Introducing Cognitive Psychology in Film Studies: Redefining Affordance

Abstract

This paper investigates how interdisciplinary research impacts the film industry in research and practice by introducing psychological concepts. Psychology, especially neural and cognitive science, provides a distinct advantage when examining humans’ audio-visual processing mechanisms and esthetics questions regarding the film. By introducing psychology, film researchers and filmmakers could rethink and evaluate the current research paradigm from a broader point of view. This paper consists of three parts: (1) a discussion on the nature of film using an interdisciplinary approach; (2) a discussion on the characteristics and attributes of film; (3) an introduction of the psychological concept of “affordance” to film studies and practice. Although the film interdisciplinary research paradigm is still under development, we argue that introducing the other subjects is innovating the field of film research, providing us with a new angle to examine the intersections of ubiquitous but complex human esthetics activities.