Spider-Man? Sure! The neuroscience of suspending disbelief

When 'transported' by stories or plays or movies, we feel no skepticism at, say, Spider-Man's webbing his way among the skyscrapers. Following Coleridge, we have called this phenomenon, the 'willing suspension of disbelief'. Psychological experiments show, however, that during our experience of any narrative, we do not suspend disbelief. We believe, and then we partly disbelieve. Our brains link reality-testing to action and the possibility of action to change what we are perceiving. If we cannot change it, our brains need not test its reality, and they don't. When responding to works of art, Kant and other aestheticians point out, we are 'disinterested'. We know that we cannot or will not act to change artworks. We therefore accept such unrealities as Spider-Man. In situations where we must act (hypertext) or can act (watching DVDs), we may not experience the same lack of skepticism.