The Effect of Left-Right Reversal on Film: Watching Kurosawa Reversed

Abstract

The mirror reversal of an image is subtly different from the original. Often such change goes unnoticed in pictures, although it can affect preference. For the first time we studied the effect of mirror reversal of feature films. People watched Yojimbo or Sanjuro in a cinema, both classic films by Akira Kurosawa. They knew that this was a study and filled out a questionnaire. On one day Yojimbo was shown in its original orientation, and on another day the film was mirror reversed. Sanjuro was shown reversed on one day and non-reversed on another day. Viewers did not notice the reversal, even when they had seen the film before and considered themselves fans of Kurosawa. We compared this with estimates from a survey. In addition, the question about the use of space (scenography) revealed that although people who had seen the film before gave higher ratings compared with those who had not, this was only true when the film was not reversed.

The Bias toward the Right Side of Others Is Stronger for Hands than for Feet

“…It should be also noticed that, whereas the perceived rotating direction of ambiguous human figures such as those used in the present study can be easily reported (even by inexperienced observers) but no population bias has ever been found when controlling for the possible confounding variables ( [40,43,68]), their perceived limb laterality is almost impossible to report (even by the authors themselves) but nonetheless exhibits a significant population bias in favor of the right limb [40,43]. This seems to be consistent with the fact that, although the limb laterality of observed individuals can often go unnoticed (e.g., see [69]), it exerts tangible effects at the behavioral level, as highlighted by the aforementioned sport studies. As recommended by Simmons, Nelson, and Simonsohn [70], we clearly describe how we determined our sample sizes, all manipulations, all data exclusions, and all measures in the study.…”

Symmetry Perception and Psychedelic Experience

“…First, in visual search tasks [83], mirror-image distractor lines (e.g., / and \) appear similar, and this causes targets with a third orientation to pop out [84]. Second, left-right reversed Japanese films can be enjoyed without English readers noticing a change, while turning the screen upside-down would be absurd and immediately obvious [85]. Third, neural responses to mirror image stimuli are very similar in the monkey inferotemporal cortex [86].…”

Empirical aesthetics, the beautiful challenge: An introduction to the special issue on Art & Perception

“…A completely different methodological focus is taken by Tim Holmes and Johannes Zanker (2012): How can we measure preferences through eye-movements, and how can this technique be utilised? Among the topics with the widest range of articles related to them are the perception of space in paintings (Koenderink et al 2011;van Doorn et al 2011) and the perception of balance and orientation (Bertamini et al 2011;Gershoni and Hochstein 2011;Leyssen et al 2012;Mather 2012;McManus et al 2011), loosely related also to the phenomena of transparency (Sayim and Cavanagh 2011) and occlusion (Gillam 2011). Similarly, our authors approach visual illusions from different angles: illusions as characteristics of particular artworks (Daneyko et al 2011), eye-movement behaviour related to illusions (Hermens and Zanker 2012), and the aesthetics of visual illusions (Stevanov et al 2012).…”