A Robust Neural Fingerprint of Cinematic Shot-Scale
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Abstract
This article provides evidence for the existence of a robust “brainprint” of cinematic shot-scales that generalizes across movies, genres, and viewers. We applied a machine-learning method on a dataset of 234 fMRI scans taken during the viewing of a movie excerpt. Based on a manual annotation of shot-scales in five movies, we generated a computational model that predicts time series of this feature. The model was then applied on fMRI data obtained from new participants who either watched excerpts from the movies or clips from new movies. The predicted shot-scale time series that were based on our model significantly correlated with the original annotation in all nine cases. The spatial structure of the model indicates that the empirical experience of cinematic close-ups correlates with the activation of the ventral visual stream, the centromedial amygdala, and components of the mentalization network, while the experience of long shots correlates with the activation of the dorsal visual pathway and the parahippocampus. The shot-scale brainprint is also in line with the notion that this feature is informed among other factors by perceived apparent distance. Based on related theoretical and empirical findings we suggest that the empirical experience of close and far shots implicates different mental models: concrete and contextualized perception dominated by recognition and visual and semantic memory on the one hand, and action-related processing supporting orientation and movement monitoring on the other
Contributor Notes
András Bálint Kovács is Professor and Founding Chair of the Film Department at Eötvös Loránd (ELTE) University, Budapest, Hungary. He teaches history of modern cinema and film analysis. He is a Recurrent Visiting Professor at the University of California, San Diego, and was formerly a Visiting Professor at the École Normale Supérieure, Paris; the Université de la Nouvelle Sorbonne, Paris, and the University of Stockholm. His current research projects include quantitative style analysis and the psychological research of emotion regulation and causal thinking in film viewing. E-mail: kab@btk.elte.hu
Gal Raz is a Senior Lecturer at the Steve Tisch School of Film and Television and the Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University. He is currently establishing an interdisciplinary lab for immersive technologies at the Sagol Brain Institute at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center. Gal has been using neuroimaging tools to study various aspects of audiovisual experiences, including aesthetics, emotion regulation, empathy, and the potential of multimodal interfaces in neurofeedback learning. E-mail: galraz@post.tau.ac.il
Giancarlo Valente is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Audition and Cognitive Neuroscience in the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. E-mail: giancarlo.valente@maastrichtuniversity.nl
Sergio Benini received his MSc in Electronic Engineering (cum laude) at the University of Brescia with a thesis granted by the Italian Academy of Science in 2000. Between 2001 and 2003, he worked in the Research and Development Department at Siemens Mobile Communication. He received his PhD in Information Engineering from the University of Brescia in 2006, working on video content analysis. During his PhD, he completed a one-year placement at British Telecom Research, UK, working in the Content Coding Lab. He is currently Assistant Professor at the University of Brescia. E-mail: sergio.benini@unibs.it
Michele Svanera received his MSc in Telecommunications Engineering at the University of Brescia (2013) with a thesis on methods and models for the synthesis and representation of three-dimensional surfaces. He is currently a PhD student at the same institution. E-mail: m.svanera005@unibs.it