Abstract
Abraham examines the intrinsic effortless capacity for human beings to create and immerse themselves in multiple fictional worlds yet still not lose sight of reality. The reality–fiction distinction is discussed both as a developmental phenomenon and as an emergent product of our social experience. It is argued that the reality–fiction distinction is facilitated by spontaneous attributions of personal relevance, which is mainly defined by a variety of cultural factors.
Abraham discusses the experimental neuroimaging evidence for the brain response when making reality–fiction distinctions and demonstrates that the findings are consistent with other culture-related phenomena. The medial prefrontal cortex is highlighted as a key brain region that modulates the determinations of personal relevance. Multiple studies are highlighted to corroborate this postulation.
Abraham concludes with a discussion of the implications of the reality–fiction distinction for intercultural relations. It is argued that an understanding of the reality–fiction distinction could be applied to studies of acculturation, community identity, and prejudice.
In the relative sense, then, the sense in which we contrast reality with simple unreality, and in which one thing is said to have more reality than another, and to be more believed, reality means simply relation to our emotional and active life.
(William James, 1890, pp. 295)
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Notes
- 1.
Healthy individuals exhibit a generally stable reality–fantasy distinction, but in several psychiatric and neurological disorders, such as schizophrenia and delusional misidentification syndromes, this division between reality and fantasy can be aberrant or ambiguous under specific conditions.
- 2.
It is to be noted that deduction through reverse inference needs to be exercised with considerable caution (Poldrack, 2008). However, if applied in the right manner and in the right context, it can be extremely useful (Hutzler, 2013), particularly if the goal is for those insights to direct future empirical work (Poldrack, 2008).
- 3.
While the reality/fiction distinction may have certain parallels with the familiarity/unfamiliarity distinction, they cannot be considered equivalent per se. Relevance goes beyond familiarity or awareness to also include associated importance or significance (Abraham, 2013).
- 4.
Differing levels of personal relevance (friends-real > famous-real > fiction) were assumed a priori. No behavioral measures have been devised thus far to estimate degrees of relevance associated with known entities/characters.
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Abraham, A. (2015). How Social Dynamics Shape Our Understanding of Reality. In: Warnick, J., Landis, D. (eds) Neuroscience in Intercultural Contexts. International and Cultural Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2260-4_10
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