Audiences come to expect the conventional fake version of something and reject the real thing as unrealistic.
TV Tropes named it after Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), in which servants clap coconut halves together for horses' hooves, parodying a sound-effects convention. Films give bald eagles the scream of a red-tailed hawk because the real call sounds feeble to audiences, and gunshots and punches are dubbed far louder than they are.
In practice
- A historical drama that dresses its characters accurately is criticised by viewers for costumes that look wrong.
- A game studio makes its recorded engine sounds louder and throatier after testers say the real ones sound fake.
- Possible explanations
- One explanation is that familiarity sets the standard for realism: people judge authenticity against what they have seen before rather than against the world. Another is exaggeration, since conventions amplify the features that make a thing recognisable.
- In its favour
- Consistent with research on processing fluency, in which familiar stimuli feel truer, and with the long practice of sound designers who exaggerate for recognition.
- Against it
- A folk observation from film and games rather than a measured effect, and audiences accept realistic depictions once they become established.
- Standing
- Compare the illusory truth effect and the illusion of fluency.
- Subject
- Communication & Media
- Essay
- What happens to a message after it is sent