpretive trajectories.","Specified a cohort equilibrium indicator and an identity-preserving aggregation crosswalk.","Located action at textual transition points unless individual persistence warrants reader-level claims.","Bounded participant authority, privacy safeguards, falsifiers, and a finite pilot."]},"schema_version":1,"structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Ensemble Frame","domain_realization":"A consented cohort reading the same public-domain novella under common checkpoint and response conditions; readers are ensemble members and their checkpoint responses are repeated microstates."},{"archetype_element":"Macro Equilibrium Indicator","domain_realization":"The cohort proportion endorsing each predefined interpretive hypothesis at each checkpoint, considered stable when the vector of shares remains inside a fixed band."},{"archetype_element":"Microstate Variability Profile","domain_realization":"Each reader's sequence of provisional interpretations, confidence changes, switches, returns, and optional rationales across the text."},{"archetype_element":"Aggregation Translation Rule","domain_realization":"At each checkpoint, reader choices are counted and divided by eligible responses to form cohort shares; this preserves the marginal distribution but discards identity-linked transitions, path order, confidence, and rationale."},{"archetype_element":"Level-of-Analysis Boundary","domain_realization":"Stable shares license a claim about the bounded cohort at the specified checkpoints; claims about persistent reader types require longitudinal persistence for the relevant individuals."},{"archetype_element":"Heterogeneity Relevance Test","domain_realization":"Reader movement matters when it exceeds predefined option-mismatch and low-confidence rules, clusters at a textual checkpoint, and changes the warrant for a theoretical claim or planned discussion prompt."},{"archetype_element":"Subgroup and Locality Map","domain_realization":"Trajectories are mapped by textual checkpoint, voluntary prior-familiarity band, and confidence state, without inferring demographic or psychological categories."},{"archetype_element":"Multi-Level Feedback Design","domain_realization":"Monitoring retains the cohort-share equilibrium while routing corroborated movement to text-specific prompts and requiring persistence evidence before any reader-level response."},{"archetype_element":"Representative Case Guardrail","domain_realization":"Review includes trajectories sampled from persistent, switching, returning, and uncertain paths; no vivid conversion or stable reader stands in for the cohort."}],"title":"Reader Interpretation Flow Protocol","version":0}