Anna Cabak Rédei

Does the Kuleshov Effect Really Exist? Revisiting a Classic Film Experiment on Facial Expressions and Emotional Contexts:

According to film mythology, the Soviet filmmaker Lev Kuleshov conducted an experiment in which he combined a close-up of an actor’s neutral face with three different emotional contexts: happiness, sadness, and hunger. The viewers of the three film sequences reportedly perceived the actor’s face as expressing an emotion congruent with the given context. It is not clear, however, whether or not the so-called “Kuleshov effect” really exists. The original film footage is lost and recent attempts at replication have produced either conflicting or unreliable results. The current paper describes an attempt to replicate Kuleshov’s original experiment using an improved experimental design. In a behavioral and eye tracking study, 36 participants were each presented with 24 film sequences of neutral faces across six emotional conditions. For each film sequence, the participants were asked to evaluate the emotion of the target person in terms of valence, arousal, and category. The participants’ eye movements were recorded throughout. The results suggest that some sort of Kuleshov effect does in fact exist. For each emotional condition, the participants tended to choose the appropriate category more frequently than the alternative options, while the answers to the valence and arousal questions also went in the expected directions. The eye tracking data showed how the participants attended to different regions of the target person’s face (in light of the intermediate context), but did not reveal the expected differences between the emotional conditions.

Applying cartosemiotics to rock art: an example from Aspeberget, Sweden

ABSTRACT This study aims to shed new light on the petroglyphs found at the site of Aspeberget 12 at the World Heritage site of Tanum, Sweden, from a semiotic perspective. We demonstrate the semiotics of power inherent in the arrangement of the petroglyphs. We start by describing the site in an archaeological way, in order to give an overview of the empirical material used in this case study. Against the backdrop of the overview, we introduce our analytical tools with reference to cartosemiotics, cultural semiotics and, Charles Sanders Peirce’s theory of signs. We suggest, in a tentative conclusion, that Aspeberget 12, as a type of “map”, displays a clear “Ego-culture” and a possible journey. We also suggest that the visual narratives at Aspeberget 12 represent the authority of the Ego-culture and its development. Details of the figurative images such as ships, axes and spears might have been displayed as markers of the high technological standard of the Ego-culture, and thus of power.

Signs, Senses and Cognition: Lady Welby and Contemporary Semiotics

Victoria Welby and the signific movement are discussed by Susan Petrilli, in the book Signifying and Understanding, chronologically and thematically, in connection with contemporary semiotics as well as with the intellectual and scientific landscape of Welby’s own time. The book also contains priceless material from the archives that will permit anyone interested to continue this line of research. A selection of Welby’s vast correspondence with intellectuals, researchers, and philosophers important to linguistics, semiotics, psychology, and anthropology, to mention a few of her interests mirrored in the exchange of letters, is included in the book. Appended to the book are also selections from Welby’s writings. Some of the material is here published for the first time.