RUNNING HEAD: Social effects of movie-watching

How Social Context Affects the Emotional Impact of a Film:

A Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective

Crump, C. M.1, Cervantes, L.2, Frank, S.3, & Zaidel, E.1

1University of California, Los Angeles, 2Cal Lutheran University, 3Utah State University

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Abstract

When seeing a movie, should you watch it alone or with a group of friends? Intuition suggests

that the answer depends on the emotional content of the film. We examined the interaction

between the social context of viewing a film and the emotional content of a film using a

cognitive neuroscience approach. The effect of the film was operationalized as the change in

attention in each cerebral hemisphere following a happy or sad film viewed either in a group or

alone. Participants watched two film clips, one happy and one sad, each prior to completing the

computerized task of spatial Orienting of attention. A significant interaction between emotional

content and social context of viewing described the impact of the film. This interaction is

mediated by the right cerebral hemisphere only. This suggests that the right hemisphere is

selectively involved in socio-emotional experience.

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The Effect of Social Context on the Emotional Impact of a Film1

It is a common observation that watching a film alone as opposed to with a group of people leads

to a very different experience of the film (e.g., Gutierrez 2011; Le 2011). On the one hand,

watching a film with others can heighten the film’s emotional impact through the “contagion” of

the emotional reactions of the group. On the other hand, watching a film alone can heighten the

film’s emotional impact through distraction-free viewing and the freedom to experience emotion

without social constraints. This raises two crucial questions both for movie-goers and movie

producers: which viewing condition maximizes the effect of the film, and which neural structures

support this process? We predicted that the right cerebral hemisphere is a critical neural structure

for this process due to its specialization for processing emotional stimuli and social relations. To

the best of our knowledge, this is the first investigation that explicitly manipulated the social

context of movie-watching and measures the neural correlates.

For this experiment, we measured the impact of the film by its subsequent effect on

orienting of attention separately in each hemisphere. In using this measure we presuppose that

attention coordinates and orchestrates cognition in general, and therefore that changes in

attention reflect or regulate changes in cognitive activity. Thus we expect that as the social

context of watching a film changes the emotional impact of the film, it also changes the

cognitive processing of the movie-watcher.

                                                            1 This material is based upon work supported by the U. S. Army Research Laboratory and the U. S. Army Research Office under contract/grant number W911NF-07-1-0248. Citation of trade names does not constitute an official government endorsement or approval of the use of such commercial products. The findings of this report are not to be construed as an official Department of the Army position, unless so designated by other authorized documents. Thanks to the enthusiastic students in The Brain, The Mind, and Motion Pictures course in the Psychology Department at UCLA for their comments on the study design and results.

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From personal experience we know that people often want to watch happy movies with

others, but prefer to watch sad movies alone. We presume that these particular conditions are

preferred because they maximize the emotional impact of the film. The emotional impact may be

measured explicitly (how sad or happy you feel after the film) or implicitly by measuring

unconscious psychophysiological or cognitive changes caused by the emotions. It is well-

established that attention is directly affected by experienced emotions (MacLeod et al 1986; Fox

et al 2002; Crump et al forthcoming). Therefore, it is useful to measure the implicit impact of the

films by measuring their effect on attention in different social contexts. Thus, we predict an

interaction between the emotionality of the film (happy, sad) and the social context (with others

or alone) of film-watching on attention.

The effects of social context, experienced emotion, and selective (spatial) attention are all

known to be mediated selectively by the right cerebral hemisphere. It is well established that the

right hemisphere is sensitive to the social context of language (pragmatics; see Lindell 2006 for a

review). Recent studies have shown that the right hemisphere’s role in pragmatics makes it

important in normal social attributions and interactions as well (e.g., Champagne-Lavau and

Joanette 2009; Weed et al. 2010; Fournier et al. 2008). Consequently, we predict that the

interaction between the emotionality of the film and the social context of film-watching will be

related to the degree of right hemisphere engagement in the task. The degree of right hemisphere

engagement may be measured by orienting of spatial attention to stimuli presented in the left

visual field.

The precise role that the right hemisphere plays with regard to emotions is somewhat

controversial (see Demaree et al. 2005 for a review). The Right Hemisphere Hypothesis states

that the right hemisphere is responsible for perceiving and demonstrating both positive and

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negative emotions. This is supported by two lines of experimental evidence: first, the left side of

the face (motorically controlled by the right hemisphere) is more expressive than the right side of

the face (Borod et al. 1988). Secondly, the right hemisphere seems to have preferential control

over sympathetic nervous system activation, which is positively related to feelings of anxiety and

other negative emotions (Spence et al. 1996; Hugdahl 1996). By contrast, the Valence

Hypothesis states that the right hemisphere is responsible for processing and demonstrating

negative emotions only, whereas the left hemisphere is responsible for processing and

demonstrating positive emotions. This hypothesis originated with the observation that patients

with left hemisphere damage (and consequently primarily right hemisphere function) exhibited

severely depressed emotions, whereas patients with right hemisphere damage (and consequently

primarily left hemisphere function) exhibited indifferent or even euphoric emotions (Gainotti

1972). It has been subsequently supported by a variety of studies examining electrophysiology

and behavior (see Davidson 1996 for a review).

Lastly, while it is generally true that the left hemisphere attends to the right half of space

and the right hemisphere attends to the left half of space, some experimental evidence exists to

show that the right hemisphere exerts preferential control over both sides of visual space

(Heilman & Van Den Abell 1980). The right hemisphere is also known to selectively control

orienting of spatial attention regardless of spatial location (Fan et al. 2002; Posner et al. 1984).

To examine the effect of social context on the emotional impact of a film in each

hemisphere, 41 participants viewed brief clips of a happy film and of a sad film. Each viewing

was followed by an assessment of emotional state and a lateralized spatial orienting task.

Critically, half the participants watched the films “together” on one screen at the front of the

room, and half the participants watched the film “alone” on their individual computer screens in

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the same room. We predicted that the emotional impact of the film would change right

hemisphere attention selectively depending on whether participants watched the films alone or

together.

Methods

Participants

Forty-one undergraduates (11 males; 4 left-handed) at the University of California, Los Angeles

participated in this study for psychology course credit. All reported normal or corrected-to-

normal vision. Four reported a history of neurological illness or insult, and were later excluded

from analysis. Participants were randomly assigned to watch the film clips together or alone.

Left-handers and individuals reporting a history of neurological problems were split between the

two groups to keep the number of remaining participants in each group approximately equal.

There were 21 participants watching the film alone and 20 participants watching the film

together.

Materials

The happy film clip was the 5-minute Disney/Pixar short film “Partly Cloudy.” The sad film clip

was the 5-minute “Married Life” scene from Disney/Pixar’s feature film, “Up.” Film clips were

chosen based on the following criteria: they must be predominantly nonverbal, self-contained

(e.g., not requiring information outside the clip to fully understand the content of the clip), and

similar to each other in filming style and content. It is important that the clips be nonverbal so

that we do not bias the priming paradigm against one hemisphere (namely, the nonverbal right

hemisphere). The clips are similar in that they are both filmed from a third-person omniscient

perspective, and both are fully computer animated. The clips are similar in content in that each

conveys the story of a relationship between two entities with a beginning, middle, and end. To

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operationalize the “happiness” and “sadness” of the clips, we selected clips that ended happily

(e.g. characters hugging, smiling) or sadly (e.g. characters crying, looking at the ground). The

clips also conveyed “happiness” and “sadness” by comparison; for example, the clip that ended

happily included sad events prior to the ending, and the clip that ended sadly included happy

events prior to the ending.

Film clips viewed “together” were displayed on a 4’ x 6’ white projection screen at the

front of the experimenting room by a Hitachi LCD projector. Film clips viewed alone were

displayed on 17” LCD personal computer monitors situated 57cm from each participant’s face.

The experimenting room consisted of 26 HP personal computers, 18 on the left side of the room

and 8 on the right side of the room when viewing the projection screen. Computers were

arranged on long tables on each side of the room with three computer stations on each table.

Each computer station had a chinrest fixed to the table such that each participant’s eyes would be

aligned 57cm from the center of the computer monitor.

Following each film, participants completed the Positive and Negative Affect Scales

(PANAS; Watson et al. 1988). The PANAS consists of 20 adjectives and participants rate how

well each adjective describes the participant’s feelings at this moment on a 4-point Likert scale.

Items are then scored on two subscales to obtain separate measures of positive affect and of

negative affect. Higher scores on each subscale indicate a greater degree of positive or negative

affect. Each participant also completed a modified version of the Edinburgh Handedness

Inventory (Oldfield 1971) prior to arrival at the testing session. The Handedness Inventory was

administered for later assessment of handedness and neurological health.

All experimental stimuli were presented using Eprime version 1.1 (Schneider et al. 2002)

on a 17” LCD monitor with a resolution of 640x480 pixels and a refresh rate of 59.94 Hz. Each

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trial in the experimental paradigm began with either a 400ms or 600ms prefixation period

(equally often 400ms or 600ms). This was followed by the presentation of a schematic face cue

for 150ms. Cues consisted of a schematic face (cf. Öhman et al. 2001). Faces were happy,

neutral, or sad in expression. Cues could appear in the left visual field (2 degrees to the left of

fixation), the right visual field (2 degrees to the right of fixation), or the center (replacing the

central fixation). The target, an asterisk in 14-point Courier New font, was presented 100ms later

for another 100ms. The target appeared either in the same visual field as the cue (valid trials) or

the opposite visual field from the cues (invalid trials). For one-third of trials, no target appeared

at all (catch trials). Participants were given 1500ms to respond if they detected the target.

Responses were made by pressing the spacebar with the index finger. Response hand was

counterbalanced between participants and alternated with each block of trials. There were a total

of four experimental blocks with 54 trials in each, preceded by one block of 13 practice trials.

Participants were given a break between each block of trials to avoid possible effects of fatigue.

The length of each break was determined by each participant. The duration of breaks for each

participant did not vary between participants in a single testing session.

Procedure

One week prior to the testing session, all participants completed the Edinburgh Handedness

Inventory (Oldfield 1971). Participants were contacted the next day to advise them of their

random assignment to the first or second testing session. For each testing session, participants

were asked to wait outside the experimenting room until all participants were present.

Participants in the first testing session viewed the film alone and participants in the second

testing session viewed the film together. Upon entering the testing room, participants were

randomly assigned to computer stations. All participants viewed the happy film clip first to avoid

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potentially stronger emotional carryover effects from the sad film. This was immediately

followed by administration of the Positive and Negative Affect Scales (PANAS). When the first

PANAS was collected for each participant, participants completed the computerized task.

Participants then viewed the sad film clip, completed the PANAS for the second time, and

completed the computerized task for the second time. Each complete testing session took

approximately one hour.

Analyses

Only strongly right-handed participants who reported no history of neurological illness or insult

were included in the analysis. The data from the remaining 33 participants was analyzed.

Following exclusions, there were 17 participants in the group that watched the film alone and 16

participants in the group that watched the film together. Reaction times (RTs) from trials with an

accurate response were submitted for analysis. This automatically excluded catch trials. RTs

faster than 100ms were assumed to be errors of anticipation and were excluded. All paired

comparisons and correlations were Bonferroni corrected for multiple comparisons to maintain p

< 0.05.

Orienting Benefit (OB) was calculated for each participant by taking the median reaction

time to targets preceded by a valid cue and subtracting that from the median reaction time to

targets preceded by a central cue. Orienting Cost (OC) was calculated by taking the median

reaction time to targets preceded by a central cue and subtracting that from the median reaction

time to targets preceded by an invalid cue. Both OB and OC were then normalized for the

analysis.

The following ANOVAs were carried out: 1) a 2 (Film: Happy, Sad) x 2 (Context:

Together, Alone) mixed ANOVA with Context as a between-subjects variable on self-reported

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positive affect and self-reported negative affect separately, 2) a 2 (Film: Happy, Sad) x 3 (Cue

Valence: Happy, Neutral, Sad) x 3 (Cue Validity: Valid, Center Invalid) x 2 (Target Visual Field:

Left, Right) x 2 (Context: Together, Alone) mixed ANOVA with a between-subjects variable of

Context on the median reaction times for each participant, and 3) a 2 (Film: Happy, Sad) x 3

(Cue Valence: Happy, Neutral, Sad) x 2 (Target Visual Field: Left, Right) x 2 (Context:

Together, Alone) mixed ANOVA with a between-subjects variable of Context on the normalized

OB data and the normalized OC data separately.

Results

Manipulation Check: PANAS

As a manipulation check, we ran a 2 (Film: Happy, Sad) x 2 (Mood: Positive, Negative) x 2

(Social Context: Together, Alone) mixed ANOVA with Context as a between-subjects variable

using self-reported positive mood and self-reported negative mood as separate dependent

variables. For both positive affect and negative mood, we found main effects of Film, (positive

mood: F(1, 30) = 45.43, MSE = 18.88, p = .000; negative mood: F(1,30) = 21.95, MSE = 12.23,

p = .000). These main effects showed that self-reported positive mood significantly decreased

following the sad film (happy film: M = 28.92, SD = 6.30; sad film: M = 21.58, SD = 6.55), and

that self-reported negative mood significantly increased following the sad film (happy film: M =

12.23, SD = 2.22; sad film: M = 16.34, SD = 5.03; see Figure 2). These results confirm that

following the happy film, participants felt significantly more positive than they did after the sad

film, and after the sad film, participants felt significantly more negative than they did after the

happy film.

Reaction Times

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We performed a 2 (Film: Happy, Sad) x 3 (Cue Valence: Happy, Neutral, Sad) x 3 (Cue Validity:

Valid, Center Invalid) x 2 (Target Visual Field: Left, Right) x 2 (Social Context: Together,

Alone) mixed ANOVA with a between-subjects variable as Social Context and with median

reaction time as the dependent variable. We found a main effect of Film, due to significantly

faster RTs following the sad film (M = 208.36ms, SD = .096ms) than following the happy film

(M = 223.84ms, SD = 1.08ms), F(1, 31) = 24.37, MSE = 2783.39, p = .000. There was also a

main effect of Cue Validity, F(2, 62) = 32.02, MSE = 954.63, p = .000. Valid cues elicited

significantly slower RTs (M = 225.78ms, SD = 1.04ms) than either central (M = 213.08ms, SD =

.91ms) or invalid cues (M = 208.91ms, SD = 1.08ms). Lastly, we found an interaction between

Film, Cue Validity, Target Visual Field, and Social Context, F(2, 62) = 3.51, MSE = 262.24, p =

.036 (see Figure 3). To further investigate this interaction, we examined Orienting Benefit (OB)

and Orienting Cost (OC) separately.

Orienting Benefit (OB)

We performed a 2 (Film: Happy, Sad) x 3 (Cue Valence: Happy, Neutral, Sad) x 2 (Target

Visual Field: Left, Right) x 2 (Social Context: Together, Alone) mixed ANOVA with a between-

subjects variable as Social Context and with the normalized OB data as the dependent variable.

This revealed two significant interactions: Film x Social Context, F(1, 31) = 5.67, MSE =

822.20, p = .024, and Film x Target Visual Field x Social Context, F(1, 31) = 5.88, MSE =

580.43, p = .021. Post hoc comparisons showed no significant differences between performance

following each Film as a function of Social Context (see Figure 4). However, post-hoc

comparisons of the three-way interaction showed a significant difference in task performance for

left visual field targets following the happy film between watching the film together (M = -.047,

SD = .002) or alone (M = -.003, SD = .002), t(31) = 3.82, p = .008; see Figure 5.

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Orienting Cost (OC)

We performed a 2 (Film: Happy, Sad) x 3 (Cue Valence: Happy, Neutral, Sad) x 2 (Target

Visual Field: Left, Right) x 2 (Social Context: Together, Alone) mixed ANOVA with a between-

subjects variable of Social Context on the normalized OC data. This revealed no significant main

effects or interactions.

Discussion

To investigate the effect of social context on the emotional impact of viewing a movie,

participants watched both a happy film clip and a sad film clip either alone or with other

participants. The effects of social context and emotional impact were assessed by self-reported

affect after each film and by an implicit test of covert orienting of spatial attention in each

cerebral hemisphere. We predicted that the emotional impact of the film would reflect/affect the

orienting of attention in each cerebral hemisphere depending on whether participants watched the

films alone or together. We confirmed this prediction by showing the interaction between Film

and social Context of viewing on orienting of attention. In particular, we found that this

interaction occurs only in the right hemisphere. Thus, the right hemisphere is selectively

sensitive to the interaction between social context of viewing and emotional content of the film.

This is supported by the literature on the right hemisphere’s role in social situations, including

social aspects of language and Theory of Mind (Lindell 2006; Champagne-Lavau et al. 2009;

Weed et al. 2010; Fournier et al. 2008).

Additionally, our results support the Right Hemisphere Hypothesis of hemispheric

emotions because the right hemisphere was sensitive to both the sad film and the happy film. The

Right Hemisphere Hypothesis proposes that the right hemisphere selectively processes and

demonstrates all emotions (see Demaree et al. 2005). Our results show that the left hemisphere is

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not at all sensitive to the emotional content of the film. Therefore, our results do not support a

dominant role for the left hemisphere in processing emotions.

How to measure the emotional impact of the film

For this experiment we assumed that orienting of attention reflects changes in cognitive activity,

we would see the effect of emotion experienced during the film on measures of orienting of

attention. As expected, we found the critical main effect of the emotionality of the film on

performance in the orienting task. This main effect could be due to practice rather than to the

emotional contrast. Overall performance did increase following the sad film (viewed second),

compared to the happy film. However, the critical effects of this study involve the interaction of

this effect with social context. Although both participants who watched the films together and

watched the films alone viewed the films in the same order, their performance differed in a

systematic way.

Is it better to watch a film together or alone?

Our results show that viewing a happy film alone is associated with changes in orienting of

spatial attention, whereas viewing a sad film with others is associated with similar changes in

orienting of spatial attention. These changes presented as negative benefit in orienting and that

seems counterintuitive: happy films seem to encourage others to share their happiness, whereas

sad films seem to encourage self-directed reflection. However, these results may be better

interpreted by considering the reaction times as reflecting a refractory period following right

hemisphere depletion of specialized resources during the movie; i.e. the more engaged the right

hemisphere was during the movie, the more depleted it was following the movie. In this view,

watching a happy film with others (and watching a sad film alone) enhances the emotional

impact and overall experience of the movie. Thus, watching an emotional film engages so many

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processing resources that the resources are depleted on subsequent tasks and the brain requires a

brief recovery (refractory) period.

Summary

We conducted a novel experiment to show that the social context of movie-watching is critically

important to the emotional impact of a film, and these processes depend selectively on the right

hemisphere. Watching a happy movie with others accentuates the emotional impact of the film,

and watching a sad film alone accentuates the emotional impact of the film. The emotional

impact of the film can be detected by the reaction time measured following the movie rather than

during it. In this case, the spatial orienting effect reflects the degree of right hemisphere

involvement in the film rather than involvement during the task itself. This provides a powerful

method for estimating the allocation of attention in natural situations by measuring it

subsequently.

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Filmography

Docter, Pete. 2009. Up. USA.

Sohn, Peter. 2009. Partly Cloudy. USA.

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Figure 1. Sample valid trial.

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Figure 2. Self-reported positive and negative affect following the happy film and the sad film.

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Figure 3. Interaction between Film, Cue Validity, Target Visual Field, and Context. Overall

interaction is significant.

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Figure 4. Significant interaction between Film and Social Context on Orienting Benefit data.

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Figure 5. Significant interaction between Film, Social Context, and Target Visual Field.

Significant effect of Film and Context are seen only in the left visual field (right hemisphere).