Film reflected in the human eye

Simply beautiful!

I could spend days watching the human eye move in response to film.....Oh, that's right, I do!

Park Chan-Wook on crosscutting

Interesting interview with Park Chan-Wook about STOKER on aintitcoolnews.com. here are some excerpts on his distinctive visual style.

"But it's not always the case that you can explain everything with words. For instance, "Why do I want to use the color red here? Why do I want the camera to move forward here?" Sometimes I make those decisions because I just feel that that would be the best thing to do here. But after I'm finished making the film and watch it later on, I realize why I made those choices. Take the crosscut for instance. I always thought that decision made no sense because of some musical explanation or reason. That is to say, there is a rhythm to the way scenes are crosscut, and I just like the rhythmic nature of using crosscut. However, later I realized, having seen the film again, what I really wanted to express by using these crosscuts is the concept of fate. In other words, crosscut mixes different individuals' past and present, reality and fantasy. Crosscutting is an effective way to weave these together, and the result that I was looking for in doing so is saying, "It is all a fabric, part of a bigger fate."

Discussing a beautiful transition between Nicole Kidman's hair and a field of grass:

"That particular transition didn't really take much in the way of deliberation. It's something that easily came out, so much so that I can't even remember the thought process that brought me there. It was almost instinctive. All throughout the film, I decided to use crosscutting technique. Once I decided on that, I promised myself that I will have one principle that I will abide by, and that principal was each shot, and how they move on to the next - whether the cuts would crash or whether the cuts would continue on smoothly - how each shot transitions into the other shot in these crosscut sequences, it needs to be something very well designed. So I applied many techniques to achieve this, be it match cut, dissolve, what have you. It's born out this base principle. But I did think that this particular transition was particularly important because it was a transition from a mother moment going into a father moment."

STOKER is an audiovisual masterpiece that perfectly continues Chan-Wook's style into Hollywood. At times the aloofness of the characters, lack of explanation and depth of character can make it seem cold and distancing but I personally marvelled in the film's style and this more than made up for its problems of pacing and failure to thrill (which is ironic considering how Hitchockian it feels!).

The style is opitimised by this wonderful trailer recut to DJ Shadow

Using Superpowers in Virtual Reality to Encourage Prosocial Behavior

Rosenberg RS, Baughman SL, Bailenson JN (2013) Virtual Superheroes: Using Superpowers in Virtual Reality to Encourage Prosocial Behavior. PLoS ONE 8(1): e55003. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0055003 (link)

A new study from Stanford University shows that being given the superhero power of flight in a virtual environment immediately changes your likeihood to help another person in the real-world:

From DiscoveryNews

"For the study, 30 female participants and 30 male participants were immersed in a foggy virtual reality city and given the power of flight — like Superman — or the experience of riding as a passenger in a helicopter. Those groups were then assigned one of two tasks: help find a missing diabetic child in desperate need of an insulin injection or leisurely tour their virtual environment. Therefore, the study was a two-by-two design, with participants assigned to one of four groups.

After their VR experience, participants were taken out of their head-mounted-display masks and asked to have a seat. While the experimenter fumbled with the VR equipment, she “accidentally” knocked over a cup of 15 pens sitting on a table near the participant’s chair.

Researchers found that participants who experienced the power of flight in virtual reality were not only quicker to help pick up the pens than their helicopter-riding counterparts, they also picked up more pens. Of the six participants that didn’t help, all were in the helicopter condition. The task of ‘helping the diabetic child’ showed no main effect; only the superpower of flight did."

This is a very nice controlled, empirical design that for once discusses the positive potential of playing computer games.

Walter Murch on the collaborative creation of continuity

"Your job [as an editor] is to anticipate, partly to control the thought processes of the audience. To give them what they want and/or what they need just before they have to "ask" for it- to be surprising yet self-evident at the same time. If you are too far behind or ahead of them, you create problems, but if you are right with them, leading them ever so slightly, the flow of events feels natural and exciting at the same time." 

Walter Murch, In the Blink of an Eye (2001; 2nd edition; page 69)

Steven Spielberg on attentional synchrony

Tom Shone interviewing Steven Spielberg about Lincoln in Sunday Times Culture magazine 20/01/13

"He still goes to see movies - picks an out-of-the-way cinema, sneaks in with his wife or kids after the lights have gone down, then disappears again as the credits roll. He always takes an aisle seat and buys no food or drinks for himself. He's just there for the film, or, more specifically, the film and its audience. He loves feeling the heat rise in the cinema during an especially exciting action sequence, or after a gag has rocked everyone back in their seat.

Spielberg- "You walk into an air-conditioned, freezing theatre and, about 20 minutes in, it starts to get really hot. People start making noise and having a good time. You're lifted by it. The first thing that happens is, people stop eating. They even stop swallowing."

At this point, the third-person plural drops away. "And all of us go into a kind of lock step where, if we were watching a tennis match, you'd see that perfect synchronicity of heads going left-right, left-right. The same thing in a movie theatre, when the movie is working and the audience is galvanised, almost hypnotised, all watching the same things, all knowing where to look at the exact same time...it's a wonderful thing. There is nothing greater than that."

sport wimbledon baltacha 1280x704 web from TheDIEMProject on Vimeo.

1+3 yr MRC PhD studentship on Autism, home eyetracking and cultural differences (Japan/UK) available

I am very pleased to be able to announce that Dr Atsushi Senju and myself have a fully funded PhD studentship starting October 2013. Details below.

The project will be utilising similar home eyetracking technology to that recently demonstrated by Tobii at CES. See the video above for a sneak peek.

>>>>

We are pleased to offer a full 1+3 year MRC Industry CASE PhD studentship entitled "Going Global: Application of Portable Eye-tracking Technology to Study the Effect of Cultural Norms on the Development of Social Cognition". The studentship will be based at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, and be conducted in conjunction with Acuity ETS Limited & the Institute of Psychiatry. The studentship will cover course fees at the usual level for UK and EU studentships and a stipend in accord with research council rates.

Much of what we currently know about the developmental disorders comes from Western cultures, and few multicultural studies have been conducted. A major barrier is that the equipment for neurocognitive assessment is often expensive, heavy and requires dedicated lab space, which prevents the assessments being practicable to run in many countries, areas and communities. To overcome this challenge, we will develop a software suite with a portable and affordable eye-tracker, and use it to conduct a series of cross-cultural eye-tracking studies on social cognition in typically developing children and children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The successful PhD candidate will take a leading role in this project, including (1) identifying a suitable eye-tracker, developing a software suite, and testing it in the UK, (2) taking this eye-tracker suite to Japan and running the same experiment with Japanese children, and (3) testing children with ASD in both the UK and Japan.

Graduates in experimental psychology or related subjects with a good first degree are encouraged to apply. Experience in some of the relevant research areas and/or methodology (e.g. developmental psychology, autism research, eye-tracking methodology, software development) will be an advantage. Programming experience (e.g. Matlab, Java, C++) or willingness to learn is an advantage. We also expect the candidates to have a high motivation and enthusiasm to the project, good communication and person skills.

The student will receive four year training (1-year MSc and 3-year PhD) in theoretical, methodological, practical and commercial aspects of eye-tracking system. Both the academic supervisors (Dr Atsushi Senju and Dr Tim Smith) have strong track record in eye-tracking research, which will complement the industrial supervisor (Mr Scott Hodgins) from dedicated developers and distributors of eye-tracking system and from the clinical perspective (Prof. Tony Charman). Academic supervisors will also provide training of theoretical background in developmental cognitive neuroscience, autism research and cross-cultural study, development of original research design, programming of stimulus presentation and data acquisition, data recording from infants, children and clinical population, data analyses, and writing-up scientific papers and dissemination to non-academic user communities. The industry supervisor will train the student on the theory & use of eye-tracking in the first instance, and supervise the development of cognitive assessment software suite and the integration of the software suite to the portable eye-tracker.

The Centre for Brain & Cognitive Development (CBCD) at Birkbeck, University of London, has an outstanding track record in training phd students.  Our excellence in training has just been rewarded with the designation “Marie Curie Centre of Excellence for doctoral training” which places us in the top 5% of life science training centres in the EU.  Further, our national training record is reflected in the recent award of the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher Education 2005 for “Neuropsychological work with the very young”.  Acuity ETS is the leading independent eyetracking systems vendor in the world. Acuity is the biggest customer of two of the leading eyetracking manufacturers. Acuity actively strives to encourage collaboration between clients, and to share best practice across the client base.

Further details about the project may be obtained from:

Dr Atsushi Senju

Dr Tim Smith

Further information about PhDs at Birkbeck, University of London is available from:

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/study/phd/psychology/RRRPSYCH.html

Application forms and details about how to apply are available from:

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/prospective/

Francesca Carter (f.gumbs@bbk.ac.uk)

Candidates must supply a CV, full transcripts of their qualifications and a statement of no more than 500 words indicating what skills and academic and professional experience you can bring to this project and why you consider you would be the best person to undertake this research.  If possible, this should include evidence of your knowledge of the relevant literature in the field.

The deadline of application is 1 March 2013. Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed in late March.

The vision science of 48fps

Given the recent release of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit in High Frame Rate (HFR) 3D there has been a lot of discussion about the pros and cons of moving from the entrenched 24fps to 48fps (or even the 60fps proposed by James Cameron). I recently weighed in on the vision science behind the perception of higher frame rates for Tested here:

http://www.tested.com/art/movies/452387-48-fps-and-beyond-how-high-frame-rates-affect-perception/

The article is a nice summary of the topics the journalist and I discussed but his personal dislike for HFR overshadows several of my points about why I think the move to 48fps or higher is necessary and will become the standard in cinema. To understand the problems with the current 24fps filming and projection process you need to understand how we are able to see a rapidly presented series of still images as a continuous moving sequence. Here is a passage from an encyclopaedia entry I wrote on film perception a few years ago:

 Smith, T.J. (2010) Film (Cinema) Perception.  In E.B. Goldstein (ed.)The Sage Encyclopedia of Perception.

"Movies consist of a series of still images, known as frames projected on to a screen at a rate of 24 frames per second. Even though the frames are stationary on the screen and are momentarily blanked as a new frame replaces the old we experience film as a continuous image containing real motion. The two perceptual phenomena contributing to this experience are persistence of vision and apparent motion. Persistence of vision refers to the continued activation of visual neurons after visual stimulation has been removed. During film projection the light is obscured as the frame is changed. If this only happened 24 times a second (Hz) there would be a noticeable flicker. To avoid this flicker each frame is blanked three times by a shutter. This creates a presentation rate above the critical flicker fusion rate of 60Hz. Above this rate persistence of vision ensures that the blank is masked by continued activation of visual neurons and we perceive the projected image as continuous.

The motion we perceive in film is apparent because it is based on static visual information not real motion. It is commonly believed that the apparent motion perceived in films is beta movement. Beta movement is perceived when a simple object such as a line is alternately presented at two different locations around 10 times a second. The two lines are perceived as a single line moving smoothly between the two locations. Due to the slow rate of presentation and the large distances covered, long-range apparent motions such as beta movement are thought to be processed late in the visual system and require inferences based on knowledge of real motion and the most likely correspondences between objects in the image sequence.

Beta movement, along with other long-range motion phenomena such as apparent rotations and transformations may occur during film perception but they cannot account for the majority of motion perceived in film. The 24Hz presentation rate used in film is too fast for long-range motion and film frames are too complex, making the task of identifying corresponding objects in subsequent frames very difficult. Instead, apparent motion in film is due to the same short-range motion system used to detect real motion. Motion detectors in the early visual system respond in the same way to the retinal stimulation caused by real motion and by rapidly presented (>13Hz) static images that depict only slight differences in object location. This processing occurs very early in our visual system and does not require perceptual inferences. The directness with which film is processed results in an experience of motion that is indiscernible from real-motion."

As you can see there are two processes involved that allow us to see a series of frames as motion: persistence of vision and apparent motion. Frames need to alternate faster than ~60 times per second (i.e. Hz)  if we are going to perceive constant luminance, i.e. not perceive a flicker. Old film projectors reached this threshold by using a shutter to present each frame twice (=48Hz) or three times (=72Hz). Modern digital projectors don't have a shutter as the images is constantly present and doesn't need to accommodate the next frame being registered in front of the lens so instead they present each frame 3 times ("triple flash"=72Hz). This is sufficient to remove the flicker but when we move to stereoscopic 3D digital projection we encounter a problem with the amount of light presented during each frame. Most 3D projectors (such as RealD) alternate the left/right eye images, with each being presented at 24fps (24fps x 2 eyes = 48Hz). Each of these left or right images are subsequently flashed 3 times creating a total flicker rate for stereo 3D movie of 144Hz (72Hz per eye)! This ensures that we don't see the flicker in either eye even though they are alternately blind to the image.

Unfortunately, due to the radial polarisation needed to ensure only the left image is seen by the left eye and the right image by the right eye the amount of light reaching the viewer's eyes is significantly less than a traditional 2D presentation. This creates a murkier image and makes it harder to perceive apparent motion as our eyes cannot create the correspondence between moving objects in each frame. This problem is exaggerated by the film being photographed at 24fps per eye. Moments of high camera or object motion create motion blur in the image as the camera's shutter is open too long. This motion blur makes the edges of objects hard to locate and decreases our perception of apparent motion, making the image appear to jump across the screen instead of flowing smoothly. Given that this motion stuttering is happening alternately between the two eyes it makes it difficult for our visual system to fuse the 3D image, resulting in a loss of depth perception and eye strain.

The solution to both problems of light loss and motion stutter in a stereo 3D movie is to increase the frame rate. I'm not sure whether the new HFR/48fps projectors use a double or triple flash but whichever they use the rate of presentation per eye will exceed the critical flicker fusion rate (double flash = 96 Hz; triple = 144Hz per eye). Because each frame is a sharper image with less motion blur the left and right images registered by our eyes will be brighter, clearer and easier to fuse in depth to perceive 3D. Camera and object motion will be clearer as we are better able to perceive apparent motion between the crisper edges of objects and the overall effect should be less cognitive load on the viewer and less eye strain.

The bizarre irony of Peter Jackson's decision to move to 48fps in an attempt to get 3D cinema closer to reality is that it has revealed the artificiality of the Hobbit. As I say in the Tested article, like the move from SD to HD the increased in information on the screen makes the imperfections of the image easier to see. The move to 48fps may not be increasing the spatial resolution of the image but by increasing the temporal resolution (i.e. frame rate) it makes each pixel easier to see and each face prosthetic and matte backdrop easier to notice. Suspension of disbelief is harder in the quiet sequences at the beginning of the Hobbit and it is only when the action picks up in the final act when the higher frame rate and 3D really gel. Many reviewers have reported growing used to the 48fps as the movie progresses and have noted that the chase sequences at the end of the movie are easier to see, more fluid and result in less eyestrain than typically experienced in 3D movies. It is only when Jackson presents a combination of filmed live-action, sets and digital characters or backdrops together on the screen at the same time and gives the viewer time to interrogate the image that viewers seem to have issue with the higher frame rate. We would only really know the impact of the 48fps on filmgoer experience by performing a controlled psychological test on audiences. Viewers would have to be naive to which frame rate presentation they were seeing and various aspects of their experience of the film monitored. Only then could we see if it actually had an impact on their experience without any pre-existing bias against it or resistance to new technologies getting in the way.

Personally I believe the creative potentials of stereo 3D is massive and only starting to be tapped with movies like Scorsese's Hugo and (apparently, although I'm yet to see if) Ang Lee's Life of Pi. If higher frame rates encourage more filmmakers to experiment with 3D without having to worry about viewer eye strain and discomfort I think it is a great step forward.

p.s. Merry Christmas :)

Sight & Sound video essay

Kevin B. Lee (@alsolifelike) posted a video essay for Sight & Sound on the evolution of Paul Thomas Anderson's steadicam work which discusses my eyetracking work on There Will Be Blood and the DIEM project here. You can view the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GGI5mVH6pg&feature=player_embedded

The video essay discusses the careful use of staging and choreography to introduce the viewer to spaces and characters critical to several of Anderson's films including Hard Eight  and Boogie Nights. The use of steadicam in all of these sequences varies from the bravura long and complex sequences of Boogie Nights and Magnolia to subtle uses in There Will be Blood and Punchdrunk Love. This analysis reveals the many ways in which steadicam can create affinity or conflict between what the viewer wants to see and how the camera moves relative to the characters in the scene. This affinity was clearly demonstrated in my analysis of the eye movement behaviour during the table-top sequence of There Will be Blood (as posted on David Bordwell's blog here). By choreographing the camera moves to natural attentional cues such as dialogue switches, character movements and the introduction of characters in from the side of the frame the filmmaker can make a reliable prediction about where most viewers are likely to be attending.

As discussed in the video essay, eyetracking film viewers gives us a direct line to the viewer experience of a film and can be used to validate filmmaker intentions for such sequences. It also provides us with ways to test hypotheses about how production decisions can influence the resulting viewer experience. With the decreasing cost of steadicam equipment and digital production in general the use of such techniques is becoming more and more common. But what this video essay, and my eyetracking research shows is that such sequences will result in viewer disorientation and confusion unless they are carefully designed with viewer sequential attention in mind.  For example, our recent paper in Journal of Vision (http://www.journalofvision.org/content/12/13/3.full) shows how viewer attention can be altered for the same sequence of close-up shots just by excluding audio. I have recently reviewed the influence of such factors and compositional decisions in general in a journal article and book chapter:

 Smith, T. J. (in press) Watching you watch movies: Using eye tracking to inform cognitive film theory. In A. P. Shimamura (Ed.),Psychocinematics: Exploring Cognition at the Movies. New York: Oxford University Press.

Smith, T. J. (2012) The Attentional Theory of Cinematic Continuity, Projections: The Journal for Movies and the Mind. 6(1), 1-27. (pdf)

 There have been very few empirical studies looking specifically at the influence of steadicam shots on gaze behaviour but one recent study by Wang and colleagues (http://www.journalofvision.org/content/12/1/16.full)  showed how powerful such shots could be for creating similarity in gaze across viewers. Using long steadicam clips from Russian Ark and Children of Men, the authors showed that introducing cuts and scrambling the order of frames within the steadicam sequences disrupted gaze behaviour but the control of each shot over viewer attention was so strong that viewers were able to very quickly reorient to the disordered sequences and re-attend to the centre of interest. This study shows that by using a carefully choreographed steadicam shot, the director can give the viewer the illusion of freedom to roam a continuous shot whilst actually constraining where they look when, creating continuity of attention within the frame and across viewers.

Guest post: Camera Views of Candidates’ Debates Could Play Key Role in Winning Style

This week our blog hosts a guest post from Lester Loschky (Cognitive Psychologist) on the recent US presidential and VP debates and how subtle directorial decisions may impact our impressions of the candidates. (Tim J. Smith)

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Camera Views of Candidates’ Debates Could Play Key Role in Winning Style

by Lester Loschky

I will make a claim that many people may find counter-intuitive: The camera views of the US Presidential candidates in their debates could prove important in determining who “wins” those debates.  But before you close your browser window on this seemingly crazy idea, read on, and see if you don’t find it more persuasive.  There is a lot of research, and a lot of punditry that backs it up.

Those following the current US Presidential election campaign know that the impact of the Presidential debates has assumed a greater importance than any in recent memory.  President Obama’s poor performance relative to Governor Mitt Romney in their first debate apparently led to his losing a commanding 5 point lead in the general election polls in the period of a week. 

In addition, most of the commentary on that debate has shown that it was particularly the “style” of each of the candidates that was particularly important.  The importance of style is consistent with what has been said about other important US Presidential debates of the past.  For example Richard Nixon’s sweating and five o’clock shadow compared to JFK’s cool demeanor in the 1960 debates, and Al Gore’s superior seeming sighs compared to W’s folksy manner, have both been credited with influencing the outcomes of their respective elections. 

I would like to point to one particular point of style that was very apparent in the first Obama/Romney debate—namely eye contact with the camera.  Howard Kurtz noted “stylistically, Romney came on strong, showing a confident command of facts and figures even as he tried to moderate or distance himself from some of his proposals. He also made direct eye contact with the camera while Obama often seemed to be looking down [emphasis added], never adjusting his intensity and acting like he was at a garden-variety news conference” (Howard Kurtz, Oct 3, 2012 10:35 PM EDT).  Thus, Obama’s lack of eye contact with the camera during his debate may have been a factor is his losing of the debate.

Importantly, this issue also came up in the Vice Presidential debate between Vice President Biden and Congressman Ryan.  However, in that debate, it can be argued that it was due to the ABC Debate Director’s decision as to which views of each candidate to show to the TV audience.  Specifically, the camera views in the Biden versus Ryan debate Closing Statements favored Ryan.  Biden was shown looking at the wrong camera for the entire 1:19 of his final remarks but Ryan was show looking at the right one (see the Youtube embedded video clip below and a couple of screen captures from the clip). 

This is odd, because there is a red light on the camera you are supposed to look at, and Biden must know this very well.  So why was Biden looking at the wrong camera?  It seems implausible that Biden could not see the red light on the camera he was supposed to look at, or that he intentionally looked at the wrong camera, or he chose to address his comments to the chair of the debate.  Most importantly, the ABC Debate Director in the control room was the person who ultimately chose how Biden was presented to the national TV audience.  If it was argued to have been due to a lapse of attention by the Director, and the person below the Director who was in charge of pressing the button that selects the camera view to show the TV audience, then it was an extremely long lapse of attention, since the camera shot on Biden lasted for 79 seconds (i.e., 1:19), at the single most important (final) portion of the debate.  However, we can assume that the Director of the debate in the control room was a consummate professional, since s/he was chosen as Director for this very high stakes debate.  Thus, we can also assume that it was not a simple mistake due to a lapse of attention.  This means that it had to have been a conscious decision.  If so, it is a big problem.

Specifically, research has shown that failure to make eye contact reduces the likeability of a person (Mason, Tatkow et al. 2005), and makes a speaker less persuasive (Yokoyama & Daibo, 2012).  Thus, the Debate Director's choice of camera view for Biden's closing statement made him less likeable and persuasive (he wouldn't look you in the eyes), and made Ryan more likeable and persuasive (he looked you in the eyes).  Again, assuming this was not a simple mistake, for the reasons give above, put it into the realm of a “plausibly deniable” political “dirty trick” of the sort that Richard Nixon’s staff was famous for in the Watergate scandal.

Of course, one could argue that the camera view choice was a small thing, for only 1:19 of the Vice Presidential debate, which common wisdom says will not change the course of an election.  The counter argument to that is that the V.P. debate was argued to be critical in determining the momentum of the Presidential election campaign, and that the Closing Statement is the last thing that viewers see in the debate, and should therefore be most memorable.  This is based on the extremely well-known phenomenon of the “recency effect” which research has shown also affects long-term memory for things such as memory for US presidents (e.g., name all the US presidents you can remember in reverse chronological memory—most people’s memory is best for the most recent Presidents)(Roediger & Crowder, 1976). 

More importantly, what if the same "mistake" happens tonight in President Obama's or Governor Romney’s closing statement?  These simple directorial decisions may impact our perception of each candidate in subtle ways that cumulatively effect our overall confidence in them and their politics.

Lester Loschky

Cognitive Psychologist

UCLA Visual Narrative workshop 20-22nd June 2012

I'll be presenting my research on film cognition and eye movements as part of UCLA's workshop on Visual Narrative, June 20-22nd 2012. The workshop will present a wonderful array of approaches to understanding the nature of narrative in visual media including film, TV, comic books and on-line visual media. Other presenters include Elisabeth Camp (Philosophy, U. of Pensylvania), Dorit Abusch (Linguistics, Cornell), Elsi Kaiser (Linguistics, USC), Matthew Stone (Computer Science, Rutgers), and George Wilson (Philosophy, USC).

Register now at the workshop website:

http://gjgreenberg.bol.ucla.edu/visnar/

Real|Reel article

Chloe Penman (@ideaswithlegs) has written a summary of a presentation I gave at Bristol Vision Institute back in January and posted it on the on-line journal, Real|Reel here.

Chloe does a better job at succinctly summarising some of the key aspects of my Attentional Theory of Cinematic Continuity (AToCC) than I think I could. She also uses some great video demonstrations of some of the key editing techniques (Match-Action, Jump Cuts, 180 Degree Rule) to elegantly expand her points.

If you are interested in reading about AToCC in more detail or related areas of film cognition please check out my recent publications:

• Smith, T. J., Levin, D. T. & Cutting, J. (2012) A Window on Reality: Perceiving Edited Moving Images. Current Directions in Psychological Science.21: 101-106 doi:10.1177/0963721412436809 (print version) (preprint)
• Smith, T. J. (2012) The Attentional Theory of Continuity Editing,Projections: The Journal for Movies and the Mind. 6(1)
• Smith, T. J. (2012) Extending AToCC: a reply, Projections: The Journal for Movies and the Mind. 6(1)

Rear Window Timelapse

Absolutely brilliant reworking of Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954) by Jeff Desom so that all the sequences viewed out of the window by Jimmy Stewart's character are morphed together into one continuous time lapse viewpoint using Adobe Aftereffects. It also highlights an interesting mismatch between how we think we perceive the locations depicted in a scene and how they actually appear when spatial relationships are reconstructed. I've studied Rear Window in detail several times and I had no idea that the conservatory in the right of the scene was so close to Jimmy Stewart's apartment.

A Window of Reality: Perceiving Edited Moving Images

A little review article Dan Levin, James Cutting and I put together is now published in Current Directions in Psychological Science.

Have you ever wondered how we watch films? How viewing highly artificial edited sequences that jump about in space and time can be effortless> Why films seem to be getting faster, darker and more agitated? Or why we fail to notice massive continuity errors? Check out the article

Smith, T. J., Levin, D. T. & Cutting, J. (2012) A Window on Reality: Perceiving Edited Moving Images. Current Directions in Psychological Science.21: 101-106 doi:10.1177/0963721412436809 (print version) (preprint)

Edited moving images entertain, inform, and coerce us throughout our daily lives, yet until recently, the way people perceive movies has received little psychological attention. We review the history of empirical investigations into movie perception and the recent explosion of new research on the subject using methods such as behavioral experiments, functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI) eye tracking, and statistical corpus analysis. The Hollywood style of moviemaking, which permeates a wide range of visual media, has evolved formal conventions that are compatible with the natural dynamics of attention and humans’ assumptions about continuity of space, time, and action. Identifying how people overcome the sensory differences between movies and reality provides an insight into how the same cognitive processes are used to perceive continuity in the real world.

Cut detection experiment

If you have a spare 45 minutes and fancy reflecting on how you watch movies please take part in my student, Yvonne's on-line experiment:

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/psychology/psychologyexperiments/experiments/cutdetection/startup.php?rid=53

You'll be shown a series of film clips from movies and asked to detect cuts. Just press the spacebar every time you see a cut. It's that simple!

Or is it?

Cognitive Film Theory bibliography

I just stumbled across Nick Redfern's wonderful bibliography of Cognitive Film theory on-line and thought I had to share:

http://nickredfern.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/nick-redfern-cognitivefilmtheorybibliography2-04.pdf

This is a great starting point for anybody trying to get a feel for the research area.

UCL Festival of the Moving Image

This Sunday (12th February 2012) I will be giving an intro to my work on film cognition and a live eyetracking demonstration as part of the UCL Festival of Moving Images 2012: http://movingimage.im/

The evening will begin with a screening of Tarsem Singh's The Fall (2006), a beautiful digital fairytale that exemplifies Tarsem's use of digital compositions and mise en scene.

This will be followed by Richard Linklater's rotoscoped philosophical dream journey, Waking Life (2001).



Both films explore issues related to the fantasy of reality (and vice versa) and it will be my task to bridge the two with some demonstrations of exactly how illusory our experience of the real-world is.

The event is free but space is limited so please come along early if you are interested in attending.

Gazing at Blade Runner on BBC Film 2012

The legendary BBC film review program, Film 2012 honoured me with a visit a couple of weeks ago and the piece they filmed aired last Wednesday (1st Feb 2012, 23:30). If you're in the UK you can view it on the BBC iPlayer for seven days:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01br115/?t=23m01s

The piece represented a personal journey for the presenter, Danny Leigh who wanted to understand the psychology of film viewing. Using Blade Runner (1982) as our sample film, Danny and I discussed how filmmakers capitalise on our natural interest in simple visual features such as motion and more complex details of scenes such as social cues and faces to guide our attention within the frame and across cuts. By eyetracking Danny with a Tobii TX300 I was able to compare his viewing behaviour to that of other viewers and show how similar they were for the majority of the clip.

To get an idea of the attentional synchrony (i.e. clustering of gaze) between all viewers you can take a look at the video below. This represents the gaze location and resulting heatmap of seven people watching the clip at different times.

I'd like to thank Danny Leigh, Suniti Somaiya and the BBC Film team for making the filming so enjoyable. I look forward to working with them again.

SCSMI 2012: where Kuleshov is King!

This is a rather late notice to anybody interested in Cognitive Film Theory/Film Cognition. The annual meeting of the Society for the Cognitive Studies of the Moving Images (SCSMI) will be hosted by Sarah Lawrence College and New York University next June 13-16th in New York and the proposal deadline is TOMORROW, December 15th 2011.

This is my favourite conference for a variety of reasons:

1) It is the only place where film makers, theorists, psychologists, cognitive scientists, neuroscientists and anybody else interested in film come together to present their work, exchange ideas and contribute to the international community of film cognition.

2) All of the big names in the field attend and the small scale of the conference means that you will get the opportunity to meet them in person and exchange ideas.

3) The presentation format is incredibly generous: 25 minute presentations + 20 mins questions! Traditionally there have never been more than 3 parallel strands. This is incredibly conducive to open, sprawling and exciting discussions.

4) The society is full of generally lovely people and we always have a great time.

If you are interested in attending the deadline is TOMORROW, December 15th 2011. Details of how to submit are available here: http://scsmi-online.org/conference

Hope to see lots of the old faces and many, many new faces in New York next June.

Smooth Pursuit on BBC Breakfast

BBC Breakfast contacted me yesterday about my eye tracking and film research. They were putting together a piece about how we can use eye tracking (and other methods such as EEG) to monitor people's experience of entertainment such as film and literature. I didn't have much input to the piece but they did start with a clip of my There Will Be Blood study. The original report of that study is available here:http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2011/02/14/watching-you-watch-there-will-be-blood/

The BBC Breakfast pieces can me seen here (it starts 15:22s):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/12550706

The clip they chose to feature was not included in my earlier discussion. It is very interesting from the eye movement perspective because it shows how our attention picks out motion and tracks it even when it is momentarily out of view. For instance, when the shot begins the viewers do not know what they are looking at so their gaze defaults to screen centre and the vanishing point of the train tracks.

The sound of a car's engine and the slight motion in the distance captures viewer attention and everybody looks in the same place.

As the camera pans right the viewers continue tracking the car. Because the car and the camera are both moving this means that the viewer's eyes may actually be stationary on the screen but they perceive the car as moving. In the real-world we would either pursue the car by rotating our eyes with it or rotate our head to keep the car at the centre of our gaze without moving our eyes. The pan in this example serves the same purpose as a head rotation.

As the car disappears behind the building the fact that the camera continues to move with the car and we hear the car's engine implies that it will reappear. Viewers try to find the car by saccading to the screen edge in anticipation of the car's reappearance.

Whenever a door or window appears in the building all viewers zoom in on it trying to catch a glimpse of the car. This high degree of attentional synchrony is expressed by the heatmap that appears periodically during the clip. If you want to know more about how this heatmap is calculated look at our paper:

Mital, P.K., Smith, T. J., Hill, R. and Henderson, J. M. (2011) Clustering of gaze during dynamic scene viewing is predicted by motion. Cognitive Computation, 3(1), 5-24 http://www.bbk.ac.uk/psychology/our-staff/academic/tim-smith/documents/Clustering_of_Gaze_During_Dynamic_Scene_Viewing_is_Predicted.pdf

The building ends and all viewers saccade to the edge that they believe the car will appear. The continued engine sounds reinforces our belief that it continues to exist and as the camera pans left and stops tracking we wait patiently. When the car finally appears our diligence as viewers is rewarded.

That one gracious shot demonstrates how a combination of slow, deliberate camera movements and choreography of action can lead to incredibly focussed viewing and induce viewers to perceive actions and details, such as the car's existence and motion behind the building, without actually showing them. Compare this shot to the long-take in my previous analysis to see how two completely different shots can lead to similar coordination of viewer gaze. Masterful!

So, that was what was going on in that brief clip from BBC Breakfast. Now all I need is to get on the couch with Sian and Bill!

ECEM 2011

August 21-25th 2011 I had the great fortune of attending the European Conference on Eye Movements (ECEM) in Marseille, France. This conference occurs every two years and I having attended it since 2003 I can say that this year was a roaring success. The quality of the presentations was second to none, the atmosphere was fun and sociable and Marseille is fantastically charismatic city in which to hold a conference. I presented two pieces of work. On the Monday I presented a poster on using eyetracking to inform film theory (see below or pdf here) which was very well received and gave me plenty of opportunity to ramble on about Von Trier, Welles, Intensified Continuity and the Society for Cognitive Studies of Moving Images (SCSMI). The poster was presented outside in a beautifully tree-line courtyard at the University of Provence, Marseille. Unfortunately, on the day of presentation the wind had whipped up and I spent most of my presentation holding on to my poster as it attempted to fly away. The result was rather comical for the audience but, the trooper that I am, I did not let it phase me and continued as enthusiastically as always. 

If you are interested in reading more about the work presented in the poster you can see details of the cognitive readings of film in my Edit Blindness paper (Smith & Henderson, 2008; JEMR; here) and my modelling paper with Parag Mital (Mital, Smith, Hill & Henderson, 2011; Cog. Comp; here). The cinematic feature analysis will appear as a chapter in the book Psychocinematics published next year.

The second presentation I gave at ECEM was in a symposium on The Perception of Dynamic Scenes which I organised. This was a very successful symposium which turned out even better than I had hoped. Michael Dorr (Schepens Eye Hospital), Halszka Jarodzka (Heerlen), Sam Wass (Birkbeck), Daniel Richardson (UCL), and Ben Tatler (Dundee) all contributed to the symposium and presented a wonderful variety of perspectives of how we attend to and perceive complex, dynamic scenes. There was a real buzz about the potential for investigating dynamic scene perception at ECEM which culminated with the symposium. Over the last few ECEM there has been a growing interest in studying eye movements on video but technical, methodological, and theoretical limitations meant that very few people attempted it. Since the last ECEM in Southampton two years ago many labs have overcome these issues through significant innovations such as those provided by the DIEM project. We are now at an exciting tipping point which I am certain will lead to a sudden upsurge of empirical investigations of visual cognition with more naturalistic, dynamic stimuli. The potential insights into human behaviour and cognition this will provide are unlimited and I am looking forward to seeing the area develop and assisting it in anyway I can.

Thanks again for all the organisers of ECEM 2011, Marseille including Francoise Vitu and her helpers and I am looking forward to ECEM 2013 in Lund, Sweden!