The Kuleshov Effect is an editing technique in which the viewer of a film attaches emotion to an actor's reaction to something, based on our experiences with what the actor is looking at, not based on the acting ability of the actor.

In Kuleshov's famous demonstration, he shows an actor looking at three different things - a bowl of soup, a dead child, and a pretty woman. The actor's reaction is expressionless and identical to each event, but the viewer interprets the actor's emotions as hunger, sadness, and lust.