Can that really happen? Children’s knowledge about the reality status of fantastical events in television

•Four-year-olds did worse than 6-year-olds and adults, particularly by judging real events as impossible and judging fantastical events performed by real person as possible.•Children used fewer factual and more redundant justifications than adults. Although popular children’s cartoons are replete with fantastical events, we know little about whether children understand that these events are fantastical rather than real. In Study 1, 54 children ages 4 to 6years and 18 adults were shown 10 real and 10 fantastical events portrayed in 4s video clips from a popular cartoon. After viewing each clip, participants were asked to judge the reality status of the event and to explain their judgments. Results indicated that even 4-year-olds have a fairly good understanding of fantastical events in animated cartoons but that they underestimate the reality status of real events in such cartoons. In Study 2, 35 4- to 6-year-olds and 18 adults watched video clips of 10 real and 10 fantastical events performed by real people from a Chinese television show. Once again, 4-year-olds underestimated the reality status of real events shown on television. However, against the “real” backdrop in this study, 4-year-olds also judged nearly half of the fantastical events to be real. The implications for children’s reality–fantasy discrimination and their media viewing are discussed.