Right movies on the right seat: Laterality and seat choice

Abstract

Various forms of lateral preferences are found in human behaviour. Conducting two experiments, we investigated the lateral preference for seat choice exhibited by people at the movie theatre. The righthanded participants (N ¼ 269) tended to choose seats to the right of the screen when they were positively motivated to see the movie. This rightward bias disappeared when they were negatively motivated. In addition, the non-right-handed participants (N ¼ 105) did not show any substantial bias in their seat choice. It is well known that visual and emotional information is better processed in the right hemisphere. Considering the visual and emotional nature of movie experiences, the rightward seating bias among right-handers appears to be determined by their motivation to effectively utilize their right-hemisphere functions.

An Online Means of Testing Asymmetries in Seating Preference Reveals a Bias for Airplanes and Theaters

“…In support of this proposition, Weyers et al (2006) found evidence of asymmetrical seating in a group of participants who were not differentiated according to their handedness. Similarly, although Okubo (2010) found that the rightward seating preference was stronger in right-handers compared with non-right-handers, the seating preference was still significant for the omnibus analysis.…”

“…For example, Wittling and Roschmann (1993) showed that presenting films to the left visual field, which projects to the right cerebral hemisphere, resulted in higher subjective ratings of emotion compared with right-visual-field presentations. It is therefore possible that the rightward seating preference observed in this study and in previous studies (Karev, 2000;Okubo, 2010;Weyers et al, 2006) is generated by audiences wanting, either consciously or unconsciously, to maximize their emotional experience by placing the screen or stage to their left. Venues could therefore be designed with this bias in mind.…”

Preferring the One in the Middle: Further Evidence for the Centre‐stage Effect

“…In support of this interpretation, it has been found that emotional faces presented on the right are perceived more positively than when presented on the left (Davidson, Mednick, Moss, Saron, & Schaffer, 1987;Natale, Gur, & Gur, 1983;Jansari et al, 2000) as are cartoons (Dimond, Farrington, & Johnson, 1976) and neutral faces (Rodway, Wright, & Hardie, 2003). Hemispheric differences in emotional processing have also been used to explain the right-seat preference in cinemas (Okubo, 2010), and there is therefore a range of evidence in favour of a hemispheric asymmetry explanation of the RSP.…”

Kissing Right? Absence of Rightward Directional Turning Bias During First Kiss Encounters Among Strangers

“…Turning behaviors of individuals entering a symmetrical theatre are found to depend on the purpose and motivation of the presentation. When examining real-world seating biases of movie-goers, individuals display a right-side bias (Harms et al 2014); however, when participants are told they are negatively motivated to view the film, the right-directional bias disappears (Okubo 2010). Lateral head-turning in picture posing similarly differs by the context in which it is framed.…”