The effects of slow motion on viewers’ emotional and

cognitive processing

This study examined the effects of Slow Motion on the physiological, emotional,

and cognitive responses of college participants while watching negative and positive

television messages. Results indicate that the presence of slow motion does not affect the

orienting responses. It was also reported that it takes time for slow motion to increase

cognitive efforts in viewers, slow motion affects the experience of negative emotions

rather than positive emotions, and slow motion has little, if any, affect on arousal

response in viewers. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.
 Slow Motion 2

Introduction
This study attempts to examine how slow motion and emotional content interact
to influence viewers’ attention, memory, and attitudes. Slow motion is a structural feature
of TV mediated messages, which is frequently used by program directors. It is a
conventional belief that slow motion will amplify and exaggerate emotional elements of a
scene (Millerson, 1961; Zettl, 1976; Armer, 1986). Even though TV directors exploit
slow motion almost habitually, its effects on viewers’ mental processes have received
little study.
In recent decades, the effects of structural features in TV production have
received considerable attention. These structural features include cuts, edits, movement,
sound, graphics and tabloid packaging (Fox et al, 2002; Geiger & Reeves, 1993; Grabe,
Zhou, Lang, & Bolls, 2000; Lang, Bolls, Potter, & Kawahara 1999; Reeves et al., 1985;
Thorson & Lang, 1992). It has been suggested that these features play important roles in
attracting and maintaining viewers’ attention. The interaction between structural features
(e.g. pacing) and some attributes of content (e.g. emotion) has also been examined (Lang,
1990; Lang et al., 2000).
The limited capacity theory (Lang, 2000) has provided major theoretical
background for much of the research on structural features. The theory posits that the
capacity of mental processing is limited. In the theory, the orienting response (OR) is one
mechanism through which viewers automatically allocate processing resources. The OR
is one way in which the message guides the selection of information for further
processing. One reason to use a structural feature might be to elicit the momentary
allocation of processing resources. However, all structural features do not elicit ORs.
This study is designed to determine whether slow motion elicits an OR and to explore
how slow motion affects other mental processes such as encoding.
This study also attempts to examine how slow motion interacts with emotional
experience. A dimensional approach to emotion is employed in this study. Specifically,
this study conceptualizes emotion as the result of two underlying motivational systems:
the appetitive (or approach) system and the aversive (or avoidance) system. These two
systems can be activated separately (Cacioppo & Berntson, 1994; Cacioppo & Gardner,
 Slow Motion 3

1999). Thus, slow motion could have different effects on the aversive and appetitive
systems. This study explores these possibilities
The Limited-Capacity Model
The limited capacity approach suggests that the human capacity available for
information processing at any one time is limited (Geiger & Newhagen 1993; Lang,
2000). A. Lang (2000) has proposed a data based limited capacity model as a basic tool
for the further research of the mental processing of mediated messages (Lang, 2000;
Lang, Borese, Wise, & David, 2002; Potter, 2000).
According to the limited capacity model (LCM), information processing is
composed of at least three subprocesses and two mechanisms. The three subprocesses are
encoding, storage, and retrieval. The mental processing of TV viewing involves the
simultaneous and continuous activation of these subprocesses. The required metal
resources are allocated to the three subprocesses. However, total mental resources are
limited, which means the subprocesses are related and circumscribe each other. The
model proposes separate measurements for each subprocess. Specifically, recognition
indexes encoding, cued recall measures storage, and free recall operationalizes retrieval.
In this model, the allocation of mental resources occurs through automatic and controlled
processes. Viewers control some aspects of the allocation of processing resources
according to their willingness to attend to and remember a message. Here, viewers’
motivation, intention, and interest come into play on the distribution of the resources.
This controlled (voluntary) allocation of processing resources occurs over a relatively
long-term period (e.g. minutes or hours).
A televised message can also exert control over the automatic allocation of
processing resources by eliciting orienting responses in viewers. Some structural and
content features have been shown to evoke the orienting response, resulting in the
automatic allocation of mental resources to encoding. If the mental resources are
sufficiently available, the three subporcesses such as encoding, storage, and retrieval will
be performed fully. However, when insufficient resources are available, some aspects of
processing will be harmed. For example, if a message causes many resources to be
allocated to encoding, it may result in a shortage of resources available for storage. In
short, the model presents that medium use, such as TV viewing, is a dynamic and
 Slow Motion 4

interactive processing of the medium and the viewer within the bounds of the limited
pool of mental resources.
The Orienting Response and Effects of Structural Features
As noted previously, the OR is a mechanism in the LCM that leads the automatic
allocation of processing resources to encoding (Lang, 2000). There are two types of
stimuli which evoke ORs: signal and nonsignal stimuli (Sokolov, Spinks, Naatanen, &
Lyytinen, 2002). Nonsignal stimuli denote novel or uncertain events, which are new or
not expected in the current environment. Signal stimuli are things that the organism has
learned are important (e.g. a person’s name or the ringing of the dinner bell).
Research in the LCM indexes orienting responses with certain patterns of phasic
cardiac-response curves, while a long-term deceleration in the heart rate data is used to
index long term cognitive effort or resource allocation (Lang et al., 2002, Potter, 2000).
Two patterns of cardiac-response curves indicate orienting responses: the monophasic
pattern and the biphasic pattern (Lang, 1990; Potter, 2000). The size or amplitude of the
cardiac-response curve (i.e. a larger decrease) also indexes a larger orienting response.
Lang et al. (1993) tested if unrelated cuts elicited larger orienting response than related
cuts. Even though both cuts and edits elicited orienting responses, there was no difference
in the magnitude of the ORs.
A series of studies have revealed effects of cuts and edits on message processing
of viewers (Lang et al, 1993; Lang et al, 1999; Lang et al, 2000). In these studies, a cut
denotes a complete change from the one visual scene to another. An edit is defined as a
camera change within the same visual scene. An edit is semantically and perceptually
more related to the preceding shot than a cut. A cut was also categorized into related and
unrelated cuts in terms to its relatedness of both video and audio information (Lang et al.,
1993).
Most commonly, slow motion starts with a related cut. It is very rare that slow
motion is associated with an unrelated cut except for in some promotions. Thus, this
study will examine how the addition of slow motion interacts with related cuts. As
mentioned previously, things identified as important elicits an OR. TV directors have
used slow motion long time to indicate and emphasize a crucial moment. With the
presence of slow motion viewers may notify automatically something important is
 Slow Motion 5

happening on screen. Thus, this study predicts that slow motion segments will be
accepted as signal stimuli, and then elicit an OR in viewers. This leads to the first
hypothesis.
H1: The onset of slow motion will elicit larger orienting responses than that of
related cuts with normal speed.
The next question is whether slow motion will result in the allocation of
additional resources to a message following the time period associated with the OR. This
may depend on how slow motion influences the content of the message. More difficult
content requires that more cognitive resources be allocated in order to make sense of it as
compared to easier content (Thorson & Lang, 1992). In a study examined the effects of
graphics on the processing of news programs, college subjects showed similar patterns
for attention to the difficult and easy stories in the graphics conditions (Fox et al. 2002).
Yet, in the no graphics condition heart rate was significantly slower for the difficult
stories than for the easy stories. This presents that the addition of the graphics appears to
reduce the cognitive effort required to understand difficult stories. Thus, viewers didn’t
allocate more resources to difficult stories. Studies also have shown slower secondary
task reaction times to unrelated cuts than to related cuts (Geiger & Reeves, 1993; Lang et
al 1993). Unrelated cuts introduce more new information requiring viewers to allocate
more resources. These findings suggest that what amount of resource allocation a
message requires influence viewers’ cognitive efforts to the message.
Slow motion might make content easier to process because viewers can easily
access details of the movements. In that case, slow motion segments will require fewer
resources to process than normal speed shots. However, this story will be changed if
arousal comes in to play. Arousing content evokes automatic allocation of processing
resources in viewers to storage and encoding (Lang et al., 1999). This will result in
slower heart rates in viewers. If the addition of slow motion increases arousing level of a
message, viewers will show slower heart rates. This makes a prediction for heart rate
response difficult. This study asks a question about the effect of slow motion on heart rate
response.
RQ1: How will the addition of slow motion change heart rates in viewers during
the slowed segments?
 Slow Motion 6

Effects of Slow Motion on Arousal

Even though many researchers have studied emotion, the conceptualization of it is
not consistent through research. Two approaches in this area are prevalent in defining and
categorizing emotion. One is to view emotion as a system of discrete categories
(Plutchik, 1962). Research in this approach is to search primary emotional states such as
anger, fear, and sadness and to study the results of various combinations of those discrete
states. The other is to examine the underlying dimensions in generating emotions
(Bradley, 1994; P.J. Lang, 1984; P.J. Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1990). In the
dimensional approach, emotional experience is composed of primarily two motivational
factors of directions (i.e., towards or away) and intensity (i.e., calm or aroused). The
motivational dimensions of direction and intensity are explored by valence, which
denotes an organism’s disposition to approach (positive) or avoid (negative), and arousal,
which indicates an organism’s responses with varying degrees of activation (Bradley,
2000; P.J. Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1990). Positive emotion is usually generated in the
context of approaching a desired goal (e.g. food, mating). Negative emotion facilitates the
withdrawal of an organism from aversive sources (e.g. fearful animal).
The relative importance of valence and arousal has been widely argued in
research on mediated messages. Studies have reported conflicting results on the effects of
positive and negative messages on viewer’s information processing (Lang, 1991;
Newhagen & Reeves, 1992; Lang, Dhillon & Dong, 1995; Bolls, Lang & Potter, 2000).
However, most studies agree that arousing messages are recognized and remembered
better than calm messages (Bradley, Greenwald, Petry & Lang, 1992; Grabe et al., 2000;
Lang et al., 1999).
Research in communication has investigated the effects of certain content and
structural features on viewers’ emotional and cognitive responses using the dimensional
theory (Lang, 1990; Lang & Friestad, 1993). Previous research has shown that many
structural features of media messages increase the self-reported or physiological arousal
in viewers including fast pacing (Lang et al., 2000), motion (Detenber, Simons, &
Bennett, 1998), and text graphics (Fox et al, in press). Grabe, Lang, & Zhao (2003)
showed that tabloid packaging increased both self-reported and physiological arousal.
Slow motion was one of the packaging structural features. Barnet and Grabe (2000)
 Slow Motion 7

examined the effects of slow motion on viewers’ evaluation of television news stories.
Using negative stories, they found that the slow motion version elicited a more aroused
feeling from viewers than the standard speed version using self-reported measure. Thus:
H2: During slow motion, self-reported and physiological arousal will increase.
Interaction between Slow Motion and Message Valence
If positive and negative motivational systems are separable, as noted earlier, how
differently are they activated? For this question, two concepts, negativity bias and
positivity offset, were developed (Cacioppo & Gardner, 1999). Positivity offset means
that an organism shows a weak approach tendency when no information is provided
about the environment. Negativity bias means that physical and mental activations
responding to negative stimuli increase more sharply than those to positive events.
Many research studies have found the considerable influence of negativity bias in
the processing of mental and behavioral systems. In a series of event related potentials
(ERPs) studies, it was found that negative stimuli received greater activity processing
than neutral and positive ones. Ito, Larson, Smith, and Cacciopo (1998) examined the
different activation of positive and neg ative substrates at the stage of categorization
using ERPs. An evaluation can be expressed and measured at two stages: evaluative
categorization and response output. ERPs are more sensitive to the evaluative
categorization than the output stage. To exclude the influence of arousal, the arousal
ratings for positive and negative stimuli were controlled to be equally extreme. They
found that, compared to neutral stimuli, both negative and positive stimuli elicited larger
amplitude late positive brain potentials during the evaluative categorization. It was also
found that negative stimuli elicited larger amplitude late positive brain potentials than
positive ones.
In another ERP study (Ito and Caccippo, 2000), an implicit negativity bias was
demonstrated. They assessed responses to the implicit and explicit categorization of
stimuli among evaluative (positive and negative) and non-evaluative (people and no-
people) contexts. Evaluative and non-evaluative stimuli were crossed completely to
create four blocks: positive-people, positive-no people, negative-people, and negative-no
people. In explicit conditions, participants were requested to count silently the number of
positive or negative pictures (or the number of pictures with people or without people).
 Slow Motion 8

Mean arousal ratings were equal through all four categories. One of the results was that
negative stimuli automatically received greater processing than positive stimuli. This
suggests that negative stimuli receive greater weight in overall evaluations than positive
stimuli, even when viewers are not explicitly aware of their experiences.
Contrary to the amount of evidence for negativity bias, positivity offset has not
been examined as much. There is an important study showing the activities of both. Ito,
Cacioppo and P.J. Lang (1998) examined positivity, negativity and arousal ratings of 472
slides from the International Affective Picture System. They divided the slides into two
groups – positive and negative sets. Mean arousal ratings were used as an indication of
intensity levels for each evaluative system. They found a higher intercept value of the
regression line for the set of positive slides and a steeper slope for the negative set of
slides.
It has not been examined how structural features influence viewer’s responses to
negative and positive content of mediated messages. It was noted earlier that slow motion
might amplify emotional response of the viewers. In relation to the dimension of valence,
slow motion might increase viewers’ pleasant feelings to positive content and unpleasant
feelings to negative content.
A problem testing this question is that slow motion will be added to
approximately the middle part of the message as only a portion of the whole message. In
the experiment, viewers will be asked to evaluate the whole message. It is not sure how
much a portion of change will influence the evaluation of the whole messages. An
approach in studying relative emotional processing provides a clue to the question.
Kahneman (1999) argued that the retrospective representation of an emotionally
fluctuating message would be well predicted by a function of the peak experience and the
experience recorded just before the end of the episode (i.e. the peak-end rule). In a study
by Fredricson and Kahneman (1993), subjects were exposed to aversive and pleasant film
clips that varied in duration and emotional intensity. Experimental group ranked the films
from memory; the control group was asked to make evaluations on-line. Duration didn’t
matter for viewers’ evaluation from their memory. However, there were high correlations
between global evaluations from memory and the average of Peak-End real time
evaluations. The correlations were .78 for pleasant films and .69 for unpleasant films.
 Slow Motion 9

In this study, slow motion will be added to the part of high emotional expressions such as
tearing, beating, and kissing. The addition of slow motion might increase the peak level,
influencing the evaluation of the whole message.
However, the effects of slow motion on evaluations for the (un)pleasantness of
the whole message are not still clear. It should be noted that arousal levels for each
positive and negative stimuli will be controlled to be as close to what it was before
adding slow motion. From the previous notions, this study asks:
RQ2: Will the presence of slow motion increase positive feelings of the viewers
for the positive messages?
RQ3: Will the presence of slow motion increase negative feelings of the viewers
for the negative messages?
When the presence of slow motion increases (un)pleasantness evaluations,
negative bias might occur in the responses. Slow motion might create a context of closer
distance in the Miller’s experiment. This leads into anther question.
RQ4: Will there be a content by form interaction for the extent of the increased
positivity and negativity of the viewers by adding slow motion, such that the amount of
negativity in viewers increased by adding slow motion will be larger than that of positive
experience produced by adding slow motion?
The presence of slow motion might also impact differently on arousal responses
for each positive and negative message. This study also explores the question.
RQ5: Will there be a content by form interaction for the extent of the increased
arousal level of the viewers by adding slow motion, such that the amount of arousal
response to negative messages increased by adding slow motion will be larger than that
of arousal response to positive messages produced by adding slow motion?
Effects of Slow motion on Memory retrieval
If slow motion makes content easier to understand, then slow motion will require
fewer resources to process. In addition, if adding slow motion evokes the viewers more
aroused, it will attract more resource allocation to encoding and storage processes.
Research on the relationship between arousal and memory has consistently reported that
arousing content is remembered better than calm content. Bradley, Greenwald, Petry, and
P. Lang (1992) examined the effect of valence and arousal on memory using slides
 Slow Motion 10

presenting various emotional contents. The slides were selected from the International
Affective Picture System (IAPS). The IAPS was constructed as participants from many
different cultures and places rated how they felt when viewing the pictures on separate
dimensions of emotions (Greenwald & P. Lang, 1985).
Bradley et al (1992) found that performance on immediate free recall, indexing
short-term retrieval, was better for arousing slides than for calm slides. When controlled
arousal, pleasant slides were remembered slightly better that unpleasant slides. Lang,
Dhillon, & Dong (1995) examined whether the findings of Bradley et al (1992) could be
applied to television messages. The results confirmed the previous findings. First, it was
found that the arousal dimension is more predictive variable in determining memory than
the valence dimension. Arousing TV messages were remembered better than calm
messages. They also found that when arousal was controlled, positive messages were
remembered slightly better than negative messages. From these findings, hypothesis 3
was posed:
H3: Before adding slow motion, messages rated as positive will be remembered
better than those rated as negative, when controlled arousal.
And, if slow motion evokes the viewers more aroused;
H4: Free recall will be better for video information presented during slow motion
than those for the same video information presented without slow motion.
This study asked whether adding slow motion affects pleasant and unpleasant
messages in different ways. This leads a set of hypotheses:
H5a: If the presence of slow motion results in levels of arousal responses that are not
significantly different to positive and negative messages, positive messages will be
recognized better than negative ones.
H5b: If the presence of slow motion results in levels of arousal responses that are
significantly different to positive and negative messages, the more arousing messages,
whether positive or negative, will be better recognized.
Impact of Slow Motion on Liking
Within the realm of the LCM, some studies have shown how evaluations of
mediated messages are influenced by content and structural features. In successive
studies, Grabe and colleagues have found that tabloid packaging, which includes slow
 Slow Motion 11

motion, reduces the believability of facts in news stories (Grabe et al., 2000; Grabe et al.,
2003; Barnett & Grabe, 2000). Interestingly, it was found that the tabloid packaging also
reduces the enjoyability of the news stories (Grabe et al., 2000). This provides some
implications for research on attitudes and cognitive processing of TV viewing. First,
production structural features have noticeable impact on message evaluation. Second,
structural features have different influences on different genres of messages. It should
also be noted that the evaluation will influence short or long term mental processing of
mediated messages. For example, viewers will give more attentional efforts to interesting
or favorable messages (Lang, Greenwald, Bradley, & Hamm, 1993).
rom this notion, it is worth examining how a structural feature, slow motion in
this study, will influence evaluations of the messages. This study will use messages from
entertainment programs. Yoon, Bolls, & Lang (1998) reported that fast paced
advertisements produced higher favorable attitudes to non-claim elements. This suggests
that a structural feature can enhance liking of an easy, non-informative messages. This
leads to the last hypothesis.
H6: Viewers will like the slow motion version more than the non-slow version.
Method
Design
The design for this experiment was a Slow Motion (2) X Valence (2) X Message
(3) X Order of Presentation (6) mixed factorial design. Slow motion and valence were
within subjects factors whereas order of presentation was a between subjects factor.
Slow motion had two levels, slow motion and normal speed version. Stimuli consisted of
the slow motion and normal speed versions of 12 television message clips. Valence also
had two levels: pleasant (positive) and unpleasant (negative). Among the 12 clips, half
was selected from positive content and the other half had negative content. Slow Motion
and Valence were fully crossed to create four different blocks (normal speed-positive,
normal speed-negative, slow motion-positive, and slow motion-negative).
Initially selected was 36 television message clips from the several genres of the
television program, which vary in terms of valence. The collected 36 clips were narrowed
down to twelve during a pretest. In the pretest, subjects were asked if they felt pleasant or
unpleasant and how aroused they were employing the Self Assessment Mannikin (SAM)
 Slow Motion 12

measurement (Bradley et al, 1992). Arousal level was controlled so as not to be

significantly different between positive and negative messages. Arousal level was also
controlled so as to be in the middle range of the scale.
After selection of 12 clips, the slow motion version was created by editing slow
motion into middle part of the original clips, producing another 12 messages. In the main
experiment, each participant viewed a total of 12 clips, six clips from the slow motion
version (three positive and three negative) and six from the normal speed version (three
positive and three negative). For each version, half was positive and the other half was
negative. In this design, the between variable, Order of Presentation played an important
role. By Order of Presentation, the slow and normal speed versions of the same clip was
separated, thus subjects didn’t watch the same clip with the different versions. For
instance, if a subject in the first order watched three positive normal speed messages, and
then, another subject in the second order watched the slowed version of the same three
positive messages or vice versa. Thus, Slow Motion actually was a between subject
variable. In the analysis, the three messages in each of the four blocks were merged
across the subjects and this is how slow motion was treated as a within subject variable.
The Message factor represented the first, second, and third message seen in each Slow
motion by Valence category. This design, converting between subject variable to within
subject variable by merging, has been used in previous research (Fox et al., 2002; Grabe,
Lang, & Zhao, 2003). The Order of Presentation was also to control order effects. Study
participants were randomly assigned to one of the six presentation orders.
Stimulus materials
The raw materials for the stimuli, 12 television message clips were attained from
a VHS tape library used for a content analysis study (Gantz & Schwartz, 2002). The tapes
were recorded over the period of 11 weeks from March until May in year 2000. The
channels recorded were ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, TNT, ESPN, CNN, Nickelodeon, and
MTV, totally seven markets. The researcher selected the clips with two criteria:
emotional content and inclusion of active shots. Half of messages among finally selected
twelve stimuli contained pleasant content (spring break dancing, caressing, kissing,
mother-daughter reunion, news about an swimming winner and winning cars), and half
were unpleasant content (news about fire, hurt from sky diving, fist fighting, carrying
 Slow Motion 13

dead body, earthquake, and gun fighting). In the negative fighting scenes, it was
noticeable that good people were beaten and killed by bad scoundrels. It was necessary
for the clips to include some active shots, which could be slowed down. Active shots
were defined as a range of the movements of camera and objects in a shot. For instance, a
person’s tears of happiness after meeting a lost child. The happy, facial expression
presented in a close up shot was the least movement of the range. The most active
movements were scenes such as dancing, fist fighting or cheering spectators.
The selected clips were edited to control approximate duration. The clips ranged
in length from 58 seconds to 75 seconds. The clips were also edited to be composed of
three parts; before, during and after slow motion segment. Slow motion was added to the
highly emotional parts of the messages. The duration of the slow motion segments ranged
from 16 seconds for shortest to 28 seconds for longest. Except the two extremes, other
ten messages ranged from 20 seconds to 25 seconds. In order to have slow motion over
16 seconds, the slow motion segments were composed of several camera shots. It should
be noted that the first shot of the slow motion segments were manipulated to be six
seconds at least. It was necessary in order to examine orienting responses. Drawing
cardiac response curves from the onset of any stimulus requires six seconds at the
minimum to illustrate orienting response. The detail will be discussed in the variable
section.
Adobe Premiere software was used to create slow motion, which is a nonlinear
video editing application. Slow motion was created at the level of 40 percentage of
normal speed. A major problem of adding slow motion was that it lengthened the shot
duration. The editing shouldn’t have changed each shot and overall segment length. This
was avoided by cutting a part of the shot controlling duration. This elicited another
problem. Subjects viewed more visual information in normal speed versions. The
researcher tried to shun this problem as much as possible by including the critical parts of
each shot and eliminating the peripheral parts in editing. Audio was identical for slow
and normal speed versions.
Participants
Fifty nine college students were recruited from telecommunications courses at a
major Midwest University. They were given extra credits for their participation.
 Slow Motion 14

Procedure
Participants completed the experiment individually. On arrival, each participant
was greeted and asked to sign a consent form. After signing the form, participants were
seated in front of a television monitor and electrodes were attached to their forearms and
non-dominant hand. They were told to watch the 12 story clips on the television screen
the entire time.
A booklet including SAM scales (arousal and valence) and evaluation scales were
placed on a clipboard and given to the participants before the experiment. The
experimenter briefly explained how participants should rate responses and then asked if
the participants had any question. When the participants were ready, the experiment
started.
Participants’ heart rate, skin conductance, facial electromyography (EMG) were
measured while they were watching the messages. Following each message, the tape was
stopped and participants rated the messages on SAM and evaluation scales. After all 12
stories were viewed, the participants conducted another experiment not related to this
study as a memory distraction task.
After that, the electrodes were disconnected and participants completed free recall
questionnaire. After participants were done, they were thanked and dismissed.
Independent variables
Slow motion Slow motion was defined by a degree of moving speed, which was created
by the Adobe Premier software. Movements were slowed down to approximately 40
percent of normal speed.
Content valence Content valence, conceptualized as a dimension of emotional tone
ranging from positive to negative, was measured using the SAM (self-assessment
mannikin) scale (Bradely et al, 1992). SAM is nine point pictorial scales designed to
measure three dimensions of emotional response: arousal, valence and dominance. The
SAM scale has been recognized as a reliable and valid measure of perceived emotion in
television messages (Lang et al., 1995; Morris, 1995).
Dependent Variable
Orienting Response The OR was operationalized as phasic decrease of heart rates. There
are two patterns of cardiac response curves indicating an OR: monopahsic and biphasic
 Slow Motion 15

(Graham, 1979; Lang, 1990; Potter, 2000). A monophasic curve exposes an immediate
decrease of heart rate and reaches bottom at the 6th or 7th beat. Then, by the 10th beat, it
recovers to the baseline levels exhibiting U shape. A biphasic curve shows a rapid, initial
decrease to about two beats. Then heart rate increase follows the initial decrease up to
around the 7th beat and then recovers to the baseline level creating S shape. Either shape
is indexed for an OR.
A two-part procedure was used to test the presence of an OR. Visual inspection of
the CRC was performed to see whether it indicated one of the two characteristic shapes.
Detection of either shape represented an OR. After a visual inspection, a significance test
was conducted for a trend analysis. Trend analysis confirmed whether it supported the
visual inspection with a statistical significance. Only the first shots of the slow motion
segments were included in the analysis of orienting responses. As previously mentioned,
the first shots of the slow motion segments were at least six seconds in length. Six
seconds are minimum number in examining orienting responses by cardiac response
curves. Actually, there were no other more-than-six-second shots except the first shot of
the slow motion segments. It also should be noted that onset points of the slow motion
segments had the same visual information with those of the same segments at the normal
speed versions. This prevented confounding effects from different information at the
onset points.
Cognitive effort Heart rate was measured to operationalize tonic level of cognitive
efforts. The operationalization has been adopted in many studies (Lang, 1990, Lang,
Newhagen and Reeves, 1996). These studies consistently reported that slower heart rate
indicates increased cognitive efforts to an external stimulus. Participants’ heart rate data
were collected during the five-second baseline and the whole period of each story. Heart
rate was recorded as milliseconds between beats and converted to heart rate per second.
Then, later the data were averaged over one second period for analysis. Heart rate data
were used to track how cognitive efforts fluctuate over the course of a message clip and
especially for comparison of cognitive efforts during the slow motion segment in the
different versions.
Valence Response SAM was used to examine how the presence of slow motion affects
responses in the valence dimension for positive and negative messages. Facial EMG was
 Slow Motion 16

also used to measure the valence of emotional response to television messages. Facial
EMG measures “the electrical signal generated by the occurrence of action potentials
across a group of muscles dedicated to moving particular parts of the face” (Bolls, Lang,
& Potter, 2001, p632). The valence of emotional response is commonly indexed by facial
EMG obtained from the zygomatic and corrugator muscle groups. The zygomatic muscle
group, also called the smile muscle group, is shaped along the cheek just above the both
sides of the lip. The corrugator muscle, associated with frowning, is grouped over the
brow just off the bridge of the nose (Fridlund & Izard, 1983). Positive response to a
message should increase activity in zygomatic muscle and negative response should
increase corrugator muscle activity (Bolls, Lang, & Potter, 2001).
Arousal Arousal was measured in two ways; SAM scale and by tonic skin conductance
level during the message presentation. Tonic skin conductance level has been used in
many studies to report physiological arousal (Dawson, Schell, & Filion, 2000; Stern, Ray,
& Quigley, 2001). Skin conductance was collected with a pair of standard Beckman Ag-
AgCI electrodes. The electrodes placed on the palm of the participant's non-dominant
hand. Skin conductance was measured over time because slow motion unfolds over time.
Memory retrieval Memory retrieval was operationalized by free recall measure.
Following presentation of all 12 television messages, subjects were asked to write down
all the information segments they could remember from both visual and auditory
information.
Liking Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire designed to measure their
liking for the stories. The questionnaire included four ten-point bipolar scales; (a) not at
all interesting/very interesting, (b) not at all enjoyable/very enjoyable, (c) not at all
favorable/ very favorable, and (d) don’t like at all /like very much. The first three scales
were selected from two studies (Grabe, Lang, and Zhao, 2003; Yoon, Bolls, & Lang,
1998). In addition, this study attempted to ask whether participants like a message in an
explicit way. From the reason, the last scale (don’t like at all /like very) was included.
The test was conducted on each sub-scale.
Analysis
As noted earlier, the stimuli were composed of three parts, before, during, and
after the slow motion segment. And the created slow motion segments ranged from 16
 Slow Motion 17

seconds to 28 seconds. The average time of the slow motion segments were 22 seconds.
In order to compare the slow motion segments across the messages at the same time
basis, the slow motion segments were divided by 22 time points. After this, all
physiological data were averaged between each time point yielding the same 22 time
points for the slow motion segments across all the messages. Ten-second time period was
analyzed for the segments before and after slow motion. Physiological data (heart rate,
skin conductance, and facial EMG) were submitted to either a 2 (Slow motion) X 2
(Valence) X 42 (Time) X 3 (Message) X 6 (order) repeated measure ANOVA in
analyzing whole message or 2 (Slow motion) X 2 (Valence) X 22 (Time) X 3 (Message)
X 6 (order) repeated measures ANOVA in analyzing only the slow motion segment.
Time was included as a variable in the analysis because physiological response unfolds
across time (Cacioppo, Tassinary, & Berntson, 2000; Lang & Friestad, 1993). In addition,
it made it possible to reveal whether impacts of slow motion take time to occur or not.
The free recall data were scored either as 1(hit) or as 0(miss) and analyzed by a 2 (Slow
motion) X 2 (Valence) X 3 (Message) X 6 (order) repeated measures ANOVA design.
Results
Manipulation Check
A manipulation check was performed to make sure that the positive messages
were more positive than the negative messages and the arousing response was not
significantly different across valence. The SAM Valence and Arousal ratings for the
normal speed message were used. The valence scores were submitted to a mixed 2
(valence) X 3 (messages) X 6 (order of presentation) repeated measures ANOVA. The
main effect for Valence was significant (F (1, 48) = 92.073, p< .001). The subjects
reported more positive scores for the positive messages (M = 6.429, SE = .150) than the
negative messages (M = 3.789, SE = .158). In addition, the positive message mean was
more positive than neutral score (5) and the negative message mean was more negative
than neutral score (5). There was no significant main effect of Valence on the arousal
ratings (F <1), indicating that arousal was successfully controlled. The mean score was
5.442 for the positive messages and 5.401 for the negative messages, respectively.
Overall, these results show the intended manipulations were successful.
 Slow Motion 18

Hypothesis1
This hypothesis predicted that the cut to a slow motion segment (called onset of
slow motion) would elicit larger orienting responses than the cut to the same shot at
normal speed. The predicted interaction of either Slow Motion X Time or the quadratic
trend, however, was not significant (for both, F < 1 ). The main effect of Time factor,
however, was significant (F (5, 230)= 18.620, p< .001) and the quadratic component was
also significant (F(1, 46)= 5.385, p =< .025). This indicates that the onset elicited
orienting responses for both slow and normal speed conditions. This is shown in Figure 1.

< Insert Figure 1 Here >

Research Question1
This research question asked whether the addition of slow motion would decrease
heart rates in viewers during the slowed segment. First, this analysis was done by
examining heart rate changes during the whole message time (i.e. 42 time points). There
was no significant interaction of Slow motion X Time (F (41, 1845) = 1.034, p = .412).
Then, examined was heart rate change during the slow motion segment that unfolded
over the 22 time points. A significant interaction of Slow motion X Time was observed
(F (21, 966) = 1.581, p = .047). Shown in Figure 2, slower heart rate occurs during
second half part of the segment in the slow motion version compared to that in the normal
speed version.

< Insert Figure 2 here >

The previous studies have reported that heart rate was slower during exposure to
negative messages compared to positive messages (Bolls, Lang, & Potter, 2001; Lang,
Newhagen, & Reeves, 1996). An analysis was performed for Valence X Time over the
whole message in order to see if this study replicates the same result. This is important
because this analysis would reveal whether the stimuli used in this study are valid or not.
There was a significant interaction of Valence X Time (F (41, 1845) = 3.653, p < .001) as
 Slow Motion 19

shown in Figure 3. Overall, the result, showing slower heart rate for negative messages,
corresponds to those of the previous studies.

< Insert Figure 3 here >

Hypothesis 2
This hypothesis predicted that self-reported and physiological arousal would
increase responding to the slow motion version. For the self-report data, the main effect
of Slow Motion on the arousal dimension was not significant (F <1). For the SCL data,
the main effect of Slow Motion approached significance (F (1, 47) = 3.262, p = .077) in
the analysis of the whole message, but was not in the direction predicted. The subjects
showed more arousing response to the normal speed segments (M = -.215, SE = .071)
than to the slow motion ones (M = -.301, SE = .078). The interaction of Slow motion X
Time was significant (F (41, 1927) = 2.197, p < .01) as shown in Figure 4. This figure,
representing SCL changes across the whole message, suggests that skin conductance
level drops more during the slow motion messages than it does during the normal speed
messages.

< Insert Figure 4 here >

Research Question 2
This question asked if the presence of slow motion would increase viewers’
positive feelings during the positive messages. To test this hypothesis, only positive
messages were included in analysis. For the self report data, the main effect of Slow
motion on SAM Valence ratings approached significance level (F (1, 48) = 2.917, p =
.095), but not in the direction predicted. Participants reported more positive feeling
during normal speed versions (M = 6.429, SE = .15) than during slow motion versions (M
= 6.156, SE = .182).
For the zygomatic data, the 22 time points corresponding to the slow motion segment
were analyzed. There was no significance for either the main effect of Slow motion or the
 Slow Motion 20

interaction of Slow motion X Time on zygomatic response (F (21, 987) = 1.131, p =

.308).

Research Question 3
This question asked if the presence of slow motion would increase negative
feelings of the viewers for the negative messages. This was performed by analyzing only
the negative messages. For the self report data, the main effect of Slow motion was not
significant but showed the predicted tendency (F (1, 48) = 2.122, p = .152). The subjects
reported somewhat more negative feeling to the slow speed segments (M = 3.565, SE =
.154) than to the normal slow speed segments (M = 3.789, SE = .158). For the corrugator
data, the first analysis was done by examining corrugator response changes during the
whole message time (i.e. 42 time points). There was no significant interaction of Slow
motion X Time (F (41, 1927) = 1.088, p = .324). Then, examined were the corrugator
data of the slow motion segment that unfolded over the 22 time points. The main effect of
Slow Motion was significant (F (1, 47) = 5.061, p = .029). The subjects showed more
corrugator response during slow motion segment (M = .518, SE = .62) than during
normal segment (M = -1.694, SE = .647). The Slow motion X Time interaction
approached significance level (F (21, 987) = 1.448, p = .087) and is shown in Figure 5.

< Insert Figure 5 here >

Research Question 4
This research question asked if there would be a Valence X Slow Motion
interaction for any of the valence measures. For the self-report and zygomatic data, there
was no significant Slow Motion X Valence interaction. When examined the corrugator
data during the slow motion segment, however, there was a significant interaction of
Slow Motion X Valence (F (1, 47) = 1.428, p = .039) which is shown Figure 6. The
interaction reveals that adding slow motion elicited higher corrugator responses,
indicating more negative responses, for the negative messages while corrugator responses
were reduced for the positive messages.
 Slow Motion 21

< Insert Figure 6 here >

Research Question 5
This question asked if there would be a Valence X Slow Motion interaction such
that slow motion would have a larger effect on arousal during negative messages
compared to positive messages. For the self-report, there was no significant interaction of
Slow Motion X Valence on arousal ratings. For the SCL data, the interaction of Slow
Motion X Valence X Time was significant (F (41, 1927) = 5.257, p = .026) in the
analysis of the whole message, but in unpredicted way. This is shown in Figure 7. From
the interaction, it seems that adding slow motion didn’t impact viewers’ arousal on the
negative messages, but reduced arousal on the positive messages.

< Insert Figure 7 here >

Hypothesis 3
This hypothesis predicted that before adding slow motion, messages rated as
positive would be remembered better than those rated as negative, when arousal was
controlled. To test this hypothesis, only the messages without slow motion were
analyzed. There was a significant main effect of Valence on free recall (F (1. 48) =
16.054, p < .001). As predicted, the positive messages were recalled better (M = 2.02)
than the negative messages (M = 1.41).

Hypothesis 4
This hypothesis predicted that free recall would be better for video information
presented with slow motion compared to for the same video information presented
without slow motion. The main effect of Slow motion on free recall was not significant
(F <1).

Hypothesis 5
This hypothesis predicted that if the presence of slow motion results in levels of
arousal responses that are not significantly different to positive and negative messages,
positive messages would be recalled better than negative ones. However, if the presence
 Slow Motion 22

of slow motion results in levels of arousal responses that are significantly different, the
more arousaing messages, whether positive or negative, would be better recalled.
According to the self report data, adding slow motion didn’t increase arousal in viewers.
Thus, prediction would the same as the hypothesis 3. The main effect of Valence was
significant on free recal (F (1, 48) = 15.434, p < .001). The positive messages were
recalled better (M = 2.00) than the negative messages (M = 1.49). There was no
significant Slow Motion X Valence interaction on free recall.

Hypothesis6
This hypothesis predicted viewers would like the slow motion version more than
the non-slow version. The liking measurements consisted of four sub-scales, enjoyable,
favorable, interesting and liking. The four subscales were analyzed respective. Against
the prediction of the final hypothesis, there was no main effect of Slow Motion on any
measurement. On the other hand, the main effect of Valence was significant for all four
sub scales. The main effect of Valence on viewers’ ratings of ‘enjoyable’ was significant
(F(1, 48) = 43.067, p < .001), with the positive messages more enjoyable (M = 5.752)
than the negative messages (M = 4.146). There was no significant interaction of Slow
Motion X Valence on the variable, ‘enjoyable’. For viewers’ ratings of ‘favorable’, the
main effect of Valence was significant (F(1, 48) = 37.038, p < .001), with the positive
messages more favorable (M = 5.323) than the negative messages (M = 4.007). There
was no significant interaction of Slow Motion X Valence on the variable, ‘favorable’. For
viewers’ ratings of ‘interesting’, the main effect of Valence was not significant, but the
Slow Motion X Valence interaction approached significance (F(1, 47) = 3.553, p = .065),
as shown in Figure 8.

< Insert Figure 8 here >

For viewers’ ratings of ‘liking’, the main effect of Valence was significant (F(1,
48) = 26.589, p < .001), with the positive messages more favorable (M = 5.568) than the
negative messages (M = 4.143). There was also a significant interaction of Slow Motion
X Valence (F (1, 47) = 4.313, p = .043), as shown in Figure 9.
 Slow Motion 23

< Insert Figure 9 here >

Discussion
The findings of the current study can be summarized as 1) the presence of slow
motion does not affect the orienting responses, 2) it takes time for slow motion to
increase cognitive efforts in viewers, 3) slow motion affects the experience of negative
emotions rather than positive emotions, and 4) slow motion has little, if any, affect on
arousal response in viewers. Although some of the findings were against prediction, the
findings provide interesting answers for how slow motion works on cognitive processing
and physiological responses in viewers.
The result demonstrated slow motion didn’t elicit considerable difference in
magnitude of orienting response compared to normal speed. This suggests that slow
motion didn’t require or allocate more cognitive resources. Slow motion decreases speed
of motion, thus the viewers may be able to process information easily without more
resource. However, slow motion still elicited the same magnitude of orienting responses
with normal speed. This indicates that slow motion does not simply make processing
easy. The heart rate changes over the slow motion segment provide some clues what
aspects of mental processing slow motion activates. Slow motion elicited slower heart
rates after the mid points of the segment. It seems that it takes time for slow motion to
attain viewers’ cognitive resources. One interpretation may be that slow motion impacts
control processing in viewers. Slow motion may change perception of the currently
occurring events as more important. As slow motion unfolds, audience may also raise
expectation of the next events to be more interesting. Thus, audience put more efforts to
absolve the information over time.
Against prediction, slow motion didn’t seem to affect arousal in viewers. This is
contrary to general belief in TV production that slow motion exaggerates emotion. This is
also contradictory to the findings of previous research (Barnett & Grabe, 2000). The
interpretation can be made in several ways. Notwithstanding general belief, slow motion
simply doesn’t increase arousal in viewers. However, this interpretation should be
postponed due to some limitations of the current study. The mechanism eliciting more
 Slow Motion 24

arousing response to slow motion might not rely only on slowed ‘motion’, but also on
lengthened ‘time’. By slow motion, viewers can hold a critical moment of emotion longer
time. For instance, let’s imagine that a basketball player throws a ball to the basket at the
last second just before finishing whistle in a movie. Slow motion lengthens the time the
ball’s bouncing on the ring and makes the audience more intense and curious holding the
emotional state longer time. This study got rid of the lengthened time effects. The
duration of the slow motion segment in both versions was controlled be the same.
Also, slow motion doesn’t occur solely as a structure of television production. It
usually entails proper music or sound effects. In this study, audio information was exactly
the same across the slow motion and normal speed versions. Thus, slow motion couldn’t
have any other structural help to amplify its effects. Considering the aforementioned
treatments for time and audio, it can be said that this study detected only the effects of
motion speed change. The results showed that ‘slowed motion’, only by itself, seems to
impact little on viewers’ arousal. In order to clarify this notion, this study calls for further
research manipulating also time and audio other than just motion.
It was demonstrated the effects of slow motion are different for positive and
negative messages. The result from the zygomatic data showed that slow motion didn’t
affect the emotional experience of positive messages. But, the analysis of the corrugator
data revealed that slow motion did increase the experience of negative emotions
responding to the messages with negative tone. The self report data also showed that slow
motion made positive messages slightly, if any, more likable whereas slow motion
significantly decreased liking scores for negative messages. It seems that slow motion
affected negative messages more considerably than positive messages.
This might be related to explanation of the bivariate approach for underlying
emotional systems. The negative system is fast responding and changing quickly to small
difference in the environment shown by steeper gradient compared to positive system.
Viewers might have felt more close to the situation in watching scenes describing
fighting, hurting, or dying at slow speed. This might have caused avoidance activity in
viewers and led into losing interest.
This study has exploratory characteristic because there has been few attempts to
examine the effects of slow motion in relation with emotional, cognitive and
 Slow Motion 25

physiological processing. In this situation, the readers might be suspicious whether the
experiment manipulation (e.g. selection of stimuli) didn’t have any significant flaw. This
is why some of the results for valence and arousal variables were included in the analysis
regardless of hypotheses and research questions. Overall, the results were corresponding
to previous research which examined the effects of valence and arousal. Viewers
allocated significantly more cognitive resources, indexed by heart rates, to negative
messages than to positive messages. And participant remembered positive messages
better than negative messages when arousal was controlled. It, however, should be
cautious to interpret this result. Even though the self report data reported no significant
difference in the arousal levels between the positive and negative messages, the SCL data
showed that the positive messages elicited more physiologically arousing responses in
viewers than the negative messages. Previous research suggested that arousal is a better
index predicting the effects of emotional messages to recall than valence is (Lang et al.,
1995). Thus, the better performance on free recall might have been caused from higher
arousal level of the positive messages. In either way, the free recall results match the
extant findings.
The results of this study have some important implications for TV production
practitioners. It seems that it takes time for slow motion to gain more cognitive resources
in viewers. It implies that, although slow motion is an effective structural feature for
holding cognitive efforts of the viewers, it might not be so influential in short scenes. TV
programs are always limited in duration. Using slow motion enforce TV produces to
make a choice to sacrifice other shots due to its lengthened time. It might be better not to
use slow motion and instead provide more information in some contexts. This study also
implies that slow motion should be used more cautious way for negative messages. Using
slow motion in negative messages may result in unwanted effects to make the viewers
feel less likable losing their interests.
 Slow Motion 26

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 Slow Motion 31

Figure 1. Cardiac response curve of six second shots

71

70.8

70.6

70.4
BPM

70.2

70

69.8

69.6
1 2 3 4 5 6
Time in Seconds

Figure 2. Slow motion X Time on Heart Rate

72

71.5

71
BPM

70.5

70

69.5

69
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
Time

Normal Slow
 Slow Motion 32

Figure 3. Valence X Time on Heart Rate

73
72.5
72
71.5
71
BPM

70.5
70
69.5
69
68.5
1

7
10

9
12

15

18

21

8
Time

Positive Negative

Figure 4. Slow motion X Time on SCL

0
Change in Microsiemens

-0.1

-0.2

-0.3
-0.4

-0.5

-0.6
1
4
7
10
3
6
9
12
15
18
21
2
5
8

Time

Normal Slow
 Slow Motion 33

Figure 5. Slow motion X Time on Corrugators Response

Change in Microvolts 3
2
1
0
-1
-2
-3
-4
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
Times

Normal Slow

Figure 6. Slow motion X Valence on the corrugator data

0.5
Change in Microvolts

-0.5

-1

-1.5

-2
normal slow

positive negative
 Slow Motion 34

Figure 7. Slow motion X Valence on SCL

0.2
0.1
0
-0.1
SCL

-0.2
-0.3
-0.4
-0.5
-0.6
1

8
10

12

15

18

21
Time

nor-pos nor-neg slow-pos slow-neg

Figure 8. Slow Motion X Valence on ‘Interesting’

5.7
5.6
5.5
Interesting

5.4
5.3
5.2
5.1
5
4.9
normal slow

positive negative
 Slow Motion 35

Figure 9. Slow Motion X Valence on ‘Liking”

5.5

5
Liking

4.5

3.5

3
normal slow

positive negative