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Anderson, J. D. (1996). The reality of illusion: An ecological approach to cognitive film theory. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press. 
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard (08/03/2006, 15:58)   Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard (28/10/2016, 18:06)
Resource type: Book
ID no. (ISBN etc.): 0-8093-2000-2
BibTeX citation key: Anderson1996
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Categories: Film Music/Sound, General
Keywords: Acoustic ecology, Cinema, Film sound, Perception, Synchresis/Synchrony
Creators: Anderson
Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press (Carbondale and Edwardsville)
Resources citing this (Bibliography: WIKINDX Master Bibliography)
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Abstract
From the back cover:

"Exploring the incredible power films hold for viewers, Joseph D. Anderson dissects the complex relationship between motion pictures and cognitive science. By examining those roles and rules of the human perceptual system specifically designed for survival, Anderson offers insights into the way motion picture spectators respond to the real world and the illusions of cinema. Readers will find, in Anderson's ecological approach, an alternative to Marxist and psychoanalytic theories of film perception as well as a new framework for understanding our fascination with the fictional world of films.

""We are and always have been part of a larger ecology. In this interlocking relationship with the larger ecological setting, we developed, through eons of evolution, elaborate and sohpisticated capacities to gain information. Today, we interact with the synthesized images and sounds of a motion picture, but we have no new capacities for gaining information from them. We have only the systems developed in another time, in another context, for another purpose. To ask how we process continuity and character and narrative in motion pictures is to ask how the forces of evolution equipped us to know where we are in space and time, to make rapid judgements of character, and to narratize the events of our existence.""
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard  Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard
Quotes
pp.10–12   An argument that [Hollywood] films are designed solely for audience accessibility -- if films are not accessible to the public, they don't sell and the producer/director don't work again -- "problems of accessibility are problems of perception." (p. 11)   Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard
Keywords:   Perception
p.14   Discussing veridicality (the central organising system of the visual system): "...an individual's perception of the world needed to be a very close approximation of that world. It had to be accurate enough to act upon because the consequences of error were severe."   Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard
p.80   Our ears are more attuned to breaks in continuity than eyes (ears do not blink) and, in film, sound glitches are more noticeable and less tolerated than visual glitches: "...sound is seventy percent of the illusion of reality in a motion picture."   Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard
p.82   "Perception is an information-gathering activity. And when it occurs in two or more sensory modes simultaneously, it is a process of information comparison, an active search for cross-modal confirmation."   Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard
p.83   The ability to make the connection between image and sound is called synchrony: "If the auditory and visual events occur at the same time, the sound and image are perceived as one event."   Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard
Keywords:   Audio-visual proximity effect
p.87   Discussing confirmation of cross-modal perception, Anderson gives the example of the discomfort felt in watching a silent movie with no musical accompaniment. "The simple addition of musical accompaniment provides a second modality against which to check our impressions and provides confirmation on at least two levels. Musical changes played by the pianist in unison with narrative transitions offer confirmation of the transitions themselves, while the tone and emotion of the music offer confirmation of the event's significance."   Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard
p.89   "The power of the motion picture is that its separate streams of images and sounds can be constructed as to meet the criteria of the perceptual systems, thus eliciting confirmation of the unity and veridicality of filmic events."   Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard
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