Cinematographic High-Contrast Lighting Can Facilitate Empathetic Affective Mimicry

Abstract

Do cinematographic lighting techniques affect film viewers’ empathic reactions? We investigated the effect of high- and low-contrast lighting on affective empathy toward depicted actors. Forty one participants watched short clips of professional actors expressing happiness, anger, and disgust, and rated the valence and intensity of their own and actors’ emotional states. Affective empathy was assessed through the extent of the facial mimicry of actors’ emotional expressions and quantified through electromyographic activation of expression-specific facial muscles. We managed to elicit facial mimicry for happiness and anger, but not for disgust. High-contrast lighting further amplified empathic mimicry for happy but not for angry expressions. High-contrast lighting also amplified subjective feelings elicited by angry and disgusted but not happy expressions. We conclude that high-contrast lighting can be an effective means for influencing film viewers’ empathic reactions through the low road to empathy, even as the overall impact of lighting also relies on the high road to empathy.

Steps towards a Phenomenology of Video Games—Some Thoughts on Analyzing Aesthetics and Experience

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“…Practicing cinematographers describe their camera work and related decisions as follows: "when producing specific movements, cinematographers may be viewed as extending their perceptual bodily senses via the camera onto the screen, and in this sense, these movements may be further seen to become embodied in the viewer's experience" (Yilmaz et al 2023). The neuroscientific observations of naive viewers' embodied responses to film content have been discussed (Tikka 2008;Gallese, Guerra 2012, 2019 and supported by a body of neuroscientific studies that emphasize filmmakers' role in enabling those responses (Hasson et al 2004(Hasson et al , 2008Heimann et al 2014Heimann et al , 2017Heimann et al , 2019Kauttonen et al 2015Kauttonen et al , 2018Tikka et al 2018;Voodla et al 2020). We assume that, similarly as with viewers' , the cinematographer's embodied action-perception system activates when seeing movements that can be observed by neuroscientific means.…”

“…NEUROCINEMATIC OBSERVA-TIONS ON FILM VIEWING AND PERCEPTUAL LEARNING Cinematic images are composed of a multitude of dynamical variables, including movement, rhythm, lighting, color, sound, spatial staging, performing actors, and storyline, to name but a few. Most of these are understudied, if considered from a cinematographer's point of view, as is, for instance, cinematic lighting that is listed as one of the most important working tools by practicing cinematographers (Huttunen 2022;Voodla et al 2020;Nevill 2018). The embodied multisensory integration of perceptual inference, decision-making, learning, binding, and attention in the brain (see Scheliga et al 2022;Noppeney 2021 for reviews) enables the cinematographers to update predictive perceptual processes during performance.…”

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“…Shafiee & Bidin 2016;Poland 2015), ja Nevill (2018) on tutkinut elokuvaajien ja muiden liikkuvan kuvan parissa työskentelevien ammattilaisten käyttämiä valaisutekniikoita käytännönläheisessä väitöstutkimuksessaan. Lisäksi Lotman (2016) ja Voodla et al (2020) ovat raportoineet koeasetelmista, joissa mitattiin, miten valaisulla ja muilla elokuvailmaisullisilla menetelmillä luotu kolmiulotteisuuden tunne vaikuttaa yleisön elokuvan hahmoja kohtaan kokemaan empatiaan.…”