Does narrative drive dynamic attention to a prolonged stimulus?

Attention in the "real world" fluctuates over time, but these fluctuations are hard to examine using a timed trial-based experimental paradigm. Here we use film to study attention. To achieve short-term engagement, filmmakers make use of low-level cinematic techniques such as color, movement and sound design to influence attention. To engage audiences over prolonged periods of time, narrative structure is used. In this experiment, participants performed a secondary auditory choice reaction time (RT) task to measure attention while watching a film. In order to explore the role of narrative on attention, we manipulated the order that film segments were presented. The influence of narrative was then compared to the contribution of low-level features (extracted using a computer-based saliency model) in a multiple regression analysis predicting choice RT. The regression model successfully predicted 28% of the variance in choice RT: 13% was due to low-level saliency, and 8% due to the narrative. This study shows the importance of narrative in determining attention and the value of studying attention with a prolonged stimulus such as film.

In search of oculomotor capture during film viewing: Implications for the balance of top-down and bottom-up control in the saccadic system.

In the laboratory, the abrupt onset of a visual distractor can generate an involuntary orienting response: this robust oculomotor capture effect has been reported in a large number of studies (e.g. Ludwig & Gilchrist, 2002; Theeuwes, Kramer, Hahn, & Irwin, 1998) suggesting it may be a ubiquitous part of more natural visual behaviour. However the visual stimuli used in these experiments have tended to be static and had none of the complexity, and dynamism of more natural visual environments. In addition, the primary task in the laboratory (typically visual search) can be tedious for the participants with participant's losing interest and becoming stimulus driven and more easily distracted. Both of these factors may have led to an overestimation of the extent to which oculomotor capture occurs and the importance of this phenomena in everyday visual behaviour. To address this issue, in the current series of studies we presented abrupt and highly salient visual distractors away from fixation while participants watched a film. No evidence of oculomotor capture was found. However, the distractor does effect fixation duration: we find an increase in fixation duration analogous to the remote distractor effect (Walker, Deubel, Schneider, & Findlay, 1997). These results suggest that during dynamic scene perception, the oculomotor system may be under far more top-down control than traditional laboratory based-tasks have previously suggested.

Perception while watching movies: Effects of physical screen size and scene type.

Over the last decade, television screens and display monitors have increased in size considerably, but has this improved our televisual experience? Our working hypothesis was that the audiences adopt a general strategy that "bigger is better." However, as our visual perceptions do not tap directly into basic retinal image properties such as retinal image size (C. A. Burbeck, 1987), we wondered whether object size itself might be an important factor. To test this, we needed a task that would tap into the subjective experiences of participants watching a movie on different-sized displays with the same retinal subtense. Our participants used a line bisection task to self-report their level of "presence" (i.e., their involvement with the movie) at several target locations that were probed in a 45-min section of the movie "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly." Measures of pupil dilation and reaction time to the probes were also obtained. In Experiment 1, we found that subjective ratings of presence increased with physical screen size, supporting our hypothesis. Face scenes also produced higher presence scores than landscape scenes for both screen sizes. In Experiment 2, reaction time and pupil dilation results showed the same trends as the presence ratings and pupil dilation correlated with presence ratings, providing some validation of the method. Overall, the results suggest that real-time measures of subjective presence might be a valuable tool for measuring audience experience for different types of (i) display and (ii) audiovisual material.