or concrete entities. I could also give a similar story-relative account of the issue as to whether fictional characters are individual versus general entities such as universals; here too I can simply reply that it depends on whether or not the relevant characters are represented as individuals or as universals, in the fictional story. 35. Thomasson, Fiction and Metaphysics, chap. 1. 36. That ...

Using well-known virtual characters is a promising approach to enhance information services, since such characters provoke people’s empathetic feelings easily, and it is also easy for people to recall the leitmotif of the character’s fictional stories. In Japan, recently, it has become a popular culture to use famous virtual characters of animations and games in various services, and this has e...

fictional names have been one of the most important and serious topics in the contemporary philosophy of language and metaphysics.several questions such as “do fictional names refer to any objects?” “are fictional characters existent objects?” have resulted in a considerable literature of philosophy. in this essay, we will follow two objectives. first we will describe and elaborate the ideas ...

The authors investigated the relationship between cinema and psychopathy to describe and analyze the portrayal of fictional psychopathic characters in popular films and over cinematic history. From 400 films (1915-2010), 126 fictional psychopathic characters (21 female and 105 male) were selected based on the realism and clinical accuracy of their profiles. Movies were then analyzed by senior f...

A considerable part of our lives is spent engaging in the entertaining worlds of fiction that are accessible through media such as books and television. Little is known, however, about how we are able to readily understand that fictional events are distinct from those occurring within our real world. The present functional imaging study explored the brain correlates underlying such abilities by...