In their thought-provoking article, Dubourg and Baumard (D&B) suggest that the popularity of “imaginary worlds” in books, films, and video games is explained by an evolved preference for the exploration of new environments. I sympathize with their intention to offer a testable hypothesis about the cultural evolution of fiction: As I argued earlier (Sobchuk, Reference Sobchuk2018), this research area deserves more attention than it currently gets. And yet I want to challenge three points of the paper: (1) I doubt that an “imaginary world” is a clearly defined concept; (2) I am not sure that “imaginary world” fiction is as popular as the authors claim; (3) most importantly, I can think of alternative explanations of “imaginary worlds,” which can be more compelling due to their generalizability across a wider array of phenomena.
First, the concept. The phrase “imaginary world” may sound intuitive, but if we look closer at its definition, we'll see that it has blurry edges. The definition: “Imaginary worlds are fictional environments that the recipients of the fiction could not have possibly explored in the real life, be it far removed islands, locations in the future or the distant past, other planets, or environments in alternative history” (target article, sect. 2, para. 2). Broad! Yet most examples in the paper come from very specific genres: fantasy and science fiction. According to the authors, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings does depict an imaginary world, while Balzac's The Human Comedy doesn't. But why not? From a modern reader's view, it is located in “distant past” – so remote and unusual that it may be easily perceived as “alternative history.” Plus, the multi-volume fictional world of Balzac includes at least one fantastic story, The Skin of Shagreen. Does a single fantastic element make The Human Comedy as a whole “imaginary”? And how inaccessible, exactly, shall a fictional world be to become “imaginary”?
Answering this question is important if we think that some narratives are appealing because they are set in an “imaginary world.” D&B certainly do. The opening sentence of the paper: “The world around fictions with imaginary worlds draw acclaim from the public, the critics and the industry, making them both best-selling and most-appreciated fictions (e.g., top-ranked in online ranking websites)” (target article, sect. 1, para. 1). The target article makes it sound as if science fiction and fantasy (clearly, the backbone of the “imaginary world” concept) are the most popular genres of fiction. Are they? The analysis of the New York Times bestseller lists (Yucesoy, Wang, Huang, & Barabási, Reference Yucesoy, Wang, Huang and Barabási2018) shows that the most profitable genres of fiction are, in descending order, general fiction, suspense/thrillers, mystery/detective, romance, and only then, on places 5 and 6, fantasy and science fiction. Even in the English-speaking world, the citadel of sci-fi and fantasy, they are far from being the most “best-selling and most-appreciated.”
Still, fantasy and science fiction are popular; why? D&B: “Our hypothesis is that the cultural preference for imaginary worlds relies on our exploratory preferences, driving our motivation to explore novel environments” (target article, sect. 4, para. 1). The authors avoid the common “fiction is an adaptive simulation” argument, which we have tested and found little support for (Morin, Acerbi, & Sobchuk, Reference Morin, Acerbi and Sobchuk2019). Instead, they say: “Imaginary worlds, we propose, are appealing because they meet the ‘input conditions’ of our cognitive dispositions geared toward exploration” (target article, sect. 3, para. 3). Thus, my question: how granular are these cognitive dispositions?
Let's consider the spectrum of cognitivist explanations for the popularity of fantasy and science fiction, on Figure 1. Do humans have an adaptive preference for these particular genres? Of course not. Then, do we have a more general adaptation to appreciate fiction? Some – for example, the scholars from the literary Darwinism camp – would say “yes,” but not D&B. Their answer is placed further along the spectrum: humans have adaptation for spatial exploration, and some books, films, or video games tap into it. Myself, I would move even further. The appeal of the fantastic stories can easily be a special case of the general hedonic appeal of information that is unusual but not too unusual. Since Berlyne's (Reference Berlyne1970) experiments, it is known that humans enjoy stimuli that hit the sweet spot between novelty and comprehensibility (see also Berger & Packard, Reference Berger and Packard2018; Silvia, Reference Silvia2006; Tran, Waring, Atmaca, & Beheim, Reference Tran, Waring, Atmaca and Beheim2021). We enjoy stimuli that depart from our everyday experience, but if they depart too much, they become too complex to be enjoyed. Fantasy and science fiction fit this explanation. In fantasy genre, where an author's imagination should be unlimited, the depicted environments are in fact highly restricted; they are creative departures from the environment most readers know well from history lessons or TV: the Middle Ages (and, historically, medieval chivalric novels are one strong influence on modern fantasy genre). The same is true for science fiction, with its human-like aliens and distant planets covered with Earth-like forests, deserts, and oceans. They are unusual, but firmly grounded in our common knowledge. Novel, but not too novel.
Figure 1.Possible cognitive explanations of fantasy and science fiction, ordered from the most to the least granular. (Of course, cognition is one of many factors influencing the success of stories: the actual causal graph of fiction's success should be much more complex.)
Is this, more general, explanation stronger than the one suggested by D&B? Only carefully designed empirical tests can tell. However, I already see an immediate benefit of having a more general explanation: it does not require the new concept of “imaginary world,” which is hard to define. This more general explanation can be used to explain not only interesting spatial worlds, but also abstract images, music, architecture, and other artistic phenomena.
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In their thought-provoking article, Dubourg and Baumard (D&B) suggest that the popularity of “imaginary worlds” in books, films, and video games is explained by an evolved preference for the exploration of new environments. I sympathize with their intention to offer a testable hypothesis about the cultural evolution of fiction: As I argued earlier (Sobchuk, Reference Sobchuk2018), this research area deserves more attention than it currently gets. And yet I want to challenge three points of the paper: (1) I doubt that an “imaginary world” is a clearly defined concept; (2) I am not sure that “imaginary world” fiction is as popular as the authors claim; (3) most importantly, I can think of alternative explanations of “imaginary worlds,” which can be more compelling due to their generalizability across a wider array of phenomena.
First, the concept. The phrase “imaginary world” may sound intuitive, but if we look closer at its definition, we'll see that it has blurry edges. The definition: “Imaginary worlds are fictional environments that the recipients of the fiction could not have possibly explored in the real life, be it far removed islands, locations in the future or the distant past, other planets, or environments in alternative history” (target article, sect. 2, para. 2). Broad! Yet most examples in the paper come from very specific genres: fantasy and science fiction. According to the authors, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings does depict an imaginary world, while Balzac's The Human Comedy doesn't. But why not? From a modern reader's view, it is located in “distant past” – so remote and unusual that it may be easily perceived as “alternative history.” Plus, the multi-volume fictional world of Balzac includes at least one fantastic story, The Skin of Shagreen. Does a single fantastic element make The Human Comedy as a whole “imaginary”? And how inaccessible, exactly, shall a fictional world be to become “imaginary”?
Answering this question is important if we think that some narratives are appealing because they are set in an “imaginary world.” D&B certainly do. The opening sentence of the paper: “The world around fictions with imaginary worlds draw acclaim from the public, the critics and the industry, making them both best-selling and most-appreciated fictions (e.g., top-ranked in online ranking websites)” (target article, sect. 1, para. 1). The target article makes it sound as if science fiction and fantasy (clearly, the backbone of the “imaginary world” concept) are the most popular genres of fiction. Are they? The analysis of the New York Times bestseller lists (Yucesoy, Wang, Huang, & Barabási, Reference Yucesoy, Wang, Huang and Barabási2018) shows that the most profitable genres of fiction are, in descending order, general fiction, suspense/thrillers, mystery/detective, romance, and only then, on places 5 and 6, fantasy and science fiction. Even in the English-speaking world, the citadel of sci-fi and fantasy, they are far from being the most “best-selling and most-appreciated.”
Still, fantasy and science fiction are popular; why? D&B: “Our hypothesis is that the cultural preference for imaginary worlds relies on our exploratory preferences, driving our motivation to explore novel environments” (target article, sect. 4, para. 1). The authors avoid the common “fiction is an adaptive simulation” argument, which we have tested and found little support for (Morin, Acerbi, & Sobchuk, Reference Morin, Acerbi and Sobchuk2019). Instead, they say: “Imaginary worlds, we propose, are appealing because they meet the ‘input conditions’ of our cognitive dispositions geared toward exploration” (target article, sect. 3, para. 3). Thus, my question: how granular are these cognitive dispositions?
Let's consider the spectrum of cognitivist explanations for the popularity of fantasy and science fiction, on Figure 1. Do humans have an adaptive preference for these particular genres? Of course not. Then, do we have a more general adaptation to appreciate fiction? Some – for example, the scholars from the literary Darwinism camp – would say “yes,” but not D&B. Their answer is placed further along the spectrum: humans have adaptation for spatial exploration, and some books, films, or video games tap into it. Myself, I would move even further. The appeal of the fantastic stories can easily be a special case of the general hedonic appeal of information that is unusual but not too unusual. Since Berlyne's (Reference Berlyne1970) experiments, it is known that humans enjoy stimuli that hit the sweet spot between novelty and comprehensibility (see also Berger & Packard, Reference Berger and Packard2018; Silvia, Reference Silvia2006; Tran, Waring, Atmaca, & Beheim, Reference Tran, Waring, Atmaca and Beheim2021). We enjoy stimuli that depart from our everyday experience, but if they depart too much, they become too complex to be enjoyed. Fantasy and science fiction fit this explanation. In fantasy genre, where an author's imagination should be unlimited, the depicted environments are in fact highly restricted; they are creative departures from the environment most readers know well from history lessons or TV: the Middle Ages (and, historically, medieval chivalric novels are one strong influence on modern fantasy genre). The same is true for science fiction, with its human-like aliens and distant planets covered with Earth-like forests, deserts, and oceans. They are unusual, but firmly grounded in our common knowledge. Novel, but not too novel.
Possible cognitive explanations of fantasy and science fiction, ordered from the most to the least granular. (Of course, cognition is one of many factors influencing the success of stories: the actual causal graph of fiction's success should be much more complex.)
Is this, more general, explanation stronger than the one suggested by D&B? Only carefully designed empirical tests can tell. However, I already see an immediate benefit of having a more general explanation: it does not require the new concept of “imaginary world,” which is hard to define. This more general explanation can be used to explain not only interesting spatial worlds, but also abstract images, music, architecture, and other artistic phenomena.
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