Modality Influences Perceived Film Suspense But Not Time Perception

Abstract

The present preregistered study tested whether perceived suspense in horror films is responsible for the feeling of time flying. Because suspense, the feeling of excitement, narrows the attentional focus and time perception also relies on attentional processes, suspenseful film watching might eventually influence the perception of time. We investigated the effects of perceived suspense in horror film excerpts and film modality (visual vs. audiovisual) on time perception by using a prospective time reproduction paradigm. Participants watched short film clips from classic horror films in which a red cross was overlaid for a short period of time. Participants reproduced the duration of the red cross and rated their perceived level of suspense for each film clip. Results showed that audiovisual film clips led to higher suspense ratings. However, the expected interaction of film modality and perceived suspense level on time perception performance, higher levels of suspense leading to shorter temporal reproductions for audiovisual than visual clips, was not significant. Finally, an exploratory analysis showed that the presence of auditory information influenced the perceived suspense more for endogenous suspenseful film clips (i.e., film clips with ambiguous visual information) than for exogenous suspenseful film clips (i.e., film clips with nonambiguous visual information). We discuss the findings in light of current theories of emotion, time perception, and film.