Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz are investigating a new way to quantify human response to audiovisual stimuli. By measuring chemical concentration in breath emissions, they are gathering data about what these emissions mean (Williams et al., 2016). They found that isoprene air concentration in a movie theatre increased during suspenseful scenes. The mechanism behind why isoprene release might occur at these times is not yet clear (Williams et al., 2016). However, these results mean that isoprene could be a measurable indicator for how suspenseful a movie is to specific audiences. Understanding how specific age ranges, or genders react to audiovisual stimuli could be very important regarding advertisements, and media as a whole.
One of many potential applications of such research is that it could influence movie ratings. Currently, movie ratings are quite subjective, and as each parent rears their children differently, rather uninformative. This rating is even less useful because it can be influenced by so many different factors including profanity, nudity, sexual content, violence, and substance abuse (Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. & National Association of Theatre Owners Inc., 2010). At a quick glance, parents do not have sufficient information when it comes to determining the impact a movie may have on their children. By repeating this experiment across different age ranges, researchers could obtain quantifiable data for how suspenseful a movie is for children of specific ages.
Placing a quantifiable criteria on movie ratings, and further understanding consumer responses to audiovisual stimuli is valuable in the marketplace and society. Though, we need to be careful how results like these are published and how they could be used by companies. It is important to learn about the human experience, but as scientists and members of the medical community, we need to acknowledge how such information can lead to exploitation.
Motion Picture Association of America, Inc., & National Association of Theatre Owners Inc. (2010, January 1). Classification and Rating Rules. Retrieved from https://filmratings.com/content/downloads/rating_rules.pdf
Williams, J., Stönner, C., Wicker, J., Krauter, N., Derstroff, B., Bourtsoukidis, E., … Kramer, S. (2016). Cinema audiences reproducibly vary the chemical composition of air during films, by broadcasting scene specific emissions on breath. Scientific Reports, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep25464
No comments:
Post a Comment