Milano Unit

UNIT RESEARCH SCOPE

Time perception and performativity in audiovisual experiences: editing, camera movements, action and narrative manipulations. A neurofilmological approach.

The unit explores the issue of the subjective experience of filmic and audiovisual time, adopting an interdisciplinary framework that combines traditional, theoretical and textual approaches to the moving images with contributions deriving from the fields of neurosciences and cognitive psychology (“neurofilmology”).

Based on their technical features, filmic and audio-visual products can shape spectators’ temporal experience in manifold ways, often contradicting the commonly accepted rules of objectively measurable time. Among the different temporal alterations that audiovisual media and moving images can trigger, the unit is specifically interested in those occurring into the domains of duration estimation and time passage perception.

The research pays particular attention to hypotheses connecting these aspects of time elaboration to movement, action performance and action observation. Indeed, as recently suggested, neural mechanisms related to motor planning, execution and monitoring might play a crucial role in defining the subjective experience of time. Could the same mechanisms also affect duration estimation and time passage perception in the case of audiovisual experiences – for instance in the wake of the “embodied simulation” hypothesis?

Indeed, movement manifests in a particularly rich and multifarious way in filmic and audio-visual products. The latter comprise not only the movements of diegetic subjects and objects, but also all those that can be identified as “discourse movements”: editing and camera movements, cuts, fades-in and fades-out, and other techniques enabling the images to progressively make their appearance on the screen. In addition to spatially segmenting the audio-visual flow, and most crucially for this research, those strategies articulate the latter in series of temporal events and impart the unfolding of the images its peculiar rhythmic structure.

On these bases, one of the unit’s most urgent goals is to clarify the ways in which these kinds of cinematic movements can influence spectators’ temporal experience. In order to achieve this goal, the unit will take action on three complementary fronts. First, it will reconsider and assess the theoretical debates on time experience, time hermeneutics, time estimation, filmic rhythm, event segmentation. Second, it will launch a series of experiments aimed at assessing, through data collection and analysis, the impact of several audiovisual factors on time estimation. Finally, it will build a more general theoretical account of the experience of filmic and audiovisual time that experimental data should both corroborate and continuously put to test.

Key words:

Subjective time, time estimation, duration estimation, time passage perception

Audiovisual time, filmic time, cinematic time

Movement, motor planning, motor execution, motor observation, action, performativity, embodies simulation

Rhythm, pace, action, editing, camera movements, event segmentation.

RESEARCH, ACTIVITIES AND RESULTS DISSEMINATION

EUGENI RUGGERO (2019). “Nel corpo del tempo. Spettacolo del movimento e costituzione della temporalità sociale” in C. Bino, G. Innocenti, L. Peja, L. (eds.), Lo scandalo del corpo. Studi di un altro teatro per Claudio Bernardi, Vita e Pensiero, Milano, 43–50.

EUGENI RUGGERO, BALZAROTTI STEFANIA, CAVALETTI FEDERICA, D'ALOIA ADRIANO (2019). “It doesn’t SEEM_IT, but it is. A neurofilmological approach to the subjective experience and estimation of moving image time”, in A. Pennisi, A. Falzone (eds.), The extended theory of cognitive creativity. interdisciplinary approaches to performativity, Springer, Cham, 243–265.

CAVALETTI FEDERICA, HEIMANN KATRIN (2019). "Longing for Tomorrow: Phenomenology, Cognitive Psychology, and the Methodological Bases for Exploring Time Experience in Depression".Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, DOI: 10.1007/s11097-018-09609-y.

See the article:

https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s11097-018-09609-y?author_access_token=qkRxiy1ZQC47VouIItckmPe4RwlQNchNByi7wbcMAY4EdAqQ4debZZx5thjTqgiPRJMaQaKSQR7TSjIqSIFDlgPsyIkoGlSdI6eB2Y-hA5UrMWFSvKo0vTFU74UaZS9Z_uevCKOICH8_2MweulVBZQ%3D%3D&fbclid=IwAR3RowyYD7FOQ7hy3k_55aPWgvri2Oe-6uAXnuwZzMrDYsyu37hLENA0FDw

EUGENI RUGGERO (2018). "What Time Is In? Subjective Experience and Evaluation of Moving Image Time". Reti, Saperi, Linguaggi - Italian Journal of Cognitive Sciences, 1, 81-96.

Download the article:

https://www.academia.edu/37663840/WHAT_TIME_IS_IN_SUBJECTIVE_EXPERIENCE_AND_EVALUATION_OF_MOVING_IMAGE_TIME

FUTURE EVENTS

• JUNE 24th-26th, 2019 - CENTRO INTERNAZIONALE DI STUDI UMANISTICI UMBERTO ECO (BOLOGNA, ITALY)

PRIN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

EMBODIED CREATIVITY: THE ROLE OF PERFORMATIVITY

EUGENI RUGGERO, CAVALETTI FEDERICA, D'ALOIA ADRIANO: It doesn't seem it, but it is. A neurofilmological approach to the subjective experience of moving-image time.

• JUNE 12th-15th, 2019 - UNIVERSITY OF HAMBURG, INSTITUTE FOR MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION (HAMBURG, GERMANY)

SCSMI (Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image) Conference 2019

EUGENI RUGGERO, CAVALETTI FEDERICA, D'ALOIA ADRIANO: SEEM_IT: Subjective Experience and Estimation of Moving-Image Time

• NOVEMBER 27th-29th, 2018 - AARHUS INSTITUTE OF ADVANCES STUDIES (AARHUS, DENMARK)

Worlding the Brain 2018: Tools of Collective Prediction: Music, Art, Literature, Religion

CAVALETTI FEDERICA: Testing time perception in movies experimentally: some "predictability" issues.

• November 12th, 2018 - CASA DELLA MUSICA (PARMA, ITALY)

CUC (Consulta Universitaria Cinema) - Ricerche dottorali. Fonti e metodi

CAVALETTI FEDERICA: La percezione del tempo nell'esperienza cinematografica: potenzialità e sfide di un approccio neurofilmologico

• JUNE 27th-29th, 2018 - UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM AND VU AMESTERDAM (AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS)

NECS 2018 Conference - Media Tactics and Engagement

PRE-CONSTITUED PANEL: Tactics of Temporal Engagement in the Audiovisual Experience. A Neurofilmologial Approach

EUGENI RUGGERO: Take your time. Theoretical Framework

CAVALETTI FEDERICA: Time to act. Experimental procedure

D'ALOIA ADRIANO: Nut-cutting time. Results discussion

Invited respondent: TAN ED

• MAY 3rd-4th, 2018 - UNIVERSITY OF GENOA (GENOA, ITALY)

Tecnofobia e tecnofilia nelle pratiche artistiche e mediali contemporanee

Eugeni Ruggero: Out of joint. Appunti sui media audiovisivi come tecnologie del tempo

• NOVEMBER 2nd-4th, 2017 - UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM (AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS)

Worlding the Brain 2017: Affect, Care, Engagement

PRE-CONSTITUTED PANEL - TIME PERCEPTION IN THE AUDIOVISUAL EXPERIENCE

EUGENI RUGGERO: A matter of time. A neurofilmological approach to time estimation

CAVALETTI FEDERICA: Out of my mind, out of your time. Psychopathological distortions of time in real life and cinema

D'ALOIA ADRIANO: When time flies. Measuring time estimation

• SEPTEMBER 27th-30th, 2017 - PALAZZO GIAVANTI (NOTO, ITALY)

CODISCO X / / PRIN: PERFORMATIVE DIMENSIONS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCES

EUGENI RUGGERO: What time is in? Subjective perception of time in the audiovisual experience (research updates)

D'ALOIA ADRIANO: Che tempo che fa. Media audiovisivi ed esperienza del tempo

MANZOTTI RICCARDO: Approcci neuroscientifici e fisicalisti alla cognizione e alla coscienza

• JUNE 11th-14th, 2017 - AALTO UNIVERSITY (HELSINKI, FINLAND)

SCSMI (Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image) Conference 2017

EUGENI RUGGERO, D'ALOIA ADRIANO: What time is in? Subjective perception of time in the audiovisual experience

• MARCH 6th-7th, 2017 - UNIVERSITÈ JEAN MOULIN LYON 3 (LYON, FRANCE)

Journée d'études - L'empathie à l'épreuve de l'interface écran

EUGENI RUGGERO: Le temps réfléchi. Perception empathique du mouvement et expérience subjective du temps dans l’audiovisuel

• DECEMBER 15th, 2016 - CENTRO STUDI CINEMATOGRAFICI, SCUOLA DI CINEMA SENTIERI SELVAGGI

Meeting - La vita dentro lo schermo. Il cinema tra tempo e vivente

D'ALOIA ADRIANO: Montare il tempo. Estetiche della temporalità fra esperienza audiovisiva e vita quotidiana

• NOVEMBER 24th, 2016 - UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI ROMA TRE

International film studies conference - Contemporary film and media aesthetics. culture, nature, and technology in the 21st century

D'ALOIA ADRIANO, EUGENI RUGGERO: In search of lost time. a neurofilmological approach to time perception in the audiovisual experience

• JULY 29th, 2016 - ZEM – BRANDENBURGISCHES ZENTRUM FÜR MEDIENWISSENSCHAFTEN, POTSDAM

NECS 2016 CONFERENCE - In/between: cultures of connectivity

D'ALOIA ADRIANO, EUGENI RUGGERO: Connecting (and dis-connecting) events. A neurofilmological approach to serial narratives

• MAY 26th, 2016 - UNIVERSITÀ DI BOLOGNA

Media Mutations 8 - A Cognitive Approach to TV Series

D'ALOIA ADRIANO, EUGENI RUGGERO: The boundaries of never-ending. events cognition and complex TV series narratives