Realism Judgments and Mental Resources: A Cue Processing Model of Media Narrative Realism

Based on research on truth claims in the psychology literature, many scholars believe that readers and viewers of narratives start with an assumption of realism and adjust that judgment to the extent mental resources are available. Three studies reported here investigate the relationship between mental resources and realism judgments. Experiment 1 shows that realism depends on what kinds of cues to realism are in a story and the mental resources available to process those cues. Using hierarchical linear modeling, Experiments 2 and 3 indicate that the relationship between mental resources and realism judgments for commercial advertisements depends in systematic ways on initial judgments about realism so that increasing resources sometimes increase perceptions of realism and sometimes make ads seem less realistic. The results support a model in which initial expectations anchor realism judgments that may be modified away from the anchor if there are sufficient mental resources to process cues in the story.