ABSTRACT
Most people love to get lost in a story and be absorbed in the lives of fictional beings. An important step in understanding viewers’ narrative absorption was the realization that viewers are not passive observers of projected stories but actually active co-creators of narratives. Constructivism has received renewed interest in the psychology of film and cognitive film scholarship. This chapter presents an overview of the conceptualization of absorbed experience of film viewers. Narrative absorption is an experiential state emerging during exposure to and interaction with a story, and can be defined as a spontaneous temporary change in the state of consciousness due to an exceptionally intense awareness of the content of a fictional narrative. Engagement with fictional characters on screen is found to be one of the most reliable predictors of the overall enjoyment of the story.
