Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-4586
Authors: Baranowski, Andreas M.
Title: Cognitive movie psychology : effects of sound, 3D, and viewing context on movie perception
Online publication date: 8-Dec-2016
Year of first publication: 2016
Language: english
Abstract: In this dissertation thesis, we look into various aspects of cognitive movie psychology. We start with a look into Münsterberg’s The Photoplay. A psychological study, which was published a hundred years ago in 1916. Taking his work as a starting point, we explore how the field of cognitive movie psychology has changed over the last century and relate current work to Münsterberg’s book. We found that a lot of initial questions that Münsterberg had posed 100 years ago are still relevant today. After analyzing how the field grew over the last decade, we present six empirical studies, subdivided into three parts, namely „depth and motion”, „memory and imagination”, and „emotions”. In the chapter „depth and motion”, two studies explore the effect of framing on depth perception. In the first study we were particularly interested in physical frames. We thus built a cinema model and examined its effect on a variety of measures, such as judged screen size. We found that the context, in our case the miniature movie theater, does enhance immersion and more than outweigh the negative effects of the reduced viewing angle. In the second study, we looked at 3D-effects by comparing 2D-, 3D-, and artificial 3D-versions of the same film sequences. In accordance with the literature, we found that 3D-movies produce more immersion and motion sickness than do 2D-versions of the same movie. Remarkably, real 3D and artificial 3D, which was added in post-production, did not differ for most of our perceptual measures. The chapter „memory and imagination” contains a study on the CSI effect and a study on camera angle. The CSI effect describes learning from crime series. Contrary to common belief, we found that watching forensic crime series does not teach the audience to become better criminals. We did find, however, that the elevation and angle of the camera used to film a given scene had an effect on perception of trustworthiness and attractiveness of the protagonist. Camera postions at eye-height produced highest ratings. The last chapter contains two studies on emotions. We conducted a series of experiments to explore the underlying mechanisms of canned laughter and canned screams. We found that canned laughter and real laughter work through two distinct mechanisms. Canned laughter makes a movie appear funnier by activating cognitive mechanisms of facilitated bonding, whereas real laughter adds a layer of social proof, which is absent with fake laughter. Nevertheless, canned and real laughter produced higher amusement ratings for all movies, whereas only real but not canned screams had the effect of increasing fear. In a second study, we examined the possibility to use film and music to introduce the Kuleshov effect. The Kuleshov effect is quite old but has only recently been proven to work. We were interested in the effect of non-diegetic sound to elicit emotions. We found that music was a great tool to set the tone of a scene and by doing so, were able to auditorily induce the Kuleshov effect. The gathered data from the empirical studies allow an analysis of factors that influence movie perception. We found that sound, stereopsis, and viewing context all matter. We concluded the thesis with an outlook on open questions and further research directions.
DDC: 150 Psychologie
150 Psychology
Institution: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Department: FB 02 Sozialwiss., Medien u. Sport
Place: Mainz
ROR: https://ror.org/023b0x485
DOI: http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-4586
URN: urn:nbn:de:hebis:77-diss-1000008640
Version: Original work
Publication type: Dissertation
License: In Copyright
Information on rights of use: https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Extent: V, 171 Seiten
Appears in collections:JGU-Publikationen

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