Atencia Linares, PalomaSebastián, Miguel Ángel2025-01-142025-01-142023Atencia-Linares, P., & Sebastián, M. Á. (2023). Narrative immersion as an attentional phenomenon. Inquiry, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2023.22538570020-174X | eISSN 1502-3923https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2023.2253857https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14468/25280The registered version of this article, first published in “Inquiry, 2023", is available online at the publisher's website: Taylor and Francis, https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2023.2253857 La versión registrada de este artículo, publicado por primera vez en “Inquiry, 2023", está disponible en línea en el sitio web del editor: Taylor and Francis, https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2023.2253857Some stories generate in us a peculiar experience of intense narrative engagement. This common experience, which we call narrative immersion, has been the object of a vast literature in psychology and other disciplines. Philosophers, however, have only recently engaged with this topic and the tendency has been to explain it by postulating specific kinds of mental states. We propose a different approach, explaining narrative immersion by means of a particular distribution of attention over the content of ordinary mental states. First, we provide a characterization of narrative immersion based on studies by psychologists and other theorists. Then, we discuss alternative views and develop our own proposal. We articulate how attention works as we engage with the narrative, and how the adequate distribution of attention over the mental states involved in understanding the storyworld can offer the resources to explain the characteristic features of narrative immersion. Unlike alternative proposals, ours avoids the need to postulate controversial mental states.eninfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess72 Filosofíaartículoattentionnarrative immersionimmersiontransportationnarrative engagementfiction