Psychocinematics: Exploring Cognition at the Movies

398 Pages·2013·3.054 MB·English

by  Arthur P. Shimamura

psychocinematics
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Psychocinematics
EXPLORING COGNITION AT THE MOVIES
Edited by Arthur P. Shimamura
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3

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Psychocinematics : exploring cognition at the movies / edited by Arthur P. Shimamura.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–986213–9
1. Motion pictures—Psychological aspects. 2. Motion picture audiences—Psychology. 3. Cognition.
I. Shimamura, Arthur P.
PN1995.P775 2013
791.4301′9—dc23
2012026595
ISBN 978–0–19–986213–9
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments ix
Contributors xi
1. Psychocinematics: Issues and Directions 1
Arthur P. Shimamura
Part ONE | Philosophical Foundations 27
2. Th e Viewer’s Share: Models of Mind in Explaining Film 29
David Bordwell
3. Cognitivism, Psychology, and Neuroscience: Movies as Attentional Engines 53
No ë l Carroll & William P. Seeley
4. Toward an Ecology of the Arts 76
Joseph D. Anderson
5. Th e Aff ective Power of Movies 94
Carl Plantinga
Part TWO | Sensory and Attentional Features of Movies 113
6. Sensing Motion in Movies 115
Katherine J. Th omson-Jones
7. Low-Level Features of Film: What Th ey Are and Why We Would Be Lost Without
Th em 133
Kaitlin L. Brunick, James E. Cutting, & Jordan E. DeLong
8. Truth, Lies, and Meaning in Slow Motion Images 149
Sheena Rogers
9. Watching You Watch Movies: Using Eye Tracking to Inform Film Th eory 165
Tim J. Smith
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vi Contents
Part THREE | Knowledge, Imagination, and Narratives 193
10. Hollywood Storytelling and Aesthetic Pleasure 195
Todd Berliner
11. Th e Art of Simplifying Events 214
Stephan Schwan
12. Constructing Event Representations During Film Comprehension 227
Jeff rey M. Zacks
13. Belief, Desire, Action, and Other Stuff : Th eory of Mind in Movies 244
Daniel T. Levin, Alicia M. Hymel, & Lewis Baker
Part FOUR | Driving Emotions With Movies 267
14. How Cues on the Screen Prompt Emotions in the Mind 269
Keith Oatley
15. E-Motion Pictures of the Brain: Recursive Paths Between Aff ective Neuroscience and
Film Studies 285
Gal Raz, Boaz Hagin, & Talma Hendler
16. Emotion Regulation by Switching Between Modes of Reception 314
Monika Suckf ü ll
17. Th e Empathic Animal Meets the Inquisitive Animal in the Cinema: Notes on a
Psychocinematics of Mind Reading 337
Ed Tan
Index 369
Preface
We relish a good movie as it transports us into a plot stirring our sensations, thoughts,
and feelings. Th rough movies we experience life on distant planets, confront unforeseen
dangers, and at the end enjoy the pleasures of a job well done. Since fi lm’s early inception,
fi lmmakers have “experimented” with the medium and discovered novel ways of driving our
sensations, sparking our imagination, and instilling emotions. I suspect we laugh, cry, and
feel fear more oft en as we watch movies compared to any other form of entertainment. How
do fi lmmakers engage our attention? How do they bring a story to life? How are our emo-
tions evoked through empathetic engagement with the characters?
Th e contributors of this book consider these questions and in particular address the viabil-
ity of a scientifi c approach to our movie experience—or what I have coined psychocinematics .
Until recently, only a handful of scientists have conducted experiments on the psychology
of movies, though for close to a century philosophers and fi lm theorists have delved deeply
into the mind of the moviegoer. In particular, scholars engaged in c ognitive fi lm theory have
set the philosophical foundation for psychocinematics. In this volume, philosophers, fi lm
theorists, psychologists, and brain scientists have come together to off er their perspective on
a scientifi c approach to our understanding of the way movies move us.
For the scientist, an understanding of movies can go further than describing the aesthetic
nature of this engaging art form. As scientifi c tools, movies drive cognitive processes in a
more naturalistic manner than the typical stimuli used in psychological research (usually
pictures or words). Recently, movies have been used to investigate the psychological (and
biological) underpinnings of early visual processing, of eye movements as guided by atten-
tional focus, of the way we structure events, and of emotional engagement. Psychocinematics
off ers a means of understanding psychological processes in a dynamic manner as they unfold
in time. A primary motivation for bringing together these fi lm experts is to encourage psy-
chologists and brain scientists to consider movies as a potent tool for unleashing mental
processes in a more natural way.
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viii Preface
In the creation of P sychocinematics , I owe an enduring debt to Julian Hochberg and No ë l
Carroll, who both took the time to chat with me when I was on sabbatical leave working on
Experiencing Art: In the Brain of the Beholder (Oxford University Press). Th ey sparked an
interest in interweaving my love of movies with my love of science. My scholarly introduc-
tion to fi lm theory began with books by Joseph Anderson, David Bordwell, No ë l Carroll,
Greg Currie, and Carl Plantinga, and anyone interested in delving further into the philo-
sophical foundations of psychocinematics must consider their writings. I also want to thank
James Cutting, Dan Levin, Tim Smith, and Jeff Zacks for accepting my invitation to par-
ticipate in a symposium and present their empirical work at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the
Psychonomics Society, where the fi rst public appearance of the term p sychocinematics was
made. Among these scholars I am merely the fool, or worse, the promoter, who tags along.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Joan Bossert and the editorial staff at Oxford University Press for
encouraging the growth and progress of this project. My own thinking of these issues has been
fostered by stimulating conversations with many friends and colleagues, and I would particu-
larly like to thank Jeff Brown, David Bordwell, No ë l Carroll, Helen Ettlinger, Faerthen Felix,
Julian Hochberg, Walter Murch, Michael Roush, Gregory Shimamura, Th omas Shimamura,
Murray Smith, and Jeff Zacks for their interest and support.

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