Viewers' Interpretations of Film Characters' Emotions: Effects of Presenting Film Music Before or After a Character is Shown

Abstract

STUDIES ADDRESSING EFFECTS OF MUSIC ON VIEWERS' perceptions of film have usually presented music simultaneously with a scene of interest. In the present study, 177 undergraduates viewed film excerpts with music presented before or after a scene featuring a single character. Whereas the film characters had emotionally neutral or subdued facial expressions, the music conveyed happiness, sadness, fear, or anger. Overall, participants tended to interpret characters' emotions in ways that were consistent with the particular emotion expressed in the music, offering evidence for both forward and backward affective priming effects. Our data confirm Boltz, Schulkind, and Kantra's (1991) findings on the role of music in foreshadowing. As far as we are aware, the effects of music on a prior scene have not been demonstrated in film music research. Our findings suggest that music does not have to be presented concurrently with onscreen images to influence viewers' interpretations of film content.

The effects of projected films on singers’ expressivity in choral performance.

“…While other studies have found relationships between music and its influence on the interpretation of the relationship between two characters in a scene (Boltz, 2001), the guidance towards a particular character identity (Shevy, 2007), the sensation of closure to a given scene (Thompson, Russo, & Sinclair, 1994), or it's effect on the perception of emotion from what a neutrally expressed character is feeling (Tan, Spackman, & Bezdek, 2007), music can also bring forth attention to a specific visual aspect within the film (Bolivar, Cohen, and Fentress, 1994;Marshall and Cohen, 1988). For instance, an example of this change from structural congruency to semantic congruencies could include the use of a lullaby that directs a spectator's attention towards a baby's crib within a scene.…”

Narrative theory and the dynamics of popular movies

“…1Four representations of narrative theories of literature and movies. Aristotle’s is based on his Poetics (Upton, 1746); Freytag’s comes from Technique of the Drama (MacEwan, 1900, p. 115); Field’s from Screenplay: The Foundations of Screen Writing (Field, 2005); and Thompson’s is based on Storytelling in the New Hollywood (Thompson, 1999). Elaborations in red come from others, cited in the text …”

“…It will be useful, however, to discuss one, but to do so I must first define two terms suggested in their use by Thompson (1999, p. 23). First, turning points are narrative moments from which the plot goes in a different direction.…”

“…Thompson (1999) and Bordwell (2006) proffered a four-act elaboration of Field’s structure. The main change is that the central act (Act 2) is divided in half.…”

Methodological approaches to the evaluation of game music systems

“…A final approach we will mention that again focusses on narrative in general comes from previous film music studies, in which researchers tested the effects of different musical conditions on viewers' interpretation of ambiguous film scenes [22,40,14,3]. For example, Bravo [3] created two chord progressions that were meant to be similar except in their amount of harmonic dissonance; he then played them in separate conditions alongside the same film clip (an ambiguous scene with a single character), and asked participants to respond to a series of questions about the film.…”