Storytelling is one of the few human features that are truly universal across culture and through all of known history. Anthropologists find evidence of folktales everywhere in ancient cultures,written in Sanskrit，Latin，Greek，Chinese，Egyptian and Sumerian. People in societies of all types weave stories，from oral storytellers in hunter-gatherer tribes to the millions of writers bringing out books，television shows and movies. And when a characteristic behavior. shows up in so many different societies. researchers pay attention：its roots may tell us something about our evolutionary past.

To study storytelling，scientists must first define what constitutes a story，and that can prove tricky. Because there are so many diverse forms，scholars often define story structure. known as narrative，by explaining what it is not. Exposition contrasts with narrative by being a simple，straightforward explanation，such as a list of facts or an encyclopedia entry. Another standard approach defines narrative as a series of causally linked events that unfold over time. A third definition draws on the typical narrative's subject matter：the interactions of intentional agents-characters with minds-who possess various motivations,

H．owever narrative is defined，people know it when they feel it. Whether fiction or nonfiction. a narrative engages its audience through psychological realism-recognizable emotions and believable interactions among characters.

“Everyone has a natural detector for psychological realism，”says Raymond A. Mar，assistant professor of psychology at York University in Toronto. “We can tell when something rings false. ”But the best stories-those retold through generations and translated into other languages-do more than simply present a believable picture. These tales attract their audience. whose emotions can be closely tied to those of the story's characters. Such immersion(沉浸)is a state psychologists call“narrative transport”. Researchers have only begun figuring out the relations among the variables that can initiate narrative transport.

The passage indicates that storytelling______.

A．is becoming less and less popular in modem societies

B．attracts researchers' attention all through human history

C．is the best way to show the evolutionary past of human beings

D．is a common cultural phenomenon all through the known history