We want to investigate the effect that dialogue (the physical presence of dialogue) has on the movement of the eyes, and the parts of the scene they focus on. This can be boiled down to a conceptual causal link between the visual and auditory senses, the input of one affecting the behaviour of the other. There is definitely a causal link between the two senses, as it is not just visual input that determines the next thing to focus on, both sounds and images carry weight in visual competition and the introduction of sound decreases perceptual instability. (Kohske Takahashi, and Katsumi Watanabe 2011). It has also been found that sound “facilitates attentional disengagement.” This means that when the attention of a viewer is supposed to change from one object to another, this process is facilitated when it the moment is accompanied by a sound. The image itself - its clarity, contrast or colour – did not have any effect on this moment. (Melanie C Doyle, Robert J Snowden 2001). The opposite relation has also been shown to exist. Visual context effect the understanding and processing of linguistic information and affects spoken language comprehension. (Tananhaus 1995). We asked: when watching a movie in a foreign language, do people pay more or less attention to the facial and body expressions? And does watching a foreign movie have different emotional effects than that same movie in your native language or without sound?

Final Report: PDF

Nne.pdf