Sensemaking Research: Scary-tale Endings
A sensemaking model for the lasting effect of psychological horror films.
Logistics
Course: INFO 6240 Sensemaking: Theory and Practical Applications
Team: Grace Song, Ezra Truneh, Johanna Smith-Palliser
ABSTRACT
The experience of watching psychological horror movies is one that is well-known and even widely admired by horror fans, but there is little investigation into the process by which these films elicit long-term fear by tapping into an individual’s internal thought and perceptual processes. We investigate this sensemaking process of psycho-horror films instilling fear in one’s psyche through interviews and surveys, as well as computational analysis, to develop a model explaining the psycho-horror experience. In the future, visual analysis and investigation into different mediums like virtual reality could provide greater insight into even more facets of the movie-watching experience in addition to the post-movie effect.
INTRODUCTION
What constitutes an immersive experience when it comes to being scared by a piece of media? What key elements incite suspense, tension, and fear in viewers? Why do we doubt what we see in dark corners at night after watching a horror film? We have all seen movies that chill us to the bone, movies that make us scared to look up in the mirror after washing our face in the sink. But what about these movies taps so deeply into our psyche? Are there unique characteristics of the on-screen elements that horror movie creators knowingly or unknowingly incorporate to exploit our visual and auditory sensemaking processes to stimulate our flight-or-fight response?
Many people, at one point or another, have seen a psychological horror film. We broadly define psychological horror as the genre of media (usually films) that frighten or disturb one’s mental, emotional, or psychological state and have some sort of lasting impact on viewers. However, people have differing definitions and ideas of what exactly psychological horror means. Our goal is to examine the ways people react and respond to psychological horror, collect input on their attitudes and feelings about the subgenre, and work towards developing a more formal and concrete understanding of what makes psychological horror so psychological. At the same time, we hope to develop a sensemaking model of how psychological horror goes from an audiovisual experience on screen to a lasting effect in the brain of the individual who watched it.
OBJECTIVE
A crucial part of developing a sensemaking model is to first identify the discrete characteristics that decidedly put a film into the psychological horror category. Once we have a more concrete definition of psychological horror movies, we can then move towards examining how exactly the effects of those movies manifest in the viewer.
