visualpopcorn-blog

[visualpopcorn-blog]

ASMR: A Simple yet Memorable Road

by Lexee, Chan, Ella, Danicca, and Sandra

“Uyy, guys, alam niyo ba ‘yung ASMR?” “‘Yun ba ‘yung nails on a chalkboard?” “Iba pa ata ‘yun. Sabi rito, kailangan nare-relax ka.” “Ahh, ok! Interesting ‘yun!” “Ano, sama natin dito sa listahan?” “Game ako diyan!” …and that was how it (we) all began, five kids bonding over Adobong Manok, Milk Tea, good vibrations (#sketchy) and calling themselves weird names like “Travis Kraft-ers” and “taste buddies,” entering into the new and unknown world of ASMR, but starting this crazy adventure together.

We started this study with one question on our minds: How do we induce ASMR? How do we get people to relax? (God knows we, of all people, need it)

But first of all, what is ASMR? ASMR is...well, it’s a thing. Talk about it has been running around on forums--on reddit--for a while already. It’s that tingly feeling you get around your head and shoulders when you’re feeling particularly relaxed. Imagine, like that feeling you get when you’re getting your hair washed at a salon before a haircut? Yeah, like that. (Not to be confused with aesthetic chills and whatever you call that nails-on-a-chalkboard feeling, yech.)

So, next question: how do we get people to feel it?

Now, that’s where our experiment comes in. Based on previous studies, stimuli that induce it can either be external (an environmental event) or internal (something that happens ~from within~). That’s where our first independent variable, type of stimulus, comes from. The second one was born out of the observation that ASMR stimuli can come in the form of videos or audio. So we said, why not both?!  And thus, our second independent variable was sensory modality. Which makes for....6 treatment groups (external - video, external - audio, external - audio visual, internal - video, internal - audio, internal - audio visual).

That’s, uh. A lot.

So next question: how do we measure the relaxation response exactly? The easiest way would be to give the participants a questionnaire regarding their psychological and self-perceived physiological states before and after the presentation of the stimulus and compare the two scores to see if there are differences.

But you know what? We’re #DIWAKIDZ AND WE DON’T DO THINGS BY HALVES!!!!!!!!! [FLEXED BICEPS EMOJI]

So we still had the self-reports because more sources of information is always better (triangulation--yes we still remember this from 115), but in addition to that, we also measured their skin conductance with homemade electrodes.

Yes.

Physiological measures.

With electrodes we made ourselves.  #PsychologyMajorEEEMinor

Truly, it wasn’t an easy journey. We received a lot of doubt and skepticism from our participants, especially since we made use of handmade electrodes. #sparkzzz 

But you know what, WE DID IT. WE DID THE THING. WE MADE ELECTRODES. AND THEY WORKED. HAH!!!!!! We are proud to say that we were successfully (since they worked!!) able to create 5 pairs of electrodes using common household items #resourceful #budgetcut

Historically, physiological measurements have always been of as much importance to the world of psychology as other types of measurements. It’s something we don’t often see in UPD’s department of psych, so we thought it would be interesting to try to incorporate it into our study. Clearly, it was also quite intriguing to our participants too, as many of them told us the usage of electrodes made them feel apprehensive, nervous, and even excited. This may or may not have had an effect on our results, ahaha;;;

Mistrials were definitely frustrating too - as some failed to answer the manipulation check correctly (PSA: ‘vignette’ is not a common vocabulary word), or didn’t finish answering the survey; and we even experienced some technical difficulties when the app was a bit wonky and wasn’t able to record skin conductance during the whole duration of the experiment. Because of these, we had to exclude responses, and the number of valid responses was lessened.

We did, however, make very interesting findings:

Physiologically, internal stimuli led to more relaxation than external stimuli. Also, in terms of the interaction between type of stimulus and sensory modality (significant in a 90% confidence level, since the study is still quite exploratory given that ASMR is quite new, the app is not so commonly used, and the electrodes were handmade), we are led to the following result (in descending order of relaxation): 

internal – visual > internal – audio-visual > internal – audio > external – audio-visual > external – audio > external – visual. The following trend 

(i.e. insignificant results) was also observed: visual > audio-visual > external.

Psychologically, we noticed as well the following trends. 

Type of stimulus: external > internal; modality: audio-visual > visual > audio; and, interaction: external – audio-visual > internal – visual > internal – audio-visual > external – visual > external – audio > internal – audio.

Phenomenologically, we were able to generate three themes, namely: positive (i.e. manifestation of ASMR experience and relaxation), negative (i.e. not manifestations of ASMR experience and relaxation), and neutral (i.e. not related to ASRM experience).

Finally, because we had three dependent variables, we were able to put these together, and see valuable connections. Physiologically, the different treatments caused an effect on nature and degree of ASMR experience and relaxation. Phenomenologically, implicit experiences supported our physiological results. However, psychologically, differences in relaxation and ASMR experience was not achieved across treatment groups maybe because of the clash between the participants’ expectations and initial mental/emotional state, as well as what was happening to them biologically and implicitly.

[THE END] *BOW*

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YE BOI WE DID IT WE DID THE THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11 

*cough* But anyway.

The conduction of this experiment didn’t just make us learn about ASMR. We were also able to learn from our participant who, themselves, use ASMR in their lives. One of our participants told us that he really liked and appreciate how we are studying about ASMR because he, being an insomniac, knows this thing is really useful. And doing further experiments about this, gives him a wider perspective that is beyond the use of ASMR as a trigger for sleep. Another participant told us that he uses a different kind of ASMR, meaning, not the nature-like sounds, but, sounds from cooking dishes. The sound of chopping carrots, slicing bread, frying a steak, etc. And aside from participants’ insights, we were also able to integrate what we have picked up from the whole duration of our sensory and perception (Psych 135) class, and applied these to how we interpreted our results.

But most of all, we grew as a group. We had really fun moments together. Both stress and relief were sensed, friendship was perceived, teamwork was recognized, and we took action by helping each other. We started with a bottom-up type of relationship, since we were all new to this, but now that we had laughs, coffee/milk tea, crazy rants, stressed and mema mumblings, heart-to-hearts, and (productive and not-so productive) group meetings shared, we created memories that will drive our top-down processing. Although it’s now over, this experience will definitely stay with us, and will always be processed with positive emotions.

(huhuhu #triggered ^^) 

[visualpopcorn-blog]

Flipping cats (by Lexee Carlota)

 Have you ever heard of cats’ supposed ability to land on all fours, all the time? Have you ever wondered why you’ll never catch a fish swimming upside-down?

These two phenomena are actually controlled by the cat and fish vestibular systems, which control their sense of balance. Of course, a cat is not a fish, and a fish is not a cat, inasmuch as neither of them are human. Why can cats land on all fours but we humans start stumbling the moment we have to stand on one leg with our eyes closed? The vestibular systems of a cat, of a fish, and of a human are quite some ways different from one another, even if they do have their similarities.

Let’s start with something more familiar to us. We’ve all heard of some strange rumors about cats, haven’t we? We’re told that they have 9 lives, and that they can land on all fours, no matter their orientation in space. I don’t really know what’s up with that first thing, but that second belief actually does hold a grain of truth to it! Let’s find out why.

First and foremost, there is actually a name to this phenomenon! Call it the “righting mechanism” for ease of reference. It’s the mechanism that allows for many animals (not just cats, surprise!) to flip themselves over midair to reorient themselves with the ground, using gravity (a kind of linear acceleration) as the basis (Gerathewohl & Stallings, 1957). This is an advantageous ability, as it guards against the risk of injury resulting from free fall (Jusufi, et al., 2011).

There are actually many ways by which an animal can readjust its orientation in space, but for cats in particular, they make use of torso-induced righting (Jusufi, et al., 2011). If you’ve ever had the privilege of seeing a cat actually put its righting reflex into action (and were paying very close attention), you will have noticed that they don’t just flip over like a lechon. Instead, cats kind of “suck in their gut,” i.e. arch their backs. Torso-induced righting is characterized by this splitting of the torso in half, and rotating the two parts (the front side and the backside). In addition to this, the cat also positions its paws accordingly—tucking its front paws in increases rotation in the front side, whereas stretching them out increases drag; conversely, the same is true for the hind paws and their effect on the backside. With torso-induced righting, in conjunction with leg-induced righting (i.e. “legs-in-legs-out” method), the resulting change in the cat’s orientation leads to a change in inertia that helps it reorient itself in space (Shields, et al., n.d.).

Other animals use different mechanisms to right themselves (Jusufi, et al., 2011). For example, lizards use their tails to induce body roll without bending their backs. They rely on this mechanism so much that cutting their tails off virtually eliminates their ability to reorient midair. A possible reason for the difference in righting mechanism is that rotating the torso requires more neural control than rotating the tail.

Insects, on the other hand, are small and lightweight, and are therefore prone to become victims of the elements. When in freefall, they hold their legs steady and let aerodynamic torque direct them into reorientation, suggesting that their righting mechanism is more passive than active (Jusufi, et al., 2011).

Seeing as humans don’t have tails and are not quadrupeds who can twist their torsos in mid-air, it comes as no surprise that we don’t have the same righting mechanism as cats or fish or insects, even if we all have a vestibular system.

References:

Gerathewohl, S.J., & Stallings, H.D. (1957). The Labyrinthine Posture Reflex (Righting Reflex) in the Cat During Weightlessness. The Journal of Aviation Medicine, 28(4), 345-355.

Jusufi, A., Zeng, Y., Full, R.J., Dudley, R. (2011). Aerial Righting Reflexes in Flightless Animals. Integrative and Comparative Biology, 51(6), 937-943.

Shields, B., Robertson, W.S.P., Redmond, N., Jobson, R., Visser, R., Prime, Z., & Cazzolato, B. (n.d.). Falling Car Robot Lands On Its Feet. University of Adelaide, Australia.

[visualpopcorn-blog]

DANCE LIKE NOBODY’S WATCHING by Danicca Pineda

When listening to the sickest beats or the most melodic and smooth harmonies, more often than not, we don’t actually just stay still and listen. No! We get that urge to tap our feet, drum our fingers, bob our heads, sway to the music AND for those completely wrapped up and lost in the music — they DANCE. In its most basic definition, as prescribed by the Merriam-Webster dictionary (2003), dance is “to move one’s body [part] rhythmically usually to music.” According to Alpert (2011), dance was also said to be the “ most fundamental of the arts, involving direct expression through the use of body movements and expressions.”

However, referring to one’s somatosensory system, dancing greatly makes use of our senses of proprioception (“ability to sense the position of the body and limbs), kinesthesis (ability to sense the movement of the body and limbs) and even our cutaneous senses (touch and pain) are involved - when dancing with a partner, making use of props and etc (Goldstein, 2017). The vestibular system also plays a part in one’s balance, coordination and synchronization of movement (Wolfe, 2015).  

However, it isn’t always the case wherein music brings about dancing. In other cases (most I presume), the desire to dance and produce movement is innate and does not need the stimuli of music. In one of the biggest movie franchises under the Dance genre, Step-Up - specifically the 3rd movie, Step-up 3D, its opening sequence was a montage of video interviews ( <-- click for video) asking the cast why they danced. Their answers ranged from self-expression, freedom, creativity to just can’t helping themselves and HAVING TO DANCE.

Dancing also has numerous benefits physically and mentally, similar with physical exercise. Some of its exercise benefits are as follows: greater flexibility, increase in muscle strength and tone, increase in endurance, balance, spatial awareness and general feeling of well-being. Dancing for an hour can also burn 200-500 calories, improve cardiovascular conditioning, strengthen bones, and improve posture (which may prevent lower back problems). In terms of our neural activity, dancing is said to heighten temporal and prefrontal brain activity - thereby improving memory, attention and mutlitasking (Alpert, 2011). Specifically, for memory, dancing strengthens our memory organization and shaping, retrieval dynamics and practice, accessibility to memories and enhances our overall memory and information processing skills from encoding to retrieval (Tempel, et. al, 2015). Furthermore, dance has also affected our socioemotional well-being since this is a social activity and can be an outlet for self-expression, creativity and stress reduction.

Probing deeper in the neurological level, we are able to look at the connection between our movements when we dance and the parts of the brain that are activated. Interestingly, dance was said to be a “pleasure double play” alongside music - in a sense that music activates our brain’s pleasure and reward systems, while dance stimulates its sensory and motor complexes. In particular, when performing and learning how to dance these particular brain regions (but not limited only to these areas) are activated: (1) motor complex - “planning, control, execution of voluntary movement;” (2) somatosensory cortex - “motor coordination and hand-eye coordination;” (3) basal ganglia - “smoother coordination of movement;” (4) cerebellum - “integrates input from the brain and spinal cord” and in our gross and fine complex motor actions (Harvard Department of Neurobiology, 2017)

Interestingly, it was only recently where I found out that dance was incorporated in therapy, rehabilitation, psychiatric clinics, hospitals, aged care facilities, special schools, prisons, community health centres and private practice (Pratt, 2004). Although the imagery of seeing a patient and a professional dancing in an office does not typically fit in our schema of rehabilition, treatment, therapy, etc.; thinking about it now, it actually makes a lot of sense that dancing would be one of the techniques incorporated in these disciplines.

Dance or movement therapy is essentially the therapeutic use of“ movement and the body combined with skills of psychotherapy, counseling, and rehabilitation to help people with different needs (Pratt, 2004).” The American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA), founded in 1966, uses this form of therapy as a “process that furthers the emotional, cognitive, social, and physical integration of the individual” (Pratt, 2004). However, at present numerous professionals and organizations employ this form of therapy already. Furthermore, one of the branches that emerged from this is Experiential Movement Psychotherapy which centers on the “subjective experiencing as s/he converts an inner sensation to overt physical movement, and transforms this movement into visual and verbal symbols” (Dosamantes-Alperson, Mettill, 1980).

Dance and movement therapy has also proven effective for prevention or lower risk and also significant improvement for those suffering from: adolescent disorders, anxiety, childhood illnesses, eating disorders, family, geriatrics, mood disorders, neuroses, personality disorders, physical and sexual abuse, schizophrenia, somatic disorders, substance abuse, traumatic brain injury (Pratt, 2004; Jeong, Hong, Lee, Park, 2005; Alpert, 2011); dementia (Verghese, et. al, 2003); Parkinson’s disease (Harvard Department of Neurobiology, 2017 ).

Moreover, some of the psychological and physiological effects of Experiential Movement Psychotherapy has also been stated in Dosamantes-Alperson’s study (1980), and this includes - increased kinesthetic sensitivity, heightened body-self awareness, broadened range of movement improved relationships, increase in spontaneity, authenticity of expression, greater individual energy-level, increases inner-directedness, promotes the relaxation of mental controls, increase in the following personality characteristics: self-esteem, flexibility of their application of values, sensitivity to their own needs and feelings, ability to express feelings freely acceptance of themselves in spite of weakness and ability to engage in intimate relationships, and significantly greater degree of feeling satisfaction with their bodies.

Dance can therefore be an amazing perceptual, expressive, healthy and healing experience for anyone and everyone. So what are we waiting for? Grab your dancing shoes, blast your favorite, go-to tunes, and dance like nobody’s watching!

SOURCES:

Alpert, P. (2011). The Health Benefits of Dance. Home Health Care Management & Practice, 23(2), 155-157. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1084822310384689

Dance. (2003). In Merriam-Webster's dictionary (11th ed.). Springfield, MA:

Dancing and the Brain | Department of Neurobiology. (2017). Neuro.hms.harvard.edu. Retrieved 14 May 2017, from http://neuro.hms.harvard.edu/harvard-mahoney-neuroscience-institute/brain-newsletter/and-brain-series/dancing-and-brain

Dosamantes-Alperson, E., & Merrill, N. (1980). Growth effects of experiential movement psychotherapy. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, 17(1), 63-68. doi:10.1037/h0086066

Goldstein, E. B., & Brockmole, J. R. (2017). Sensation and Perception. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

JEONG, Y., HONG, S., LEE, M., PARK, M., KIM, Y., & SUH, C. (2005). DANCE MOVEMENT THERAPY IMPROVES EMOTIONAL RESPONSES AND MODULATES NEUROHORMONES IN ADOLESCENTS WITH MILD DEPRESSION. International Journal Of Neuroscience, 115(12), 1711-1720. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207450590958574

Pratt, R. (2004). Art, dance, and music therapy. Physical Medicine And Rehabilitation Clinics Of North America, 15(4), 827-841. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pmr.2004.03.004

Tempel, T., Loran, I., & Frings, C. (2015). Dancing your moves away: How memory retrieval shapes complex motor action. Journal Of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 21(3), 300-312. doi:10.1037/xap0000052

Verghese, J., Lipton, R. B., Katz, M. J., Hall, C. B., Derby, C. A.,Kuslanisky, G., et al. (2003). Leisure activities and the risk of dementia in the elderly. New England Journal of Medicine, 348, 2508-2516.

Wolfe, J. M., Kleunder, K. R., & Levi, D. M. (2015). Sensation and Perception. USA: Sinauer Associates, Inc.

Videos taken from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51VxDyhm0zw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ALtIwy77RU

GIFS taken from tumblr website

[visualpopcorn-blog]

Pagbawas ng sakit gamit ang panloloko

Hindi lahat ng sakit, negatibo ang naidudulot. Mayroong mga sakit na kailangan nating maramdaman bago tayo guminhawa. Isang halimbawa nito ay ang acupuncture, isang kasanayan na ginagamit ng mga tradisyunal na medisina ng mga Intsik. Ang mga propesyonal ay nagsasagawa ng stimulation sa ilang partikular na punto sa katawan na kadalasang nagtutusok ng mga karayom sa balat (Adams et al., 2011). Sa kabila nito, itinuturing lamang itong isang alternatibong medisina (Berman et al., 2010) at hindi nakabase sa siyentipikong kaalaman kaya naman matuturing itong isang pseudoscience. (Barrett, 2007) Dagdag pa rito, malimit itong ginagamit kasabay ng ibang uri ng panggagamot. (Hutchinson, 2012)

May ilang pag-aaral na nagsasabing nakakatulong ang acupuncture sa pagpapawala sa iba’t ibang uri ng kirot tulad ng low-back pain, neck pain, at knee pain. Nababawasan din nito ang dalas ng pagsakit ng ulo dulot ng tension sa katawan, at naiiwasan din nito ang mga pagsakit ng ulo dulot ng migraine. Dahil dito, maaaring ang acupuncture ay isang makatwirang opsyon para sa mga dumaranas ng chronic pain. (NIH, 2017).

Paano nga ba maipapaliwanag ang sinasabing positibong epekto na naidudulot ng acupuncture? Paanong ang sakit na mararamdaman ng ating katawan ay pagmumulan ng ginhawa na kabaliktaran nito? Sa ginawang pag-aaral nina Gamus (2008) na may pamagat na “The Effect of Acupuncture Therapy on Pain Perception and Coping Strategies: A Preliminary Report”, nakita nila na ang acupuncture therapy ay maaaring magresulta sa pagbabago ng perception ng tao sa kirot mula sa isang chronic na uri patungo sa isang acute. Ayon sa U.S. National Library of Medicine, ang chronic na kondisyon ay tumatagal ng mahabang panahon, kadalasan ay higit sa tatlong buwan samantalang ang acute ay nararanasan sa mas maikling panahon. Dagdag pa rito, nakita nila na tumaas ang personal na kontrol ng mga kalahok sa kirot na kanilang nararamdaman at mas naging epektibo ang pagtingin nila sa acupuncture sa pagkontrol at pag-alis nito sa nasabing kirot. Panghuli, nalaman din nila na bumaba ang paggamit ng mga kalahok ng emotional coping strategies. Ito ay ang mga sumusunod: positive reframing (mas positibong pagtingin sa motibo at galaw ng ibang tao), relihiyon at venting (palabas na pagpapahayag ng mga negatibong emosyon na kadalasan sa mga kaibigan o pamilya).

Maaari ring mayroong koneksiyon ang pagiging epektibo ng acupuncture sa tinatawag nating placebo effect o pagbawas ng kirot na nararamdaman dahil sa isang substance na wala naman talagang pharmacological na epekto. (Ernst, 2006) Ang sinasabing susi sa placebo effect ay naniniwala ang pasyente na ang substance na kaniyang iniinom ay isang epektibong therapy. Iba’t ibang mekanismo ang posibleng gamitin sa pagpapaliwanag ng placebo effect subalit ang expectation ang itinuturing na isa sa mga tiyak nitong dahilan. Naipakita ito sa ginawang pananaliksik nina Amanzio (2001) na kung saan mas naging epektibo ang bisa ng isang droga kung alam ng mga pasyente kung kailan ito ipinapasok sa kanilang katawan kumpara sa mga pasyente na walang alam kung kailan ito isinasagawa sa kanila.

Mayroon ding ibang paraan para mabawasan ang sakit na nararamdaman ng ating katawan. Naaalala ko pa noong bata ako, binibigyan kami ng aming dentista ng mga lobo pagkatapos kaming mabunutan ng ngipin. Para saan ito? Ayon sa ilang pag-aaral, ang pag-alis ng ating atensiyon sa pinanggagalingan ng sakit sa ating katawan ay malaki ang naitutulong upang mabawasan ang sakit na ating napeperceive. Panghuli, ang pagperceive sa sakit na nararamdaman ng ating katawan ay naiimpluwensiyahan ng kasalukuyang emosyon natin. Nababawasan ng mga positibong emosyon ang kirot na maaari nating maramdaman tulad na lamang kapag tayo ay nakikinig sa mga kantang masasaya at at nagtataglay ng optimismo.

Sanggunian:

Adams, D; Cheng, F; Jou, H; Aung, S; Yasui, Y; Vohra, S (Dec 2011). "The safety of pediatric acupuncture: a systematic review". Pediatrics. 128 (6): e1575–e1587. doi:10.1542/peds.2011-1091. 

Amanzio, M., Pollo, A., Maggi, G., & Benedetti, F. (2001). Response variability to analgesics: A role for non-specifi c activation of endogenous opioids. Pain, 90, 205–215.

Barrett, S (30 December 2007). "Be Wary of Acupuncture, Qigong, and "Chinese Medicine"". Quackwatch. Retrieved 4 May 2015.

Berman, Brian; Langevin, Helene; Witt, Claudia; Dubner, Ronald (29 July 2010). "Acupuncture for Chronic Low Back Pain". New England Journal of Medicine. 363 (5): 454–461. doi:10.1056/NEJMct0806114

Ernst, E. (2006). "Acupuncture--a critical analysis". Journal of Internal Medicine. 259 (2): 125–137. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2796.2005.01584

Gamus, D., Meshulam-Atzmon, V., Pintov, S., & Jacoby, R. (2008). The Effect of Acupuncture Therapy on Pain Perception and Coping Strategies: A Preliminary Report. J Acupunct Meridian Stud, 1(1):51−53. doi: 10.1016/S2005-2901(09)60007-8.

https://medlineplus.gov/ency/imagepages/18126.htm

https://nccih.nih.gov/health/acupuncture/introduction#hed1

Hutchinson, Amanda J P; Ball, Simon; Andrews, Jeremy C H; Jones, Gareth G (2012). "The effectiveness of acupuncture in treating chronic non-specific low back pain: a systematic review of the literature". Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research. 7 (1): 36. doi:10.1186/1749-799X-7-36. 

[visualpopcorn-blog]

JUST FEEL THE MUSIC

by Sandra Sese

Have you ever encountered the phrase “feel the music?” I’m sure I have, and it was difficult to understand at first. But, you’ll soon realize that this makes sense, not only in the metaphorical sense (which, I believe, is the usual context of the quote), but surprisingly, also in the physical and literal perspective.

Music is a highly sensory and perceptual experience. In addition, it affects multiple parts of the perceptual process: it sends stimuli handled by the sensory systems (physical/literal), and also triggers memory, emotions, and other systems (metaphorical).

First, let us discuss the physical and literal aspect of “feeling music.” Music, apparently, can not only be heard, but can also be “touched.” Music reaches our ears through vibrations, and this is the same way that it reaches the somatosensory system (Great Big Story, 2016; Pangburn, 2016). This way, music’s tactile contribution can actually enhance our experience of it (Huang et al., 2012).

That being said, music is a multi-sensory phenomenon (Atkins & Donovan, 1984). When presented with auditory stimuli alone, participants were able to accurately identify the rhythm (or meter) 70-85% of the time. The same result was acquired when tactile information was presented alone. However, when auditory and tactile stimuli were offered, meter recognition shot up to 90%, given that the stimuli were congruent. This experiment by Huang et al. (2012) suggests that there is a strong auditory-tactile cross-modality in music. Furthermore, this multi-sensory property can also be used when designing music education programs, especially for the hearing-impaired. When singing, listening to music, and playing instruments, other sensory systems are also tapped (Atkins & Donovan, 1984). The visual system may contribute as well to experience of music, but this is still being studied (Pangburn, 2016).

As mentioned, an important application of this finding (i.e. that music can be experienced via the somatosensory system) can help us bring music to deaf or hearing-impaired individuals. Right now, with the power of technology, headphones are being made that aims to turn sound into vibrations that can be experienced by the hearing-impaired. These headphones were conceptualized and designed by industrial designer Liron Gino (Pangburn, 2016). Another inspirational story is that of music student Mandy Harvey who, after losing her sense of hearing, did not stop singing and creating music. She continues to pursue her music by muscle memory of her vocal cords, as well as by feeling vibrations on the ground. With this, she performs with her shoes off (Great Big Story, 2016).

Now, we move on to how music can be “felt” metaphorically. Music does elicit emotions, but why is that? This theory can be linked as well to music being a multi-sensory experience. Through the input of many senses, we form memories that are emotionally-laden, and when retrieving multi-sensory memories as well, there are emotions that come along with them. Here, we can see the action of the limbic system in forming memories, producing emotions, and now, studies are trying to discover the role of music in these processes (Jancke, 2008). Moreover, music can make us feel something towards otherwise neutral stimuli, and these stimuli can be of any sensory system (e.g. a plain picture can make us happy because of the music that we associate with it) (Changizi, 2009).

To conclude, truly, music can be “felt,” and this is accurate both in the metaphorical sense, and the physical/literal sense. So yes, just “feel the music!”

REFERENCES:

Atkins, W., & Donovan, M. (1984). A workable music education program for the hearing impaired. Volta Review, 86(1), 41-44.

Changizi, M. (2009). Why Does Music Make Us Feel?. Scientific American. Retrieved 14 May 2017 from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-does-music-make-us-fe/.

Great Big Story. [Username]. (2016). Singing Without Sound: This Musician Uses Vibrations in the Ground to Sing. [YouTube Video File]. Retrieved 14 May 2017 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFxu0QdwX_8.

Huang, J., Gamble, D., Samiertsophon, K., Wang, X., & Hsiao, S. (2012). Feeling Music: Integration of Auditory and Tactile Inputs in Musical Meter Perception. PLoS ONE, 7(10). Doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0048496.

Jancke, L. (2008). Music, memory and emotion. Journal of Biology, 7(8), 21.

[visualpopcorn-blog]

The Classical (Horror) Music

by Ella Eleazar

Have you ever watched The Exorcist? Or Silence of the Lambs? 

Ever wonder why these movies made you hide under your blankets or cover your eyes while watching? 

How did you know that the scary part is nearing? Is it because of what you see, or more so of what you hear? 

Many of us may have noticed that when a certain distinguishable type of music is played during a horror film, this means a jump scare or something really frightening is going to happen. And most of the time, this certain distinguishable music is a classical one. These movies mentioned and even a lot more horror or suspense movies used classical music as the background music to induce fear to the audience. But why use such music?

According to Cohen (1993), music is one of the strongest sources of emotion in film. Music contributes to the emotional meaning and establishment of general mood of the audience. Hence, when we watch a horror film and hear a classical music in the background, it may sort of sooth our emotions and to some, induce calmness. When this happens, it is easier for us to get uncannily surprised and shocked with the next scene, which is the bloody, gory, or when-they-zoom-in-the-scary-character’s-face part.

Even if music in films was originally added just to mask the extraneous noise of rolling film (of course nobody wants to watch a movie hearing plain noise of the machine that rolls the film), the early people in the film industry matched the music they played to the movie scene, to represent various emotional settings. (Palmer, 1980 as cited in Cohen, 1993). It then evolved to the actual voices of the actors, environmental sounds, plus the background music to further induce different emotions and thoughts to the viewers.

To further explain this phenomenon, there were few studies conducted to determine which parts of the brain were activated when hearing different music, specifically classical music as background. An example is a study by Mitterschiffthaler, Fu, Dalton, Andrew, and Williams (2007) showed that through fMRI study, increased blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal contrast during presentation of happy classical music was found in the ventral and dorsal striatum, anterior cingulate, parahippocampal gyrus, and auditory association areas. With sad classical music, increased BOLD signal responses were noted in the hippocampus/amygdala and auditory association areas.

In conclusion, it ca be said that certain parts of the brain are activated when presented with different types of classical music to further induce emotions when watching horror films. This type of music may induce happy or sad emotions that can match with the type of movie we are watching.

References:

Cohen, A. J. (1993). Music as a Source of Emotion in Film. Handbook of Music and Emotion: Theory, Research, Applications, 878-908. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199230143.003.0031

Mitterschiffthaler, M. T., Fu, C. H., Dalton, J. A., Andrew, C. M., & Williams, S. C. (2007). A functional MRI study of happy and sad affective states induced by classical music. Human Brain Mapping,28(11), 1150-1162. doi:10.1002/hbm.20337

http://www.wqxr.org/story/11-scary-movies-made-even-scarier-classical-music/

[visualpopcorn-blog]

Metal Maketh Man

by Lexee Carlota

The song above is a metal cover of a song from a popular video game called Undertale. (One of my favorites, by the way.) But! I’m not here to talk about video games. I’m here to talk about music! Specifically, metal music.

So, what did you feel while listening to the song? Did you feel happy? Excited? Inspired? Or perhaps…

Angry?

Probably not! Surprise! It is a long-standing prejudice in our society that metal music (and other “extreme” genres, such as punk and subgenres of metal) make for aggressive people. But I will tell you just in a bit why this isn’t necessarily true.

First of all, the impression is not completely without basis, of course. Something we know about emotions is that they’re not just in our head; they’re actually all over our body! When we are feeling something strongly, it evokes even a physiological reaction out of us—I’m talking heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, skin conductance, you name it! These things fluctuate in tandem with our emotions. Seems like we can lie up and down till our eyes cross, but our body is incapable of telling anything but the truth. Huh.

Furthermore, on the topic of physiological arousal, we know that music can have quite a profound effect on us. Think about the last time you listened to a song that really got you pumped up. Think about a song that left you feeling really down. Chances are, these two songs were very different from each other.

This phenomenon was actually studied by Dilliman Carpentier & Potter in 2007. They wanted to see if the physiological reaction of a person would change based on a song’s genre, using one’s skin conductance response as the basis. As it turns out, it does change! But not in the way that the researchers expected. Whereas most of us would probably expect the faster the tempo, the higher the skin conductance response, this was actually not the case for all music genres—classical music, to be specific. Aside from that, they observed that familiarity with the genre and even the content of the lyrics also play a part in how a person responds to the music. As the study only explored three music genres (namely, classical, rock, and swing music), it is not an exhaustive resource by any means, but it is enough to confirm that both psychologically and physiologically, different music genres elicit different feelings out of us.

Now, it’s easy to get ahead of ourselves here (as most people would) and say, ‘Aha! That’s why metal music fans are aggressive!’ But note that all I’ve really said so far is that emotions have correlated physiological responses, and that music can elicit signs of physiological arousal as well. But there aren’t any hard and fast rules to these things—someone having an elevated heart rate and skin conductance level could mean anything, really. It doesn’t immediately point to any specific emotion.

But, okay, let’s say metal music does have a direct relationship with aggression. What kind of relationship would it be, exactly? Does metal music make people aggressive, or do aggressive people listen to metal?

According to a study by Sharman & Dingle (2015), it’s actually the latter!

Before anything, let me preface this by saying that ‘aggressive’ is quite a heavy word! It ascribes a personality trait to these people right off the bat. In this study, we look at people who are angry, not aggressive. Anger is a state, which means it comes and goes, and it’s a state that influences us to display aggressive behaviors.

In this study, the researchers asked people who were already fans of “extreme” music to come in with their music players. They then asked the participants to think about recent events that made them angry. Following that, half of the participants were left in silence for ten minutes, while the other half were asked to bring out their music players and listen to any songs they’d like for ten minutes as well. Almost all of the participants in the second group listened to extreme music (metal, punk, scream, etc.).

Most people would probably expect that the ones who listened to music became even more stimulated, and therefore angrier, but this was actually not the case! In the study, the level of arousal gradually went down for both groups, and at the same rate, which suggests that the fading away of the physiological arousal is just a function of time. However, the ones who were allowed to listen to their music came out of the experience feeling happy and even inspired, significantly more than those who had just sat in silence.

The fact that physiological arousal was a function of time rather than of any music implies that the metal music had nothing to do with the anger—it faded away naturally, both for the ones who had listened to music and for those who hadn’t. As for the rush of positive feelings after the experience, it can be concluded that listening to music that matched their mood actually helped these people calm down—it provided them an outlet by which they could internalize the anger they were feeling and therefore process it more effectively, compared to the ones who were not given the opportunity. It’s the same mechanism that explains why we tend to listen to sad music when we’re feeling sad: it lets us process our sadness better. In both cases—for both anger and sadness—we choose music that suits our mood, and it becomes a cathartic experience.

Of course, it can be argued that there are a lot of factors at work here—remember, these are people who already like metal music. Perhaps they felt happier after because they were able to listen to music they like? And what of Mast & McAndrew’s (2011) study in which violent lyrics in metal music caused previously calm males to put more hot sauce in a drink they were told would be given to someone else? Was it just a function of the lyrics or also of the quality of the instrumental music itself?

These, of course, are only a few of the questions that still remain unanswered. But until we know the answers to those questions, let’s focus on the answer we do have, and that is:

Metal music is not inherently bad, and it does not make for aggressive people!

So if you like metal, you do you! Keep on rocking out, man.

References:

Dilliman Carpentier, F.R. & Potter, R.F. (2007). Effects of music on psychological arousal: Explorations into tempo and genre. Media Psychology, 10 (13), 339-363.

Mast, J.F. & McAndrew, F.T. (2011). Violent lyrics in heavy metal music can increase aggression in males. North American Journal of Psychology, 13 (1), 63-64.

Sharman, L. & Dingle, G. (2015). Extreme metal music and anger processing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 9.

[visualpopcorn-blog]

Pop to the Top by Danicca Pineda

One of the biggest, most widespread and favorite genres of music is, aptly named, popular music - or pop music for short. In Frith’s book (2004), he defined pop music as a form of music that is commercially-made; produced using dynamic and ever-changing technology; created for the purpose of pleasure listening; “experienced as mediated and formally hybrid” (Schellenberg, Scheve, 2012). 

Popular music is extensive in its reach and deep-rooted in our society -  being a kind of leisure activity, a form of self-expression or communication, a platform for political or social influence, a means of livelihood, commercial good, an avenue for connecting and building relationships with different people across the world, and more recently, utilized in the field of music therapy. Interestingly, popular music also acts as a reflection on the kind of people, environment, culture and history of a certain society lives out (Schellenberg, Scheve, 2012).

Pop music is diverse with its variety of forms, structures and sound. However, a key feature of this genre is that its songs have distinct sections - specifically the verse and the chorus. The chorus is what is usually repeated throughout the song and it tends to be louder, have more instrumentation and vocals (e.g. additional vocals, guitar, drums, keyboard and etc.). Due to its repetition in a song, the lyrics often stay the same, while the musical content of each chorus may change. The verses on the other hand, have varied lyrics because they contain the “lyrical narrative of the song,” but its musical properties more often than not remain identical. As mentioned in the definition of pop music, the prevalent form of contemporary pop music is the hybrid or compound form: “intro—verse 1–chorus 1–verse 2–chorus 2– solo—chorus 3–extro” ordering. While this may be the typical sequence, pop songs still change it up by rearranging, adding or eliminating some of the parts (Rolison, Edworthy, 2013).

In Rolison and Edworthy’s research (2013), they conducted four experiments to identify the importance of the structural and local features of pop songs to listeners. Structural features refer to the “ overall formal structure of a composition and the ordering of song sections (e.g., its verses and choruses);” while local features represent the “musical or lyrical features of individual song sections.” The results of the study show four distinct conclusions based from the four experiments respectively:

1) Listeners are sensitive to the structural features of pop songs. This means that they can discern the different sections and place them in the same order consistent with its original structure - given that these sections have SALIENT cueing features.

2) Lyrical content acts as a major cue for the formal structure of the music. This is so because the verses act as the “story” of the song, so listeners were able to indicate the order of the verses based on the narrative.

3) In terms of the local structure, the third experiment revealed that the individual song sections affect how much a listener enjoys a song. It was found that participants generally liked the earlier sections of songs (even when the order was jumbled) due to these parts being “simpler and more accessible”

4) The overall structural features of a song does impact the enjoyment of the listener - restructured songs were found to be less pleasing at first, but after being repeated a couple more times, it was reported that they found the song more pleasing. This indicates that the structural features of a song may be less of an important signifier or factor for how likeable a song is.

Now that we have an idea on how the parts of a pop music work and interplay with our perception of a song, we can now look at the bigger picture. More specifically, we can study the popular music industry and trace the different trends - what was considered popular and not - what were the hits and the misses - throughout the decades.

In Schellenberg and Scheve’s study (2013), they looked at the structure of pop music from the 1960’s up to the 2000’s in terms of the tempo and mode of the songs. Tempo was the “underlying speed of the beat or pulse in music” - so it was categorized either fast or slow. Meanwhile, mode was defined to be the “mode of the tonic triad (the chord based on do), or the key signature of a song” - so either major or minor.

Before relaying the results of their experiment, they first established that:

1) Happy songs tend to be composed with a fast tempo and in major mode

2) Sad songs usually have a slower tempo and in minor mode

3) Listeners are able to feel the emotions that the music conveys based on these two properties

4) Songs that have conflicting cues of happiness and sadness (fast tempo in minor mode or slow tempo in major mode) result in the listener having mixed emotions or simultaneously being happy and sad

The results of their analysis showed that pop music has become sadder-sounding, more emotionally ambiguous and has increasingly used the minor-mode over the decades since the 1960s. 

An explanation for this was that the a slower tempo and minor mode is used as a “rhetorical device…as a means of persuading the listener of the performers’ seriousness, intelligence, and maturity, and, consequently, that the listener exhibits a similar level of sophistication.” This trend of sadder-sounding music becoming more popular may be because, unambiguously happy-sounding pop music is now perceived as childish, obnoxious and naive to listeners of today. Additionally, children’s songs (e.g. Twinkle Little Star, London Bridge is Falling Down, etc.) are uniformly played in the major mode, while well-known bands of the 90s started using minor mode in majority of their songs.

Amazingly, it was realized that Lady Gaga was able to break the trend and become one of the hottest artists of today with her fast-tempo, major-mode recordings becoming consistent hits - reminiscent of how pop music was back in the earlier days.

Another finding of the study was that the lyrics of pop music also was said to be more individualistic, “self-focused and negative” over time. Social scientists could attribute this to the increasing individualization  of the modern age. (Schellenberg, Scheve, 2013). Furthermore, this change in lyrical content is also brought about by the growing “‘selfie” culture of narcissism, individualism and self-promotion of both consumers and artists alike (McAuslan, Waung, 2016).

Moreover, researchers found were that songs had longer duration, due to increase in complexity of popular music, with the greater variations and more unique sounds, alongside the greater capacity of storage of devices today, compared to the vinyl and tapes of the past. Lastly, due to the progress of gender equality and women empowerment, it was found that there is a higher proportion of female artists over time who in turn become very powerful and influential icons such as Rihanna, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, etc. (Schellenberg, Scheve, 2013).

People gravitate to certain kinds of music because they like how it makes them feel. Music seems to fulfil our emotional and sometimes even our mental and spiritual needs. It is also able to manage, change and regulate our moods and dispositions (Schellenberg, Scheve, 2013). Thus, our preference to a particular genre or song is brought about by what that brand of music elicits from us, making us want to listen to it more. Aside from familiarity, personal memories are also triggered by different kinds of music depending on the perceptual experience associated with it (Barett, et. al., 2010). Using the lens of psychology, listening to music could also modify our behavior, which could then lead to a change in our cognitions, emotions and motivations (Thompson, 2009).

These findings are then central to the expanding field of music therapy. Music therapy or intervention is when various forms, styles and elements of music are utilized “to interact with human emotions and affect well-being” (Smith, 2015). There are now different established forms of music therapy and have been applicable in a wide array of treatments such as in family or group therapy, abuse, psychodynamic therapy, medical care units, and etc. (Miller, 1994, Austin, 1996, Lindberg, 1995, Guzzetta, 1989). As for using pop music specifically, it was found effective in music therapy for cancer patients and their families (Bailey, 1984).

In Bailey’s study (1984), The Use of Songs in Music Therapy with Cancer Patients and their Families, it was found that various pop songs across the decades were able to “effectively provide important means for support and tools for change” for these people. The different elements of the song perceptual experiences, such as cognitive stimulation, building of relationships, singing and listening are able to “promote comfort, develop meaningful communication, resolve issues…soothe and energize, stimulate the expression of thoughts and feelings, help integrate families and persons into their social environments, provide sensory stimulation, and diminish pain” (Bailey, 1984).

Pop music was used in the study because of the diverse musical, structural and lyrical variations in form that would suit a great number of listeners with different preferences. So people are able to choose songs that would suit their needs and relay the mood and messages they want to hear. In the study, various pop songs with themes of hope, pleasure, relating to people around the world, reminiscence, needs and desires, feelings, loss and death, and peace were said to be most favored and powerful for these group of people. Furthermore, “songs have the potential to establish human contact and can provide a framework for enhanced [melodic verbal] communication” because of the voices of the singers to whom the listeners may be able to relate to (Bailey, 1984).

References: 

Austin, D. (1996). The Role of Improvised Music in Psychodynamic Music Therapy with Adults. Music Therapy, 14(1), 29-43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mt/14.1.29

Bailey, L. (1984). The Use of Songs in Music Therapy With Cancer Patients and Their Families. Music Therapy, 4(1), 5-17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mt/4.1.5

Barrett, F. S., Grimm, K. J., Robins, R. W., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., & Janata, P. (2010). Music-evoked nostalgia: Affect, memory, and personality. Emotion, 10(3), 390-403. doi:10.1037/a0019006

Frith, S. (2004). Popular music: Critical concepts in media and cultural studies. London: Routledge.

Guzzetta, C. E. (1989). Effects of relaxation and music therapy on patients in a coronary care unit with presumptive acute myocardial infarction. Heart & lung: the journal of critical care, 18(6), 609-616.

Lindberg, K. (1995). Songs of Healing: Songwriting with an Abused Adolescent. Music Therapy, 13(1), 93-108. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mt/13.1.93

McAuslan, P., & Waung, M. (2016). Billboard Hot 100 Songs: Self-Promoting Over the Past 20 Years. Psychology Of Popular Media Culture, doi:10.1037/ppm0000118

Miller, E. (1994). Musical Intervention in Family Therapy. Music Therapy, 12(2), 39-57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mt/12.2.39

Rolison, J. J., & Edworthy, J. (2013). The whole song is greater than the sum of its parts: Local and structural features in music listening. Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, And Brain, 23(1), 33-48. doi:10.1037/a0032442

Schellenberg, E. G., & von Scheve, C. (2012). Emotional cues in American popular music: Five decades of the Top 40. Psychology Of Aesthetics, Creativity, And The Arts, 6(3), 196-203. doi:10.1037/a0028024

Smith, Y. (2015). Types of Music Therapy. News Medical Life Sciences. Retrieved from http://www.news-medical.net/health/Types-of-Music-Therapy.aspx

Thompson, W. F. (2009). Music, thought, and feeling: Understanding the psychology of music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sources of the pictures (in order of appearance): 

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/223139356515630582/

http://lastlemon.com/harolds-planet/hp5205/

https://www.pinterest.com/lizcrawf45/music-and-lyrics/

http://billboardtop100of.com/

**GIFs are from tumblr.com 

[visualpopcorn-blog]

MUSIC SPEAKS

by Sandra Sese

They say, “music is the gateway to the soul.” But, what better gateway do we have other than OPM (original Pinoy music)? Although OPM is broadly defined to include all songs and compositions made by Filipinos, it is considered a music genre of modern Philippine music (The OPM Music, 2012).

Being made up of different kinds of sounds and styles, the songs within OPM can be further classified into subgenres. Two of such subgenres are Pinoy pop (or popular music), and Pinoy protest music. Both subdivisions were thought to have emerged during the same period of time, particularly in the 1970’s. During this moment, the American Top 40 [songs[ was gaining acceptance in the Philippines, and therefore influenced the birth of Pinoy pop, wherein rock music of the West was blended with Filipino lyrics from the soul. On the other hand, the protest movement was also being popular, taking as vehicles the rock and folk music of the West for cultural resistance. Given this, the 1970’s was not only a significant time in Philippine history, but it also opened the door for novel music and therefore, rediscovering of the Filipino identity. This particular study aims to identify the dynamics of the two subgenres. Just as Pinoy pop and protest music have different and distinct features, so does every Filipino (Maceda, 2007).

Other articles, too, have a different take on OPM. Instead of having subgenres, OPM songs can be separated and re-classified into existing genres. One study identifies 10 of these, specifically pop, rock, soft rock, acoustic, rap, children’s music, Christmas music, jazz, reggae, and special. The division and classification of songs was done via a multi-layer perceptron. But, before actually classifying, the study first focused on (1) dataset building of 1000 OPM songs, (2) feature selection for the ten genres, and then (3) model-building (Deja et al., 2016).

However, some people unfortunately believe that OPM is actually dying. According to an article by Jaucian (2012), the birth and peak of OPM happened in the 1970’s, during the “glory days” of the APO Hiking Society, Jose Mari Chan, and Sampaguita. But presently, it has been ignored due to the emergence and popularization of foreign music (including KPop). Since Filipinos are fond of the familiar and comfortable, an easier way to reintroduce OPM to the people is to revive old OPM classics, and that is what’s happening today. Making original music is seen more as risk-taking, but can also be considered as a “sign of life.”

In conclusion, music perception is a complex yet satisfying process. One form of music perception is identifying different music genres, one of them being OPM. But, aside from just being able to identify different genres, music perception can be able to help us find significance in music. “Music is the gateway to the soul.” Using a more top-down processing, we can create music based on what we are sensing, perceiving, and feeling. Using a more bottom-up processing, we can be able to attach meaning to a song that we’ve heard, such as when liking a song because it has been sung to you as a harana, or you have performed it with a significant other. Truly, music speaks, and we are prepared to listen.

REFERENCES:

Deja, J. A., Blanquera, K., Carabeo, C. E., & Copiaco, J. R. (2016). Genre Classification of OPM Songs Through the Use of Musical Features. ResearchGate, 77-88. DOI: 10.1142/9789814730464_0007.

Jaucino, D. (2012). The life and death of OPM. Philippine Star Global: Lifestyle. Retrieved 29 April 2017 from http://www.philstar.com/supreme/2012/08/25/841691/life-and-death-opm.

Maceda, T. G. (2007). Problematizing the popular: the dynamics of Pinoy pop(ular) music and popular protest music. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 3, 390-413.

The OPM Music. (2012). Original Pinoy Music [blog post]. Wordpress.com. Retrieved 29 April 2017 from http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2016/04/how-to-cite-a-blog-post-in-apa-style.html.

[visualpopcorn-blog]

EZ Lang

“Ako’y parang dragon at ang hininga ko’y apoy, habang ang hininga mo’y amoy boy bawang.” “Ikaw ba yung naka-battle ko sa rap na galing probinsya? anak ni Apl de Ap kay Aling Dionisia?”

Nasubukan mo na bang manood ng FlipTop Battle? Kung sanay ka na sa mga binibitawan nilang linya, maaaring matawa ka na lang kasi ganoon talaga ang kalakaran sa ligang ito. Subalit kung hindi mo pa nagagawang makapanood nito, posibleng magulat ka kasi pwede mong maramdaman na bastos ang sinasabi ng mga sumasali rito. Agresibo. Marahas ang bawat salitang binibigkas.  Nagsimula ang FlipTop Battle League sa Pilipinas pitong taon na ang nakakalipas sa pangunguna ni Alaric Riam Yuson o mas kilala sa tawag na “Anygma”. Simula 2010, naging malaking bahagi na ng kultura ng mga kabataan ang FlipTop kaya naman marami sa mga sumasali rito ay itinuturing nilang idolo katulad nina Abra at Loonie. Kung madadaan ka sa mga comshops, maririnig mo na pinapanood ng mga bata ang mga videos ng FlipTop at mahahalatang tuwang-tuwa sila rito. Sa katunayan, dinodownload pa nga nila ito sa kanilang mga cellphone at tablet nang sa gayon ay maibahagi nila sa kanilang mga kaklase at kaibigan. Bagamat pinapanood lamang nila ang mga pagtutunggaling ito, ano nga ba ang dahilan kung bakit nahihilig ang ating mga kabataan sa ganitong uri ng musika? Ano nga ba ang nararamdaman nila kapag kinokopya nila ang mga linya at kaakibat na tono ng kanilang mga idolo? 

Para sa mga batang ito, lubos na nakakaengganyo ang manood ng Fliptop sapagkat bawat banat ng mga kasali ay mayroong layuning tuyain ang kanilang kalaban. Halos lahat ng kanilang sinasabi ay tumitira sa pagkatao ng kanilang katapat kaya naman nakakatawa ang dating nito sa mga murang edad. Nagmumukha silang astig kapag ginagaya nila ang mga rapper dahil kakaiba ang bilis ng kanilang pagsasalita at tunay nang malikhain ang pagbuo nila sa kanilang mga banat. Nagagagamit nila sa pang-aasar sa kanilang mga kapatid, kaklase o kalaro ang mga naririnig nilang linya. Nakakatakot nga lamang dahil ang kanilang batang isip ay nahuhubog na agad sa pagsasalita nang marahas sa kanilang kapwa. Sa ginawang pag-aaral nina Jackson, Johnson, at Gatto (1995), nalaman nila na nakakaimpluwensiya ang rap music sa attitudes at perceptions ng mga batang lalaki na African-American. Base sa resulta ng kanilang pag-aaral, ang mga kalahok na kabilang sa grupo na kung saan mayroong exposure sa karahasan ay mas tinatanggap nila ang paggamit ng karahasan kumpara sa mga nasa grupong hindi nakaranas ng karahasan. Nakita rin na mas mataas ang probabilidad na itutuloy ng unang grupo ang paggawa ng karahasan. Dagdag pa rito, ipinaliwanag din nina Jackson na mas ginusto ng mga kalahok na makamit ang tagumpay sa buhay sa mabilisang paraan. 

Sa katunayan, ayon sa ginawang pananaliksik ni Tropeano (2006), nakita nya na ang pagpapalabas ng mga marahas na music video na naglalaman ng mga marahas na lyrics, agresibong pagkilos, at nagpapahiyang mga pagkilos sa mga babae ay nanghihikayat sa mga kabataan na may edad 18 pataas na magkaroon din ng marahas na pagtingin sa mga babae. Napag-alaman din nina Abrams, Belgrave at Maxwell (2016) na ang pakiinig ng rap music ay nagkakaroon ng impluwensiya sa kung paano husgahan ang mga babaeng African American base sa kulay ng kanilang balat. Tatlong panguhaning thema ang lumabas sa kanilang resulta: mas nais ang mga mas mapuputing balat, hindi kanais-nais na komento sa mga maiitim ang balat o ‘di kaya naman ay hindi pagsali sa kanila sa mga grupo, at paggawa ng palayaw para sa mga maiitim ang balat. 

Malaki ang implikasyon nito sa ating lipunan lalo na sa mga magulang at mga guro na silang nagsisilbing mga huwaran sa mga bata. Mahalaga na mabigyang pansin kung ano ang mga uri ng musikang ginagaya o pinapakinggan ng mga bata lalo na at nasa murang edad pa lamang sila. Hindi nila alam kung ano ang pinakamakabubuti para sa kanila kaya naman madali silang mahikayat ng mga nakikita nila sa paligid lalo na sa kanilang mga malalapit na kaibigan. Kung mapapadalas ang pagkinig nila sa mga ganitong uri ng musika tulad ng sa FlipTop, hindi malayo na malaki ang magiging negatibong epekto nito sa paglaki ng mga bata. Maaaring mas malala ang pwede nilang magawa sa hinaharap tulad ng paggamit ng baril sa mga sitwasyong hindi naman talaga kinakailangan, pagbastos sa mga babae, at paggamit ng mga ipinagbabawal na gamot. EZ lang tayo sa pagtangkilik sa bawat battle ng FlipTop dahil baka kapag nagtagal, mahirap ng mabago ang nakalakihan ng mga bata. 

Sanggunian:

Abrams, J. A., Belgrave, F. Z., Maxwell, M. A. (2016).  Redbones and earth mothers: The influence of rap music on African American girls’ perceptions of skin color. Psychology of Music, 44(6), 1488-1499. 

http://www.philstar.com/young-star/601869/rhyme-and-lots-reason-fliptop

Jackson, L. A., Johnson, J. D., & Gatto, L. (1995). Violent Attitudes and Deferred Academic Aspirations: Deleterious Effects of Exposure to Rap Music. BASIC AND APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, 16(1-2), 27-41. 

[visualpopcorn-blog]

Transformers: The Soap Opera (by Lexee Carlota)

I can’t be the only one who has noticed this; I’m sure you have too: the TVs these days make things look weird. High definition? Oh, definitely—that picture quality is to die for. However, it might surprise tech companies to hear this (maybe not so much you), but a wide complaint about the latest TVs is that they seem to render movies unnaturally smooth, taking away from their ‘cinematic’ quality.

If you ever grew up watching General Hospital or any other daytime soaps, you know this phenomenon well: they call it the “Soap Opera Effect.”

For those who don’t know it, the Soap Opera Effect is the characteristic visual quality that some shows have that make it obvious that it was shot on a set, just like the video above. To a layman, it is what sets a telenovela apart from a feature film. But what exactly yields this?

The answer is actually quite simple: it comes down to a difference in frame rate. Frame rate is the number of frames, or still shots, that are shown in a duration of one second in a video (which is why the unit of measurement is ‘frames per second’). The standard for movies is 24fps, while the standard for soap operas is 30fps. That is why soap operas look smoother—there are more still shots per second.

So why does this difference exist? Getting technical about it, televisions actually don’t display in terms of frames per second, but in terms of fields—60 fields per second, to be specific. Now, a television displays two fields simultaneously, and that 60 fields actually translates quite nicely into 30 frames per second. Recall that soap operas are made specifically for television, and so are produced at the optimal frame rate for it—30fps. To say the least, movies are not made for television.

When we watch a movie, we expect it to have the standard 24fps. This is what a movie looks like to us. But if TVs are built to show us 30fps, how come our movies look even faster and smoother when it has a lower (i.e. slower) frame rate?!

The translation of a 24fps movie on a screen built for 30fps has always been a bit of an art rather than a science. But first, it is necessary we understand where the seemingly random number of 30fps came from—movies came first before TV, after all, so why didn’t they just adopt the movie standard to the TV?

It actually has to do with what I mentioned earlier about fields. Thirty frames per second is a frame rate derived from the fact that the first TVs could display 60 fields. Is this a random number? No, this number was adapted to match with the 60Hz refresh rate of TVs in the past. (Please feel free to pause at this point to scratch your head in confusion.)

Now, what exactly does 60Hz have ANYTHING to do with this?! It seems really far from me answering why your new TV is doing weird stuff to your movies, right? Not really! A TV’s refresh rate refers to how many times in a second the panel (in this case, the monitor) can refresh itself and display new images, i.e. new frames. In other words, it is the maximum number of unique frames it can display in a second.

In the past, this number was stuck at 60Hz, which is why the optimal frame rate was 30fps—this was the highest it could go without sacrificing quality. It was a technological limitation that we adapted to, so to speak, but one that we have gotten over already. Televisions these days are now being produced with much higher refresh rates, double or even triple that of those in the past. A higher refresh rate means that the panel can show more new images per second. In short, your TV’s “refractory period” is even shorter than before! But that doesn’t make sense, right? Just because TVs can refresh even faster than before doesn’t mean your movie has magically grown more frames, right? Twenty-four frames is still twenty-four frames, no matter at what speed it’s played at.

Well, this is where technology has stepped in again. While it is true that your movie file hasn’t magically gotten bigger or has grown more frames, your TV now is capable of more than just displaying the information fed to it. In a process that might be creepy for some and incredibly cool for others, your TV now has the ability to take the information it’s given, and fill in the blanks—essentially creating more frames between the 24 already existing ones per second of your movie, rendering the interval between frames shorter. Visually, what this means is that your movie looks even smoother, maybe (probably) even smoother than your 30fps soap operas. This process is called motion interpolation.

So we’ve solved the mystery of why your TV makes things look weird! Thankfully, motion interpolation is a feature on your TV that you can turn off. But is frame rate the only thing that makes for a good video?

It turns out that this isn’t the case! Aside from frame rate (recap: the number of still shots in one second), there is also bitrate and resolution.

Bitrate refers to how much data a video contains. If you’ve ever wondered what ‘mbps’ is a unit of measurement for, it’s for bitrate. The amount of data a video contains depends on the resolution (image quality, or number of pixels per frame) and on the degree of compression it has gone through. A video that has been heavily compressed will have a lower bitrate, which means that some elements will be discarded in order to limit the file size. A video with a high resolution can result to higher bitrate, a video with fewer compression artifacts (e.g. fuzziness), but it will have a rather large file size.

Studies have shown that higher encoding bitrates and higher resolution can lead to higher acceptability of the video among viewers, but it also varies with the size of the screen the video is being viewed on (as a smaller screen can make some compression artifacts not so noticeable), as well as the type of video being watched—for example, the amount of detail needed to watch a football game and a Korean drama are vastly different.

So, in general, what can we conclude from this? When it comes to video quality, it’s not just frame rate that we need to take into account—it’s so much more than that. It is also the amount of detail in the video (bitrate), and how much of that detail we can strip away before it becomes unwatchable (compression).

So just because your new TV can do motion interpolation doesn’t mean it’s the best TV around—in a lot of cases, it might not even be warranted. After all, Transformers wasn’t meant to look like a soap opera.

References:

Huynh-Thu,Q., & Gyanbari, M. (n.d.). Impact of jitter and jerkiness on perceived video quality. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mohammed_Ghanbari/publication/236882981_Impact_of_jitter_and_jerkiness_on_perceived_video_quality/links/0deec52d011d8828ab000000.pdf

Knoche, H., Sasse, A., & McCarthy, J. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/173162/files/EITV06-HK,%20AS,%20JDM-postFinal.pdf

Moynihan, T. (August 2014). WTF Just Happened: My New HDTV Makes Movies Look Unnaturally Smooth. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2014/08/wtf-just-happened-soap-opera-effect/

Parson, A. (n.d.). Video bitrate vs. frame rate. Retrieved from https://www.techwalla.com/articles/video-bitrate-vs-frame-rate

[visualpopcorn-blog]

REALIZATION OF ANIMATION

by Sandra Sese

“Spirited Away” is personally one of my favorite animated films because of its clean and stunning creation, emotional music, and unique storyline. It is directed by Hayao Miyazaki, and released in the year 2001. Studio Ghibli produced this film, along with many other beautiful Japanese animated movies. In this film, a girl named Chihiro enters the spirit world accidentally and meets a boy named Haku, who helps her to escape back to the real world before she is lost, both physically and mentally.

However, why is it that, even when it is an animation, even when it is made in a different country, we can still understand and appreciate the film? This can be explained by two concepts, object perception and scene perception, which help us link reality with animated representations of real-life objects and scenes (Rustin & Rustin 2012).

First, let’s talk about object perception, and we’ll do this by looking through the lens of the Gestalt theory (Goldstein & Brockmole, 2017; Wolfe et al., 2015). The Gestalt theory proposes that “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” To further explain, we are able comprehend a concept, a work of art, a scene, or a movie not by individually looking at the separate features of the scene then lumping them together in our brain, but by breathing them in as a whole. Likewise, we are able to have a better understanding of the individual parts of the scene (i.e. objects) when we first try to consider the larger context of an event.

Let us illustrate with an example: in the case of Spirited Away, we are able to realize that this green blob is actually some leaves in a bush (object perception) when we appreciate this scene as a whole. We might not be able to make sense of that when we simply notice each individual color without taking into consideration the other colors around it, and their location in relation to each other. This is because there is value added in the interaction of the elements, instead of merely summing up all the elements blindly.

Moreover, in the same picture, we can utilize two of the six principles of the Gestalt theory to make sense of animated objects, and understand what they represent in the real-world. First is the principle of Pragnanz, which states that the simplest pattern is the most likely explanation. In this case, the dark areas (light blue shape) on Chihiro’s uniform are shadows, instead of a complex explanation such as “these are actually really small aliens on her uniform, and these aliens become darker when they’re hungry and that’s why there are dark areas on the uniform.” Second is common region, which state that things bound by the same enclosure are most likely grouped together. In this case, the dark brown area on top of Chihiro’s head is bound by one region, and black mass on top of Haku’s head is bound by another separate region. Therefore, we are able to perceive the Chihiro’s and Haku’s hair, and that they are separate from each other.

Second, let’s move on to our scene perception of the movie (Goldstein & Brockmole, 2017; Wolfe et al., 2015). In the same scene, we are able to understand what’s happening by looking at the gist of the scene, or the general description of the events. Here, even if we haven’t watched the movie, we can infer (in which inferences are also valuable in scene perception) that Haku is trying to console Chihiro by giving her some rice cakes. We are able to get to this conclusion because of Haku’s outstretched hand, which seems to hold the rice cake towards Chihiro, as well as their facial expressions (to be further explained in a while).

Another helpful factor in scene perception is our scene schemas, which is defined to be our knowledge of what a particular scene usually consists of. In this case, we know that they are in a garden. This is because there are bushes and greenery around. Therefore, the green stuff at the bottom of their feet is probably grass, and brown stuff near the grass is soil.

Finally, face perception can give us clues to the totality of the scene. Here, even when animated, we can make sense of some faces, as well as details such as where the eyes are, and what emotions the eyes convey. We see Chihiro’s sad and confused expression, and Haku’s smiling face, which strengthen our inference of the gist of the scene.

To conclude, we are able to understand how animations represent reality through concepts such as object perception and scene perception. Object perception, specifically the Gestalt theory, can help us understand how we the principles of good continuation, Pragnanz, and common region are used for us to realize which “objects” in the movie represent which objects in real-life (Alawadhi, 2010; Graham, 2008). On the other hand, our perceptions of scenes in animated films, although they take more time to process, are able to help us appreciate cartoon movies (Higgins et al., 2014; Rensink, 2000). Together, these two concepts work together to aid in making us have a good visual experience of animated films.

REFERENCES:

Alawadhi, H. (2010). Form perception: An Interactive guide to the Gestalt principles (unpublished thesis). Rochester Institute of Technology. 

Goldstein, E. B., & Brockmole, J. R. (2017). Sensation and Perception. USA: Cengage Learning. 

Graham, L. (2008). Gestalt Theory in Interactive Media Design. Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences, 2(1),1-12.

Higgins, E., Leinenger, M., & Rayner, K. (2014). Eye movements when viewing advertisements. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 210.

Lahari, H. (2014). Reality Through Fantasy: Miyazaki Hayao’s “Anime” Films. The Asia-Pacific Journal, 12(39).

Rensink, R. (2000). Scene Perception. In Kazdin, A. E. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Psychology (pp. 151-155). New York: Oxford University Press.

Rustin, M., & Rustin, M. (2012). Fantasy and reality in Miyazaki’s animated world. Psychoanalysis, Culture, & Society, 17(2), 169-184.

Wolfe, J. M., Kleunder, K. R., & Levi, D. M. (2015). Sensation and Perception. USA: Sinauer Associates, Inc.

Images from:

https://entropymag.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/spirited-away-1_0.jpg

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMjMyNTU3ODk5Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNTk4NTU0NzE@._V1_CR0,59,640,360_AL_UX477_CR0,0,477,268_AL_.jpg

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/studio-ghibli/images/4/4a/Spirited_Away_%28Amerikansk_DVD%29.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140116135457

[visualpopcorn-blog]

3-Di wow!

by Ella Eleazar

Hey there movie junkie! (Oh, I’m just assuming you are, since you have reached this site.) You might actually think that this is a site for movie reviews or such, well, it can be, but consider it as a more scientific one though, ‘cause I’ll be explaining some phenomena happening in your eyes and brains while watching movies or videos, particularly the 3-D ones!

Consider your favorite 3-D movie, animated or not, and just ponder about how realistic the characters, scenes, and other objects have appeared in that particular movie. Isn’t it fascinating and satisfactory? How we felt more affected with the story and connected to the characters because we perceive them as true-to-life and more concrete? Actually, there has been a study where in the researchers investigated the effect of 3D on attention, emotion, and satisfaction of the viewers. It was amazing that they concluded that watching in 3-D or having to perceive a movie realistically really predicts satisfaction of us viewers. And guess what, we also tend to be more focused and less distracted when we watch these 3-D films! (Rooney & Hennessy, 2013) I guess we really wanted to get the value of what we paid for (ha!) because you know, 3-D movies are waaaay more expensive! I have actually been in to 3-D movie houses only a handful of times.

But now that we know about where we should spend our money, a.k.a. go to 3-D rather than 2-D movie houses, we might wanna know how we are being fooled by these movie houses! (haha cause y’know, it’s all in the eyes and brains) I have been thinking about this since I watched my very first 3-D film, which was Frozen. Oh what a joy watching some sledding or ice skating stuff happening over there. I felt like I was actually riding the sledge!

How were we able to perceive such objects and scenes as something realistic? After some researching and reading, I’ve found out that there’s this thing called “binocular depth information” and it’s the one responsible for us having stereoscopic vision (3D-image) or when two pictures or video frames of the same object or scene are taken from slightly different angles, which creates this impression that it is real or having depth. (Goldstein, 2013) From the word itself “binocular”, it means that it involves both of our eyes to have this kind of information sent to our brain because images formed in our left and right eyes are different. This horizontal difference in the images is called the “binocular disparity”. (Ogawa, Bordier & Macaluso, 2013) These images have their corresponding positions in our retinas. These images lie on different points in the retina according to their position in real-life setting. And to be able to perceive something as having a depth or something real, images formed in the left eye and images formed in the right eye should be superimposed or be on top of each other, slightly but equally displaced from each other. (Goldstein, 2013)

Just imagine seeing Olaf the snowman peeking somewhere on the right side of the screen when you close your left eye, but when you close your right eye, you don’t see him anymore, these images of your left and right eyes are taken singly and then put together on top of each other but with a slight displacement, forms the 3-D image. In Perception Psychology, they study these phenomena even more under the topic called Depth Perception. It must be really interesting especially when you study your favorite movie!

Researching on stuff like these really makes my mind blown sometimes. There have been a lot of innovations in the field of 3-D movies. For example, Rialto in Enchanted Kingdom lets you watch 3D movies while sitting on a chair that moves according to the actions in the film! Real life odors, temperature, and other factors are being manipulated in accordance to the movie! Sometimes they spray out water too! You guys should try it some time! Oh the technology these days!

*dab*

References:

Goldstein, E. B. (2013). Sensation and Perception (9th ed.). Belmont,Canada : Wadsworth /CENGAGE Learning.

Ogawa, A., Bordier, C., & Macaluso, E. (2013). Audio-Visual Perception of 3D Cinematography: An fMRI Study Using Condition-Based and Computation-Based Analyses. PLoS ONE,8(10). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0076003

Rooney, B., & Hennessy, E. (2013). Actually in the Cinema: A Field Study Comparing Real 3D and 2D Movie Patrons' Attention, Emotion, and Film Satisfaction. Media Psychology,16(4), 441-460. doi:10.1080/15213269.2013.838905

[visualpopcorn-blog]

Hanggang silay ka lang ba? -Christian Castillo

Sabi nila, sa Jollibee “bida ang saya”. Pero pagkatapos kong mapanood ang isang episode ng Kwentong Jollibee Valentine Series na may pamagat na “Vow”, parang mas bagay kung ang tagline na lang nila ay “bida ang sawi”. Noong unang beses na makita ng lalaki ‘yung babae habang nasa harap sila ng cashier, naramdaman niya na agad na she’s the one. Kung icucut agad sa eksenang ito, hindi natin lubos na maiintindihan ang tunay niyang naramdaman sa pagkakataong ito. Pero kung itutuloy-tuloy natin ang mga susunod na kaganapan, makikita natin kung ano ang kaniyang mga ginawang pagsisikap para sa napakaspecial na babaeng ito.

Marahil ang pinakamasakit na bahagi ng video ay noong naglalakad na ang babae bilang bride mula sa pinto ng simbahan papunta sa harap. Sa bawat hakbang na kaniyang ginagawa ay unti-unti niyang nalalagpasan ang mga bisitang nakatayo na nanonood sa kaniyang paglakad pati na rin ang mga bulaklak na nagsisilbing dekorasyon sa magkabilang panig ng aisle. Kahit hindi gumagalaw ang mga bisita at ang mga bulaklak, magmumukha itong gumagalaw para sa babae sapagkat nilalagpasan niya ang mga ito. Marahil mapapansin niya rin na ang mga bisitang nasa likuran ay mas mabilis ang kanilang paggalaw o pagpunta sa likod kumpara sa mga taong malapit sa lalaki sa harapan. Noong kapapasok pa lamang ng babae sa pintuan ng simbahan, maaaring makita niya na parang nag-aabot ang mga upuan lalo na sa pinakaharap. Subalit kapag natapos na niya ang paglakad, maiisip niyang hindi naman pala talaga nag-iba ang distansiya sa pagitan ng mga mahahabang upuan. Mula likod hanggang harap ay pare-pareho lamang ang espasyo ng mga ito. Noong naghakarap na ang babae at ang best friend nito, ‘di ko napigilang lumuha sapagkat ang bigat talaga ng pakiramdam na hindi sila ang nagkatuluyan.

Sa pangalawang episode naman ng Kwentong Jollibee Valentine Series na may pamagat na “Crush”, mas naging malalim ang pagpapakahulugan ko sa konsepto ng pag-ibig. Sa tuwing tayo ay oorder ng yum burger sa Jollibee, ang kadalasang pumapasok sa ating isip ay ang puting balot nito na may nakaprint na “YUM” pati na rin ang pagiging bilog nito na may nakakagutom na amoy. Subalit sa episode na nabanggit, nagbago ang tingin natin sa yum burger. Ngayon, mas tumatatak na sa atin na hindi lamang ito isang bagay na nagpapabusog sa ating tiyan. Ipinakita sa video na ginamit ng aktor ang yum burger upang mapasaya ang kaniyang nagugustuhang kaeskwela. Mapasaya hindi sa lamang sa paraang mabubusog siya kundi mapagdidikitan ng maiikli ngunit matatamis na mga mensahe nagpapasaya sa babae. Ayon sa isang sikolohista na si James Gibson (1979), tinatawag na affordances ang mga impormasyong tumutulong sa atin upang malaman natin kung para saan ba ang isang bagay. Ngayong nabago na ang pagtingin natin sa gamit ng yum burger, maaaring mas mapapabili na tayo nito lalo na kung tayo ay may gustong pagbigyan.

Bagamat naging maganda ang pagtatapos ng ikalawang episode, nabiyak ulit ang aking puso sa ikatlo at huling episode na may pamagat na “Date”. Nagsimula ang video sa isang eksena na kung saan kausap ng isang batang lalaki ang kaniyang ama sa telepono. Dinidikta ng ama ang mga dapat gawin ng kaniyang anak sa mismong gabi ng Araw ng mga Puso. Unang-unang ginawa ng bata ay kumuha sya ng mga pulang rosas at saka niya pinitas ang mga petal nito upang ikalat sa sahig papunta sa pintuan ng mismong kwarto kung saan magdadate ang anak at nanay. Kung ating titignan, simple lamang ang mismong pagkuha, pagpitas, at pagkalat sa mga rosas. Subalit kung susuriin natin kung paano ito pinoproseso ng ating utak, kasingkabuluhan ito ng pagmamahalan ng mag-asawa sa video. Sa ventral stream dumadaloy ang mga impormasyon na kailangan ng bata upang maisip niya na rosas ang nakapataong sa taas ng mesa samantalang sa dorsal stream naman dumadaloy ang mga detalye na kailangan niya upang maabot ang rosas sa kasalukuyang lokasyon nito. (Goodale et al., 1994, Goodale and Milner, 1992, Milner and Goodale, 2008) Kumplikado diba? Ganyan din talaga ang pagmamahal. Akala mo simple lang pero sadyang nakapabigat pala nito.

Kung mahal mo talaga ang isang tao, hindi ka lamang puro silay. Gagawa at gagawa ka ng paraan upang maipaalam mo sa kaniya kung gaano siya kahalaga sa’yo, kung gaano mo siya kamahal. Kailangan mong sumugal sa buhay. Hindi ka maaaring maging sigurado sa lahat ng pagkakataon. Maaaring sa huli, kayo talaga ang magkatuluyan. Dapat handa ka ring masaktan dahil maaaring mahalin ka rin niya pero bilang kaibigan lamang.  

References:

Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston:

Houghton Mifflin.  

Goodale M.A., Meenan J.P., Bülthoff H.H., Nicolle D.A., Murphy K.J., Racicot C.I. Separate neural pathways for the visual analysis of object shape in perception and prehension. Curr. Biol. 1994;4:604–610.

Goodale M.A., Milner A.D. Seperate visual pathways for perception and action. Trends Neurosci. 1992;15:20–25.

Milner A.D., Goodale M.A. Two visual systems re-viewed. Neuropsychologia. 2008;46:774–785.

[visualpopcorn-blog]

Video for “Color in Movies by Danicca Pineda” 

[visualpopcorn-blog]

In this Kaleidoscope World (Color in Movies) by Danicca Pineda

The psychology of color, color theory and color perception are some of the interesting and subtle fields of study that those in the movie industry consider and apply in film making. Thus, film makers take into account the usage and control of color and its elements to tell their story, enhance and manipulate the moods and atmosphere of scenes, bring to life their vision and create a visual masterpiece.

For those of us who are fortunate enough to perceive color, it is pretty difficult to try to explain and define what exactly we see and how we see these colors; and at the same time, it is also pretty easy for us to take for granted our capacity to do so. Color is defined as the “property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way the object reflects or emits light” (Goldstein, 2017). Physiologically, how we perceive color is due to how our retinas reflect and photoreceptors process the different wavelengths of light (found in the visible spectrum) in our environment (Brunick, Cutting, 2014; Goldstein, 2017).

To provide a brief history of the use and evolution of color in the movie industry, I decided to share the history of animation itself, because the use of color is central to its development.

This started with the traditional or cel animation - wherein there is a “meticulously painted background layer with transparent celluloid (cel) layer containing the foreground information” - so the background layer is created first and then followed by the different cel layers of the succeeding foreground images. It should also be noted how meticulous, and time-and-energy consuming the tasks of this type of animation are because all layers must be in proper order and created in a way that the colors will appear natural and layers harmonized and integrated. This corresponds to Disney’s signature “watercolor effect” of background layers in the beginning of the era of animation (Brunick, Cutting, 2014).

After a few decades, with the advance of technology, computers were then involved in animation, which greatly aided in color theory in these films. Aside from getting the job done faster and more precise color application, “computer-based coloring was particularly valuble because it generated more freedom to alter independent components of an image” (Brunick, Cutting, 2014).  

Before delving into the use of color in films, I just want to mention the elements or variables of color, which are primarily utilized in the movie making industry. Namely, these are hue, saturation and luminance or value (perceived luminance) (Brunick, Cutting 2014; Bond, 2015; Wei, Dimitrova, Chang, 2004). Hue is described as the color we generally name (Brunick, Cutting, 2014; Bond, 2015). Technically speaking, however, it is “when some wavelengths are reflected more than others (e.g. blue, green and red)” (Goldstein, 2017). Hues are also known as chromatic colors (Goldstein, 2017). Saturation then refers to the intensity or potency of a color - how vibrant or faded it is by adding or subtracting white (Brunick, Cutting, 2014; Bond, 2015; Goldstein, 2017). Lastly, luminance is how light or dark a color is by how much black is found in it (Brunick, Cutting, 2014).

So how can color tell a story?

At the beginning, color was mostly used to showcase dreamlike scenes or quality - to create scenes that were distant from our reality. However through time, color was used not only for aesthetic and cinematography purposes but to create new methods of story telling, and also for mood-setting. So first, colors were used in various means in order to present different aspects of the film such as - tinting scenes to discriminate different eras, point of views, perspectives, time and place, inner workings of characters and etc.

Arguably however, at present color is now mostly used to maintain mood consistency, balance and even discordance through the backgrounds, lighting and costumes or clothing of the characters. Humans have psychological reactions to different colors, so these were utilized and adjusted (the hue, saturation and value) to set the mood and atmosphere of scenes and evoke certain emotions from the viewers (Bond, 2015; Wei, Dimitrova, Chang, 2004).

Found in the video below (separate post or could be found here) are some of famous scenes from various movies displaying a range of emotions using the same and also different colors.  

In Lewis Bond’s video essay on color perception in movies (2015), he also discussed the two main purposes of color in movies: associative and transitional. So first, a single color (through repetition or reoccurrence) is used to associate a certain character (and his/her relationships), subject, idea, or theme of the movie. An example is how a character only wears clothes of this particular color, or how a certain color is present whenever the subject is present (e.g. red for sex or death). It was noted also that associative colors do not necessarily adhere to conventional or obvious mood-color associations, so viewers have to watch out for them.

The second purpose then is transitional, wherein a changing color/hue or a change in saturation or luminance corresponds to a change or shift in an aspect of the film - be it the character’s attitudes, morals, state of mind, the film’s setting, location, time and etc. These particular transitions could be gradual or instantaneous and are mainly taken from various color schemes (e.g. complementary colors, primary colors, color palettes) or from color wheels.

Furthermore, providing an insight on how colors and their elements could be used differently is Brunick and Cutting’s article (2014), which used the color variables stated above - saturation, luminance and hue, to contrast animated and child-friendly films versus realistic, live-action and adult-directed films.

In terms of saturation, children’s films generally had greater saturation, which most likely reflected how children preferred bright colors and seem to capture and hold their attention more. Although, more saturated colors were used in older films which used cel animation as compared to computer-generated animation. In terms of live-action films, they are dramatically less saturated, however in terms of its evolution from older movies there is an increase in saturation over time (Brunick, Cutting, 2014).

As for luminance, live action films tend to decrease in luminance, so films tend to have a more darker tone, mood and atmosphere, which parallel also how plot lines, character and story development have grown through time. This trend also has implications in “directing eye-gaze and attention of the viewers during films.” On the other hand, animated films are definitely brighter, however it has maintained a “steady level of brightness independent of year, target age of ilm or what type of animation (cel or computer) was used” (Brunick, Cutting, 2014).

Finally, for hue it was interesting to find out that the use of hue in films were similar regardless of the whether it was animated or created with live actors, or was child-friendly or more adult audiences. Specifically, it was mentioned that the hues associated to protagonists, “unquestionably positive and morally-right characters” aka the good guys were blue or green, while the antagonists contained hues that were red and yellow (Brunick, Cutting, 2014).  

In conclusion, color is truly the “visual counterpoint between imagery and sound…and the groundwork of [the film’s] emotional state” (Lewis, 2015). When you become more conscious of the colors used in a film - when you become aware of the color subject, and the difference in hues, saturation and value/luminance, essentially you can already figure out the moods and character and story development of a film; but most importantly you will be able to truly appreciate the ingenuity, hard work and masterpiece presented to you through this piece of cinematic art, and feel and watch the movie as how it was intended to be.

References:

Bond, Lewis. (2015, July 29). Colour in Storytelling [ Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXgFcNUWqX0

Brunick, K. L. & Cutting, J. E. (2014). Coloring the animated world: Exploring human color perception and preference through the animated film. In P. Taberham & T. Nanicelli (eds.) Cognitive media theory (pp. 124-138), New York: Routledge.

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