Abstract:

Studies addressing the presence of non-diegetic sound in a film attribute its influence on human interpretation of film content to its ability to direct attention, add emotion, and transfer information. In this study, 57 students and faculty members of Hampton High School were randomly allocated to watch two film scenes, one with its full film score and the other without the non-diegetic sound. Overall, participants tended to attribute their interpretations of each scene to the presence or absence of the non-diegetic sound regardless of which scene they viewed with or without it. My findings supported Oliver Vitouch’s (1970) findings that film scores are used to direct attention and transfer information, but that the ‘emotionalization’ of the film scenes was false. They also suggest that the intentional absence of music in a score allows for the participants to interpret the scenes differently for similar reasons. To my knowledge, I am not aware of an examination into the influence of the absence of non-diegetic sound on human interpretation of film content.

Keywords: film score, non-diegetic sound, interpretation of film