Fantasy-based violations of real-world knowledge: when witches can and cannot fly on broomsticks

Fantasy text is characterized by events that violate our general world knowledge (GWK). And yet, as we become familiar with a fantasy character, their impossible abilities become part of our knowledge-base (GWK), which then can support impossible actions. In four experiments, we used well-known fantasy characters to explore the impact of fantasy-related inconsistencies that violated passage context but were consistent with GWK. By changing the traditional source of the fantasy conflict (context rather than GWK), we were able to explore the competition between context and GWK under conditions in which their roles were reversed. Experiment 1a demonstrated that contextual violations that were consistent with GWK caused immediate comprehension difficulty, despite the presence of fantasy contextual details within the passage. In Experiment 1b, when inconsistencies occurred at the global level, readers were not initially disrupted when reading inconsistent target lines; however, delayed disruption was recorded on a spillover line. In Experiment 2, surrounding context contained neutral details and readers were again disrupted on inconsistent target lines. In Experiment 3, the impact of the fantasy and neutral context was compared directly. Results replicated those found in Experiments 1b and 2. All experiments are discussed within the Resonance, Integration, and Validation (RI-Val) model of comprehension.