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Study Finds Film Enjoyment Is Contagious
Hugh Pickens writes "A report from Science Daily says that scientists have proven that the presence of other people may enhance our movie-watching experiences by influencing and gradually synchronizing viewer emotional responses. This mutual mimicry also affects each participant's evaluation of the overall experience — the more in sync we are with the people around us, the more we like the movie. In a series of experiments, researchers found that people watching a film together appeared to evaluate the film within the same broad mood and another study found that synchrony of evaluations can be traced to glances at the other person during the film and adoption of the observed expressions. 'By mimicking expressions, people catch each other's moods leading to a shared emotional experience. That feels good to people and they attribute that good feeling to the quality of the movie,' said one researcher."
Ok, now it's been proven. /. we knew this empirically, the so called groupthink.
But, even on
!sig
One of my favorite comedy movies is "Flying High" (or Airplane to non Australians), but those types of movies are only really great when you see it with lots of people. On your own they are kind of lame.
some research departments simply have too much spare money
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I know you're flamebaiting, but I know plenty of annoying white live-film-commentators. I lived with one for two years, and I'm getting tense just thinking about it - thanks a bunch.
I'm one of those people who would pay extra to have an empty theatre to myself to see a movie. The last thing I want is to hear constant chatter, or see people texting on their cell phones while watching a movie. It totally takes you out of the experience.
I thought I enjoyed Be Cool, after watching it in a theatre with some friends.
does this apply for porn films as well ?
For one of our homework assignments in my data mining class, we had to come up with some interesting insights about the netflix database. One of the things I noticed was that movies rated on the weekends were significantly more likely to be rated a 1 or a 5 than during the week. My conjecture was that this is because people are more likely to watch movies with other people on the weekends and the mob mentality takes over, causing good movies to become great and bad movies to become horrible.
good begets... life begets.... evile begets....
contagious would be more useful to describe evile's ability to manipulate people to obtain more unwitting hostages/victims. kind of like the plague.
instead, you might choose to consult with/trust in yOUR creators. providing more than enough of everything for everyone (without any distracting/spiritdead personal gain motives), whilst badtolling unprecedented evile, using an unlimited supply of newclear power, since/until forever. see you there?
The same is true of sex.
:(
Apparently.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
More likely, this is a common trait in humans to improve our chances of gaining acceptance with others by attempted to sympathize with the emotional state of everyone else. It's almost a conditioned reaction. For example, how many people usually break out laughing at funerals when everyone else is all sorrow or silence? Such an act would render you an outcast even without the overhead of learned manners. It's a complete and total abstraction of the majority mood.
It's probably the same reason why people also tend to not trust those who seem happy and smiling all the time.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Can you make a movie with Soft TEMPEST fonts?
...
http://web.archive.org/web/20000816013319/http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/st-fonts.zip
http://rapidshare.de/files/38007929/st-fonts.zip.html
Soft Tempest: Hidden Data Transmission Using Electromagnetic
More information: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ih98-tempest.pdf
Either a stupid or wacky movie...
The adjective you use depends on the group you saw it with.
particularly with this "type" of film, the drunker you are the funnier it seems.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Why, if what they say is true, does my girlfriend say she hates pr0n, but I like it? By now, either I should hate it, or she should love it. Which indicates that one of us must be lying. And since I'm the one forking out hard-earned bucks...
Yippee!!! Time to haul my ass off the couch and race to the video store for that Collector's Boxed Edition of Star Whores, Do Jedis Dream of Electric Sheep.
Thank you, Slashdot, thank you!
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
This isn't really related to your point, but I'm reminded of a visit to my grandparents when I was about four years old. My grandfather wandered off to take a phone call, and came back into the room to announce the unexpected death of my uncle.
I collapsed into an irresistible fit of laughter. It was just a child's nervous reaction to a sudden and bewildering change of atmosphere, but some rather surprised looks were cast in the direction of the devil-child cackling away at this joyous news of death. Which, of course, just made it even worse.
I hate
In general, humans like to share in emotions with other people, which is why groups of people tend to laugh together, cry together, smile together, get angry together, etc.
Try cheering a sports team on on your own, vs. with a group of other people, and see which feels naturally easier.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Oh, definitely. Laughter is an important bonding mechanism, that's why we're born with it.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Laughter is an important bonding mechanism, that's why we're born with it.
I've found that laughing during bondage just gets me whipped even more.
... and one more thing -- it works so well that it's been shown that laugh tracks in sitcoms make it seem more funny. That's how easily the brain can be fooled. So it's not even that important to have live humans doing it, although it may help a bit further in have it be "contagious" (it's not *really* contagious, but almost on a subconscious level one trying to fit in). I think that further goes to show how hardwired it is into us. We probably got laughter long before speech.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I beg to differ. I always enjoyed much more watching movies in the comfort of my apartment alone or with a small group of close friends. I don't find the sound of a hundred people crunching snacks and having their mobile ringing enjoying.
The article is full of weasel words, no reliable sources, and I think its a advertisement for old-style cinema, one of their last attempts to bring people back in cinemas.
xkcd comic
Seriously.
Many film critics are given films (even brand new ones) on DVD, rather than having to watch multiple films at a theater, whch is obviously more time consuming. Considering how out of touch some film critics seem to be sometimes, especially when it comes to comedies, it seems to follow that a critic watching a movie alone in his house would have a very different experience than going and seeing it in a crowded theater.
Now film critics are starting to make more sense...
Bill
"the presence of other people may enhance our movie-watching experiences"
..
First prize for stateing the patently obvious
davecb5620@gmail.com
Oh, wait! hardly anyone actually went to see it.
Never mind.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
That could help explain it. (And the series too...)
...the apparent popularity of the Lord of the Rings films - the biggest pile of overrated shite ever. People are told that they're good, so they go along with it.
The missus watch The Holy Grail with us last month (and enjoyed it). If that's not proof, I don't know what is.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
So, they gave you your /. username at age 4 then?
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
It even works on Slashdot. If a comment is marked +5 funny, I'll think it's funny too and laugh...oh...wait...
My blog
And did they do a sister study about how paying $15 a ticket and $5 for popcorn makes you love movies even more?
Though, this would explain why I liked Star Wars Episode 1 better than Episodes 2 and 3.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
...is when my friends and I went to see Mission to Mars, a film by Brian DePalma. We laughed SOOooooo hard at the absolutely ridiculous 3rd act of this film (and a bit at the simply stupid 1st and 2nd acts too), that others in the theater, who HAD to be less cynical and obnoxious than a bunch of early 20s art students, were also laughing heartily at this cinematic piece of crap by the end. Had we not been there and got the ball rolling, I wouldn't be surprised if people simply would have sat quietly, being annoyed by the stream of cliche, contrivances and cheesiness.
you cannot dodge the quad laser. jumping is useless.
This is like the time I had to explain a joke to an entire cinema. In Suburban Commando, some criminal steals Hulk Hogan's freeze ray and hits a bank. Hulk goes in to investigate and I hear Jingle Bells playing. I'm laughing at the whole white Christmas gag and my mate asks me what's funny. I tell him that it's Jingle Bells. I could hear the laughter start as people started telling their friends.
Anyway, I tell this story better in person.
My god! Feeling good at the movies is a hysterical conversion disorder?!
What will science take away from us next?!
Quickly now! Take the children out of school and get rid of that "independent thinking" stuff they're being indoctrinated with.
We're in a hurry here! They must be deprogrammed before Lethal Weapon 5 comes out.
Please! It's for Mel!
How could I at home be constantly pestered by cells ringing and beeping, how'd I get a sticky floor of old, dried coke or have a chance to have popcorn thrown at me? It would certainly mean a lot of effort and work to get the same movie experience I can get in a cinema.
Why do I get the idea that this "study" has been undertaken in a desperate effort to get people back into cinemas despite horrible prices, half an hour of ads before you finally get to see the movie and an "experience" I could well live without?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I formally request funds to study the following hypotheses:
- Funny things make humans laugh.
- Sad things make humans cry.
- Hot things may burn.
- Pain is sore.
- Some people will fund anything, no matter how obvious.
In order to ensure correct scientific method, and an appropriate in depth study, our team requires one gesquillion dollars.Many thanks for your consideration in this matter,
Dr I. C. Clearly
Patently Obvious Research Labs Inc.
Bermuda.
Now film critics are starting to make more sense... ...and don't sit near critics if you want to enjoy the film.
Well... you WERE in a crowd that paid to watch a Hulk Hogan movie...
Not really MENSA material.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I wouldn't expect it for some protracted tortuous period piece where the guy is slowly dying, but for a mindless roller-coaster ride like Armageddon, or something stupid-funny like Jackass or American Pie, a bunch of enthusiastic people in the audience reacting to what's on the screen can really take a 2 to a 10 (the same thing happens on a real roller-coaster for that matter).
The real surprise would have been to learn that it doesn't matter - considering that we are social creatures, after all.
Maybe the difference is how many of the analysts were called aside by their priests after Mass for a private word.
this is a common trait in humans to improve our chances of gaining acceptance with others by attempted to sympathize with the emotional state of everyone else.
My problem with this statement is that it implies that humans are first and foremost individual beings who are then equipped with a variety of mechanisms (such as this one) in order to bond with the rest of the human group. It's a very Western post-enlightenment view that is deeply entrenched in how we view ourselves in the context of the rest of humanity.
An individual from another culture or time might say instead that "humans are social beings who need their peer group to be fulfilled. While a human can perceive feelings all on their own, they will automatically plug into the emotional state of a group of people as it's their natural desire and propensity to be emotionally connected with a group."
The former says that humans are outsiders with abilities to become part of a group, the latter says that we are the group and here's why.
This phenomenon is well-known in the comedy world. If they can afford it, a comedian will oftentimes have a warmer in the crowd, who just laughs at the appropriate moments. I heard a Charlie Murphy interview where he talks about doing this for Eddie when he was starting out.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
THIS JUST IN:
Scientists discover 'Peer Pressure'. Drinking, drugs, next?
If it's in you sig, it's in your post.
"Informative" is easy. Look for some factoids you didn't know.
"Funny" is the tough one. Such a fine line between Funny & Troll.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
And very likely a lot of comedies would seem boring and trite if one didn't have an audience to laugh with.
I don't think this group behaviour is exactly news, tho. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure some of my teachers knowingly used the phenomenon to get and hold the class's attention -- get a few kids to focus toward the teacher, and pretty soon the whole room follows.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
http://xkcd.com/185/ beat the researches to it.
laugh track?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
That ends when it comes to sex though. Just look at all those 'free love' communes back in the day. They usually degenerated into jealously and such. (guy 1 really likes girl 1, but she decides that she wants to stop spending time with him and spend more time with guy 2; guy 1 gets jealous of guy 2)
I am sure someone have mentioned it before, but what may seem patently obvious to us may or may not be true. Scientists not only discover new things but also validate prior observations. For example, no one is really sure why yawning is contagious or why do we hiccup. This research might help us explain how politicians can whip a crowd into a fury or how a soldier will cheerfully march to his death. One interesting idea that I get from this research is to plant "actors" in the movie theaters who are told to act like they enjoy the movie. If enough signals are seen, this might influence what the rest of the audience thinks of the movie.
You have to remember, before we had spoken word among each other, reading each others emotions was probably the only way we could effectively communicate with each other. Unlike speech or written word, our emotions are universally understood no matter where on earth you go.
Of course, the reasons leading up to the emotional result can have dramatically differing interpretations depending on one's cultural background. For example, if someone dragged off one of your family members to kill them, you might be devistated, but in a culture that observes ritualistic human sacrifices, this may be perfectly normal and expected. So while your emotional reaction may seem unfounded to them, it's not as though they wouldn't understand what crying is.
8==8 Bones 8==8
When I'm watching a movie that's filled with clever jokes, I laugh at each one. My friends don't usually get them, so I'm the only one laughing. It makes me feel out of place. I need better friends.
Based on the other comments claiming how obvious this is, I'm starting to feel like a complete freak.
I would pay extra to get a theater to myself. Not just because of people talking or cell phones or sticky floors etc. but because I actually prefer to be left alone when I'm watching a movie, or television etc.
Even at home I get annoyed when my wife wants to watch TV with me. Don't get me wrong, I love spending time with my wife, I just do not feel that watching TV is a social activity. I much prefer to watch it alone. I feel that other people being present sours the experience, even when they're being perfectly silent.
This even works with one or two people. I noticed this long ago when I watched a somewhat amusing commercial I did not laugh. But then I saw it again a couple days later while watching tv with my parents and I laughed out loud as they did. I think being with others flips a state in your brain that turns on verbalization and other outward expressions.
A slightly related phenomenon is that when one of the cleaning crew comes in to take the trash from my office I noticed that I occasionally start to verbalize my internal monologue of, "hrm", "that's not right", etc. but I usually don't make a sound while working.
I once attended a Raelian information session for shits & giggles. They had planted people throughout the audience whose sole purpose was to react in visibly positive ways to the information being presented. Kind of interesting.
Loose lips lose spit.
For you, maybe. Laugh tracks in any show makes me not want to watch them anymore.
ssssshhhHHHHHHHhhhhh...ssssshhhhHHHHHHHhhh....sssshhhHHHHHHhhhhh...
Anyway, after the first few times someone giggled
sssshhhHHHHHHhhh...heh...ssssshhhHHHHHHhhhh...
Next time someone else giggled. A few more times and everyone was trying hard not to laugh. A few more times and the whole audience was in hysterics. It was one of the funniest cinematic moments ever, and it was just a bunch of credits played over some static. I think that was all the study I needed to know that "Film Enjoyment Is Contagious".
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Original here.
I am not trying to say it is a bad movie, but I seen it 4 times in the theater. The reason? I watched it with a different group of people each time.
No, in general. Slashdot is a bad place to make points like this, because there's a definite nerdish tendency to be different for the sake of being different (and then complaining that everyone else isn't the same, stupidly enough.)
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
The victorians knew about this... they had things called "ripple seats" in theatres, where they'd plant stooges to laugh at the appropriate time during comedies - doing so would make the comedy funnier. Or any other emotions they wanted to heighten during the production.
Similarly, during scary productions, they'd also have people walking around selling concessions. They'd have a squeeze bulb full of water or powder, which they'd squish at the appropriate time, startling people and making them scream out. This would also ripple through the audience, heightening the effect.
Old stagecraft, old magic tricks. What's old is new again, I guess.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
I had an eerie experience once, I was outside a room where a sitcom was on and I couldn't make out the dialogue but I could hear the laugh track and the ads. After every ad break, the track would start at a giggle, slowly warming up until it was roaring every few seconds. Then a blast of ads would come on and we'd be back to quiet giggles. It drove into me how forced and artificial it was. I now despise laugh tracks unless the audience is being directly addressed (like standup) when it doesn't seem so staged and awkward.
I'd agree with this. I remember watching "Alien vs. Predator" at the theater. Looking back, it probably wasn't THAT great of a movie. But the house was packed and everyone was there to have a good time. I remember laughing my ass off at the scene where the Predator grabs one of the Aliens by the tail and is swinging him around, smashing his head into shit etc; people were laughing and yelling, "oh hell YEAH!", "get him", "whoop his ass". I think the presence of this large group of people all laughing and having a good time really had a big impact on how much I enjoyed the movie.
Bah. What do they know? I sure like enjoying my Jessica Alba and Angelina all by myself.
... and one more thing -- it works so well that it's been shown that laugh tracks in sitcoms make it seem more funny. That's how easily the brain can be fooled. I would imagine that the same principle applies to how the fake applause on the Daily Show makes comments seem more "agreeable."Yet ironically all of those who attempt such a task ultimately fail because their common goal in being different makes them all the same.
Good science looks for general principles behind similar phenomena. We already know about socially mediated pressure to respond. It's cheap, useless science that ignores general principles and instead goes after specific instances, when the known general principle makes the study trivial.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
This is why concert and sports tickets have gone up in price so much.
As we live our lives more and more online, as we download whatever movies we want to see or surf to one of a zillion channels, the one experience that technology can't replace is contact with other humans. Demand for tickets of all sorts is higher than ever, while the supply/demand ratio for recorded music has made selling it a waste of time.
In the 70's, bands would go on tour to promote record sales. Now they make recordings so they can go on tour.
It explains more than that. In many cities, there are also special for-critics-only pre-screenings of some films. And the critics tend to behave abominably during these: cell phones, noise, talking, getting up and walking around, talking and networking, and so on. It stands to reason that if that's the crowd environment you're in, it will color your perception of the movie.
As for me, I went to grad school for film theory and I've seen hundreds of movies on my own, in classrooms, and in theaters. And I could have said years ago that there's something about the crowd that really makes a big movie sizzle. As much as I hate the cell phones and the people that feel compelled to bring children under the age of three to 11 p.m. movies (this happens almost every time, now), I absolutely love the vibe that an excited crowd brings to a screening. Particularly a geek crowd getting a fandom-heavy film: it's better, the first time, to see it in a room full of people who really care and will get into it.
I mis-moderated someone's post (meant to mod it 'Funny', mouse slipped & I ended up modding it 'Overrated'), so I'm posting to undo this mistake.
Just once I'd like someone to call me 'Sir' without adding 'You're making a scene.'
'How can otherwise perfectly normal people who KNOW they are in an experiment, KNOW they were randomly selected to be either a guard or a prisoner act in such ways?'
Because when you take 'perfectly normal people' out of the social context they no longer have the contstraints to not act on their baser instincts. Generally in a socal context, we expect and give a modicum of 'respert' to the other fella. If the guards acted like that at home or work they would be punished by others by withdrawl of the social support network. In Stanford, those rules didn't apply. The guards were only acting normally.
Re:well DOH
davecb5620@gmail.com
Really, to tag this "sheeple" seems like a pathological reaction to me. Independent thought is not the same as solipsism, and valuing the opinions of others is neither peer pressure nor fascism.
People complain that this is what causes lynch mobs. True - without this drive to conform to others, we would not have organized wars or mobs. But nor would we have organized societies or anything, because we would most likely fight each other one-on-one instead.
Let individualism be a conscious choice - then we can rely on the subconscious "sheeple" drive to keep us together.
Everything I ever wanted to know in life, I learned from Star Wars. If you could remember the experience of watching it for the very first time, you probably didn't notice the audience reaction. If you did notice, the parent's topic is confirmation. Star Wars, nuff said. May you have a very pleasant day! :))
Indeed. There's something wonderful about the atmosphere at the late night shows in the first few days for films that have rabidly enthusiastic fans. When even the rating certificate gets cheers as the film starts it adds a real sense of occasion.
I take my hat off to the unknown wag watching one of the first Episode I screenings at the Camden Odeon who, on seeing the "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...", piped up with "Aww shit, I've seen this one already!"
"Algebraical symbols are used when you don't know what you are talking about" - BCS