Final 1

This topic submitted by Marissa Grier, Adam Haigh, Susie Quilligan, Aaron Schielke (adamhaigh@hotmail.com) at 12:29 am on 10/31/01. Additions were last made on Friday, April 19, 2002. Section: Myers

In our experiment, we will study the physiological affects of sound in terrorists and other attacks on individuals. We will monitor the heart rate of a total of about 60 people as they watch a 12 to 18 minute footage of different attacks. First a 2 to 3 minute clip will play with no sound, and then the next clip will play with a form of sound such as music, speech, or action sounds. We will alternate the different sounds to make sure that the physiological affects are not due to fatigue.

Hypothesis:
Our hypothesis is that if we test numerous amounts of people using our 12 to 18
minute clip of terrorist attacks, and then we will find a significant variance in the amount of stress if the sound is present then when the sound is not. To find this we will measure the heart rate of each individual. According to out predictions, when the sound is present the heart rate will go through a noticeable change. The different types of sounds will help to determine which audio affects the physiological signs of stress the most. To do this, we will use 3 different clips, each one varying where the sound is located in each clip. We will show each video a total of 20 times to different participants. This will allow us to gain a general perspective of which sound affects the signs of physical stress the most. The clips will be the same in length to reduce variability and each clip with no sound will be followed by the same exact clip, but with sound. This also allows variability to be reduced.

Introduction:
In developing our methods, we referred to previous studies that examined the physiological reactions of viewers to filmed violence.
Shintaro and Fujio (1998) studied the effects of filmed violence on viewer’s affect, thoughts, and physiological reactions. Eighty normal male and female Japanese adults (aged 18-25 years old) viewed 1 of 4 violent films with rated levels of violence and entertainment. Immediately afterwards, the subjects described their thoughts during film viewing, and they rated their affective reactions towards the film. Heart rate and eye-blink rate were measured continuously before, during, and after film viewing. This study is relevant to our experiment in a few areas. First, we will be measuring the physiological effects that viewed violence has on an individual. Both this study and our experiment will be dealing with subjects in the same age range. Finally, we will draw from Shintaro and Fujio’s method of measuring of heart rate, as the main physiological factor.
In her study, Titus (1999) had subjects fill out a questionnaire assessing various personal traits and their beliefs about aggression. All subjects then viewed three film clips: a provocation clip, a violent clip, and a “justified” violent clip. After each clip, the subjects filled out a questionnaire asking them to rate specific emotional reactions (e.g., anger, anxiety, amusement). Physiological responses (heart rate, skin conductance, and finger temperature) and facial expressions were recorded throughout the film viewing. After viewing the clips, subjects filled out a questionnaire assessing their exposure to violence both in real life and in the media. Subjects were then classified as having high or low ‘anxious arousal’ in response to the violent films. The results of this study are important to our experiment in seeing what the subjects themselves believe about their exposure to violence in the media in real life. Just as Titus observed and classified the subjects as having high or low ‘anxious arousal’, we will also be observing and classifying subject’s arousal, (which is based upon the degree of increase in heart rate), as they view each of the segments that compose the entire video.
Koukounas and McCabe (2001) assessed gender differences in emotional responses to violent film. Both subjective emotional response and eye blink startle magnitude were assessed while twenty men (mean age being 22.7 years) and twenty women (mean age 30.1 years) viewed a series of five violent film segments and five nature scenes. The subjects exhibited higher levels of curiosity, anxiety, disgust, and anger, and lower levels of positive emotion and boredom, in response to the violent film segments in comparison with the nature material. Startle response was magnified during the violent film segments, indicating an aversive response. Men experiencing greater positive feelings, entertainment, and curiosity in relation to the violent film demonstrated evidence that men and woman responded to violence differently, whereas women reported more disgust, boredom, and anger, and experienced greater startle in relation to the violent scenes portrayed in the film. Our experiment will also look for a difference in the subjects’ responses to two different types of video clips (no sound versus sound). This will be similar to how this study observed subjects’ responses to violent scenes versus nature scenes. Also, we may look to this study in drawing conclusions about the different effects that it has on men versus women.
Reeves, Lang, Kim, and Tatar (1999) assessed viewer’s attention and arousal in response to three different size screens (56-inch, 13-inch, and 2-inch picture heights). Viewers responded to video images from television and film that displayed different emotions. A total of sixty video segments were shown. Attention was measured by heart rate deceleration in response to the onset of pictures, and arousal was measured by skin conductance during aggregated during viewing. This study made us aware of the effect that the screen size has on one’s response to the content that they are viewing. We will be sure to take the size of the screen being used into consideration, and make sure that it is consistent in all of the tests.

Methods:
We plan to compile a 12 to 15-minute movie, which will be divided into 2 to 3-minute sections. There will be 3 videos; each will be shown to a third of the sampled population. In these videos there will be three clips each 2 to 3-minutes long, each one will be repeated, and will stay in the same order for all 3 tapes. The clips will be accompanied by segments of silence and sound. Here is a table, which shows how the audio and video interact.

Video Clip 1 Clip 2 Clip 3
A Silence Sound 1 Silence Sound 2 Silence Sound 3
B Silence Sound 2 Silence Sound 3 Silence Sound 1
C Silence Sound 3 Silence Sound 1 Silence Sound 2

These sounds will be unrelated to the video and will be in different times during the videos. We plan to test the effects of each of these audio accompaniments on the physical manifestations of stress, namely breath-rate and heart rate. One concern, which we had, was that it might be the content of the video that was causing stress and not the audio. We hope to find that the addition of audio to the silent video will increase the stress upon which the subjects are placed. And that music, speech, and action sounds produce different amounts of stress for the subjects. The audio in all three of these cases for both groups sampled will not be designed to compliment the video in any way as to insure the stress we measure is due to the audio alone. We were also concerned with subjects who may have seen the terrorist acts that we will show before; they may therefore have acquired a kind of emotional fatigue associated with these images, which could render our test invalid. Therefore we are planning to use a range of footage from not only these most recent terrorist acts but also ones from around the world and throughout the century.

Results:
Our results will compare the stress levels of audio as opposed to visual effects on the viewer. We will collate our information into charts: frequency diagrams (bar charts) with results of hopefully normal distribution. We also could possibly use scatter-grams to determine a correlation of coefficient in order to show where the majority of results lay. The correlation will visually express the basic trend in data between the levels of each individual’s stress response. These charts will record the stress-level response according to several categories (our variables): heart rate, blinking, and breath-rate. The charts will show the ranges in results between the three video clips, primarily in the average differences in heartbeat and pulse. We will compile three solid averages between the clips and use those results as a basis for extracting other data such as the difference in the results between male/female and age groups.
We can incorporate the P-value into our results because there definitely will be that probability that some of the statistical results could be explained by chance alone, especially since this correlates with a random survey study. We hope the p-value will prove significant. We also hope to see a variance between the visual traumas as opposed to the audio so that we can gain results that are conclusive to our hypothesis. The higher variance between the recorded stress levels of audio vs. visual will prove stronger accuracy.

References:
Emotional responses to filmed violence and the eye blink startle response: A preliminary investigation. Koukounas, Eric; McCabe, Marita P. "Journal of Interpersonal Violence" Vol 16(5) 2001 p.476-488 Saga Publications Inc, US.

The effects of media violence and aggression: Focus on the role of anger evoked by provocation. Yukawa, Shintaro; Endo, Kimihisa; Yoshida, Fujio. "Japanese Journal of Psychology" Vol 72(1) 2001 p.1-9 Japanese Psychological Assn., Japan.

The effect of media violence on aggression: Is aggressive behavior meditated by aggressive cognitions and emotions?. Yukawa, Shintaro; Yoshida, Fujio. Japanese Journal of Psychology" Vol 70 (2) 1999 p.94-103 Japanese Psychological Assn., Japan.

The effects of media violence on affective, cognitive, and physiological reactions of viewers. Yukawa, Shintaro; Yoshida, Fujio. "Japanese Journal of Psychology" Vol 69(2) 1998 p.89-96 Japanese Psychological Assn., Japan.

The effects of screen size and message content on attention and arousal. Reeves, Byron; Lang, Annie; Kim, Eun Young; Tator, Deborah. "Media Psychology" Vol 1(1) 1999 p.49-67 Lawrence Erbaum Associates, US.

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