Imaginary worlds are ubiquitous in forager narrative, suggesting deep-seated evolutionary appeal (Scalise Sugiyama, Reference Scalise Sugiyama and Hogan2017a, Reference Scalise Sugiyama2021; Wiessner, Reference Wiessner2014). Thus, questions of their popularity begin with past environments: why did our ancestors produce and consume such fictions? While fictional worlds likely “co-opt our preferences for exploration” (target article, abstract), the authors mischaracterize these preferences as content-agnostic motivations operating in the absence of immediate payoff. This underplays the regulatory inputs that shape exploratory behavior, leading to the mistaken conclusion that imaginary worlds lack adaptively useful information.

Preferences and attractions are species-, content-, and context-specific (e.g., Sugiyama, Reference Sugiyama and Buss2015). Organisms are continually presented with novelty across multiple physical scales, not all of which is equally relevant to fitness (e.g., a rapidly approaching agent vs. dust motes). The problem of computational explosion requires mechanisms that channel attention to cues of adaptive problems and their solutions, activate appropriate processing mechanisms, and coordinate responses via superordinate programs (e.g., emotions) that upregulate certain processes while downregulating others (Cosmides & Tooby, Reference Cosmides and Tooby2000; Tooby & Cosmides, Reference Tooby and Cosmides1990, Reference Tooby and Cosmides1992; Tooby, Cosmides, Sell, Lieberman, & Sznycer, Reference Tooby, Cosmides, Sell, Lieberman and Sznycer2008). Preferences that were not regulated by inputs from adaptations that assess the net probable value of engaging in a given exploration would not be functional and would not evolve.

Responses to novelty are not always feelings of pleasure and attraction. When released into novel, empty enclosures, zebrafish exhibit particular spatial and temporal exploratory patterns, including preferences for perimeter zones in apparent attempts to escape, light versus dark zones, and establishment of a home base (e.g., Blaser, Chadwick & McGinnis, Reference Blaser, Chadwick and McGinnis2010; Blaser & Rosemberg, Reference Blaser and Rosemberg2012; Champagne, Hoefnagels, De Kloet, & Richardson, Reference Champagne, Hoefnagels, De Kloet and Richardson2010; Eilam & Golani, Reference Eilam and Golani1989; Stewart et al., Reference Stewart, Cachat, Wong, Gaikwad, Gilder, DiLeo and Kalueff2010, Reference Stewart, Gaikwad, Kyzar and Kalueff2012). Rats, humans, and other organisms similarly exhibit distinctive exploratory patterns (e.g., Drai, Benjamini, & Golani, Reference Drai, Benjamini and Golani2000; Gagnon, Cashdan, Stefanucci, & Creem-Regehr, Reference Gagnon, Cashdan, Stefanucci and Creem-Regehr2016, Reference Gagnon, Thomas, Munion, Creem-Regehr, Cashdan and Stefanucci2018; Huang, Kerman, Sieving, & Mary, Reference Huang, Kerman, Sieving and Mary2016; Thompson, Berkowitz & Clark, Reference Thompson, Berkowitz and Clark2018), and different investigatory and ranging behavior in response to different environmental cues (e.g., Schaffer et al., Reference Schaffer, Caicoya, Colell, Holland, Ensenyat and Amici2020; Schloegl, Kotrschal, & Bugnyar, Reference Schloegl, Kotrschal and Bugnyar2007; Shepherd, Reference Shepherd2010). Additionally, responses to novelty cease more or less quickly depending on the species and features in question (e.g., Deecke, Slater, & Ford, Reference Deecke, Slater and Ford2002; Epstein, Temple, Roemmich, & Bouton, Reference Epstein, Temple, Roemmich and Bouton2009; Kalueff, Reference Kalueff, Keisala, Minasyan, Kuuslahti and Tuohimaa2006).

Humans attend to specific cues of habitat quality (Beckerman, Reference Beckerman1983; Orians & Heerwagen, Reference Orians, Heerwagen, Barkow, Cosmides and Tooby1992) which regulate exploratory behavior. This task is scaffolded by adaptations for creating and deploying cognitive maps, dead reckoning, route integration, and landmark/object location memory, with individual, sex, and cross-cultural variation in preferences for and effectiveness of different strategies, depending on goals, developmental environment, and ecological conditions (e.g., Cashdan & Gaulin, Reference Cashdan and Gaulin2016; Davis et al., Reference Davis and Cashdan2019; Gagnon et al., Reference Gagnon, Thomas, Munion, Creem-Regehr, Cashdan and Stefanucci2018; Trumble et al., Reference Trumble, Gaulin, Dunbar, Kaplan and Gurven2016). Twe and Tjimba men with better spatial abilities travel farther, and have more offspring than peers (Vashro & Cashdan, Reference Vashro and Cashdan2015). Hadza men travel farther, explore more territory, and take more sinuous routes than Hadza women, in line with sexual division of labor (Wood et al., Reference Wood, Harris, Raichlen, Pontzer, Sayre, Sancilio and Cashdan2021). Hadza, Twe, and Tjimaba range further than neo-tropical forager-horticulturalists, consonant with differences in resource distribution and subsistence (Cashdan, Marlowe, Crittenden, Porter, & Wood, Reference Cashdan, Marlowe, Crittenden, Porter and Wood2012). Information on resource location and quality is used in later foraging (e.g., Beckerman, Reference Beckerman1983), and dead reckoning accuracy to object location increases linearly with the caloric value of resources (New, Krasnow, Truxaw, & Gaulin, Reference New, Krasnow, Truxaw and Gaulin2007). Pursuit of prey is regulated by the relative probable value of continuing to search for all higher-value targets based on prior experience (e.g., Alvard, Reference Alvard1993; Hawkes, Hill, & O'Connell, Reference Hawkes, Hill and O'Connell1982; Hill, Kaplan, Hawkes, & Hurtado, Reference Hill, Kaplan, Hawkes and Hurtado1987; Janssen & Hill, Reference Janssen and Hill2014), and search patterns are conditional upon prey encounters in real time (Ross & Winterhalder, Reference Ross and Winterhalder2018).

Exploratory behavior is thus regulated by adaptations that assess specific informational cues, including for later use (e.g., Beckerman, Reference Beckerman1983). For humans, these include agents (e.g., prey, predators, enemies, kin, allies, mates), novel technologies, material resources, and topographic features such as ingress and escape routes, ambush and attack zones, and refuge and cover. These stimuli engage attention and arouse emotion because they serve as inputs to adaptations that assess threats and opportunities that recurrently impacted fitness in ancestral environments. As holistic representations of environments, agents, and events (Scalise Sugiyama, Reference Scalise Sugiyama2009, Reference Scalise Sugiyama, Weekes-Shackelford and Shackelford2017b), imaginary worlds simulate these cues and their associated fitness constraints and affordances. Fictional narrative teems with representations of adaptive problems, such as wayfinding predator evasion, hunting, warfare, cheater detection, mating, and childcare (Scalise Sugiyama, Reference Scalise Sugiyama2004, Reference Scalise Sugiyama2008a, Reference Scalise Sugiyama2008b, Reference Scalise Sugiyama2011, Reference Scalise Sugiyama, Vanderbeke and Cooke2019; Scalise Sugiyama & Sugiyama, Reference Scalise Sugiyama and Sugiyama2009, Reference Scalise Sugiyama, & Sugiyama, S, Slingerland and Collard2011). As story characters grapple with these problems, the audience acquires information about the outcomes of the strategies deployed in response to them (Scalise Sugiyama, Reference Scalise Sugiyama2008a; Scalise Sugiyama & Sugiyama, Reference Scalise Sugiyama and Sugiyama2009).

Thus, imaginary worlds are attractive because they simulate multiple adaptive problems and their associated cues, thereby engaging multiple suites of adaptations concurrently. In so doing, they offer the same promise as accounts of unfamiliar actual worlds: the opportunity to acquire knowledge “when the pressure is off … [that] may well be useful at another time” (Blurton Jones & Konner, Reference Blurton Jones and Konner1976, p. 344). We are motivated to engage in these worlds not because they offer “lots of new information” per se, but because they offer potential fitness payoffs in the form of adaptively relevant information that might be useful in real life.

Peter Jackson's adaptation of the Lord of the Rings trilogy is a case in point. Middle-earth brims with real-world cues of dangerous or inhospitable terrain: precipitous mountain passes, avalanches, caves, swamps, lava fields, volcanoes, and deforestation. Animate threats abound: the Nazgûl, Balrog, Orks, Uruk-hai, Shelab, Gollum, Grima Wormtongue, Saruman, and Sauron. Although imaginary, these agents embody cues to real-world dangers: predation, warfare, environmental degradation, betrayal, deceit, greed, tyranny, and genocide. As the Fellowship attempts to surmount these obstacles, the audience observes their tactics and technologies, and why they succeed or fail. In the course of their struggles, the characters model social values such as courage, loyalty, and perseverance against long odds. Those who are skeptical that imaginary worlds can impart practical knowledge need to look no further than Samwise Gamgee: when headed for unfamiliar lands, take a pot, a blade, a light, a rope, emergency rations, and, if possible, a steadfast friend.