Considerations for movie memory: real life considerations a - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Considerations for movie memory: real life considerations and quirks

Steve KellySlide2

Zacks

- build a mental model of our environment

Same mechanism which can take information from real life, film or text

- e.g. reading about changes in location cause activation in the ‘

parahippocampal

place area’ of the brainSlide3

Verbal overshadowing

Describing a face or other complex information impairs subsequent visual recognition

Recoding interference hypothesis – describing verbally renders rich and sophisticated visual material less accurate/perfect

Transfer-inappropriate processing hypothesis – shifting to

verbalisation

impairs using non-verbal (and better, e.g. holistic

procssing

for the relevant stimuli)

While

behavioural

evidence

favours

a multiple systems account (TIPS) – computational models can account for these data using a single-system setup (supporting recoding interference).Slide4

Embodied effects

Ranger saw the eagle in the nest/in the sky

Faster to respond to picture of eagle with wings open for “in the sky” and closed for ‘in the nest’

Push/pull lever to respond to sentences making sense/nonsense

Faster to push lever when reading sentence about handing an object to someone

Faster to pull lever when reading sentence about being handed an object by someone elseSlide5

Memory effects

Reminiscence bumps

Found the same ‘bumps’ for events happening in a story

All these effects point to a system which takes input from a variety of sources to change the representation which can equally be accessed by these multiple sources.Slide6

Memory for what?

Types of information – emotional vs non-emotional, inferential, complex vs straightforward

Viewing conditions – cinema experience is honed to direct attention to important aspects of the film – darkened room, professional direction, on-screen effects e.g. blurred background

Contrast with video clip on mobile phone

Re-reading vs multiple viewings of film Slide7

Attention

Memory relies on encoding which in turn relies on attention

Films can draw attention to:

Faces and gestures – indicators of important events – also appearing or looming objects, motion – centre frame and brightness

More information conveyed in a short space of time – makes cross-cutting easier – more likely to maintain attention

Munsterberg (1970) – film can imitate mental processes – close-up as a proxy for focused attention, flashback scene to remind of an earlier scene, film can trigger emotion in the audience rather than just portray itSlide8

Innate vs learned

Metz (1974) – cinema is underpinned by codes – conventions that are learned by an audience - extent to which this is true in narrative?

Also in terms of edit techniques - Schwan and

Ildirar

(2010) remote Turkish village without electricity – saw movies for 1

st

time and had difficulty understanding story transitions reverse shots, pans, establishing shots though could understand cross-cut.

Anderson (1996) – film perception relies on ‘ecological’ perception –

GibsonianSlide9

Anticipation – more controlled by film? – pacing, music

If anticipation aids model building, can text do this in alternative ways – page turners?

Poor telegraphing – Bridge of Spies – point can be too obvious – mistakes are memorable – do we notice these as much in text (where do we bury the survivors)

Emotions engaged by film in a more direct way? How good is imagination at equaling this? – sounds again can help with this – increasing startle, canned laughter increasing positive mood

etcSlide10

Movies are “attentional engines”

“….

t

uned to natural cognitive and perceptual capacities”

Carroll & Seeley (2013)

- core building blocks of film are

recognitional

prompts

sufficient to allow access to representation in memory for

categorisation

/semantic knowledge.Slide11

Diagnosticity

Model based on diagnostic features (

Schyns

, 1998)

(emphasises task relevant features rather than comprehensive breakdown of all components)

Perceptual salience –not always the best features though so “biased competition” proposed – features primed for saliency based on expectation of the sensory needs to accomplish the task.

So task demands/intention will shape attention/memory – does film or text do this to different extents?Slide12

Social context as a consideration

Watch movies with friends and talk about this

Can happen with books but does it (boozy books)

Experience reaction of others watching the movie but reading is

a solitary eventSlide13

Unusual memory effect

Minimally counterintuitive concepts (MCIs)

Breaking a fundamental ‘law’ (physical,

biologocal

, mental) leads to better memory than simply bizarre information

Not for maximally counterintuitive – more difficult to form a representation

Would film instantiate that concept better? (creature in Forbidden Planet? The Thing

etc

)Slide14

Implicit processes

- reading verbs like ‘kick’ activate motor neurons

Implicit learning – serial reaction time task

Imagination

Observation – abstract vs fingers

Direct visual experience more easily activates implicit processes??Slide15

Why would we expect a difference between film and text narrative?

Zacks

– all input to model building (same underlying system)

Perhaps film is a more ‘direct’ sort of input able to represent more complex concepts more easily, maybe also implicit processes?

More scaffolding around film (music, attention grabbing shots

etc

)

But would more effortful processing of text lead to better/enduring memory?