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Examining Physiological Responses during
Movie Viewing This study compared heart rate and Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) in response to two frightening movie clips. Previous studies demonstrated that participants who received prior forewarning about a scary event in a movie had stronger physiological responses than participants who did not receive prior forewarning. Previous psychological studies also showed that the longer the participant had to wait for the frightening event, the stronger their physiological responses were. This experiment combined these two independent variables, forewarning level and anticipation length. The two forewarning levels were no forewarning and extreme forewarning, and the two anticipation lengths were short anticipation and long anticipation. It was hypothesized that participants who received prior forewarning would have the strongest physiological responses to the long anticipation clip. It was hypothesized that participants who received no prior forewarning would have the weakest physiological responses to the short anticipation clip. Participants who had not previously seen the two movies used in the study watched clips from these movies in two separate sessions. The short anticipation clip was taken from The Professional, and lasted approximately 30 seconds. The long anticipation clip was taken from Full Metal Jacket, and lasted approximately 5 minutes. Participants in the extreme forewarning group read a complete scene description of the scene before they viewed the clip. Participants in the no forewarning group received no details about the scene before they viewed the clip. Participants’ heart rate and GSR were monitored during the movie viewing. After each movie viewing session participants were asked to list and rank the emotions they felt while watching the scene. Results were analyzed using grouped t-tests. The only significant difference existed between the heart rate readings for long anticipation and short anticipation. It is expected that increasing the anticipation time before the frightening event increases the heart rate because the participants have an increased amount of time to anticipate the upcoming events. No other significant differences were found for the heart rate or GSR recordings. Participants who received forewarning and watched the long anticipation clip reported feeling scared and disgusted on their post-viewing questionnaire. Participants who watched the long anticipation clip with no forewarning reported feeling scared. Participants who received forewarning and watched the short anticipation reported feeling surprised, and participants who did not receive forewarning reported feeling surprised and confused. Future studies should examine phsyiological responses during an entire movie, thereby providing more data and the possibility for analyses of long-term data. Also, participants need not watch both the long anticipation and short anticipation clips. Participants could watch either the short anticipation clip or long anticipation clip and receive either extreme forewarning or no forewarning. |