Phd in PSYCHOLOGY AND COGNITIVE SCIENCE

Thesis title: The pervasive influence of the soundtrack on the interpretation of audiovisuals: self-report and behavioral studies from a multivariate perspective

In the last decades, an increasing number of psychological studies tackled numerous phenomena related to the influence that film music exerts on the perception of audiovisuals. Soundtracks proved to be effective in shaping the viewers' interpretations, attitude toward the characters, plot anticipations, recall of the scenes, and other processes. However, the most recent review on the issue (Herget, 2019) indicates a few criticalities: First, due to the lack of an interconnected research discourse, several of the existent studies stand side by side rather than building on each other. Secondly, in most cases, established instruments were not used for the assessments, thus jeopardizing the external validity. As a third key point, the number of ecologically valid studies is limited and needs to be increased. Lastly, the methodological necessity exists to decrease the complexity of certain experimental paradigms and encourage between-subjects designs that could avoid the risk of automatically drawing attention to musical manipulation. In the present research, four studies are presented on a variety of psychological constructs, processes, and mechanisms that are influenced by film music: impressions of the characters’ personality, plot anticipations, and environment perception (Study 1a-1b); gaze direction, gaze dispersion, and pupillometry (Study 1b); empathy toward the filmed characters (Study 1a-1b-2); affective state attributed to on-screen characters, affective state of the viewers (Study 2); time perception (Study 3); and remembering (Study 4). An effort was made to employ validated measurement tools whenever possible, together with easily digestible and entertaining experimental tasks, without compromising on experimental control and data quality. Aiming at a high ecological validity, all the studies (except Study 1b) implicated an online administration; in doing so, the viewers watched the videos directly from home, through their smartphones, tablets, and laptops, as if they were watching everyday YouTube videos or Netflix series. The general finding is that the influence of music is truly pervasive; namely, virtually every analyzed variable was affected by it predictably. Thanks to the music’s tonal and expressive cues, the viewers manage to create a network of coherent and interconnected inferences, which end up constituting their interpretation of the scene. The results are discussed in terms of diverse theoretical frameworks depending on the constructs at hand. Particular attention is lastly given to the future paths that the research could go down to fill a wide number of unsolved theoretical gaps. In conclusion, a coda about the ethical relevance of such research is provided.