Into the Film with Music: Measuring Eyeblinks to Explore the Role of Film Music in Emotional Arousal and Narrative Transportation

In this chapter, we explore whether eyeblinks can be used as a measurement
of spectators’ narrative transportation into a cinematic narrative. In our
experiment, we show that spectators’ eyeblinks increase when watching
film clips together with what might be called congruent music. Increased
eyeblinks indicate an emotional arousal that motivates attention, which
in turn is a prerequisite for narrative transportation. Hence, our thesis is
that a specific interaction between film and music facilitates and increases
narrative transportation in cinematic narratives. Indeed, eyeblinks might be
an effective method for answering deeper questions about the captivating
audiovisual experience that is film.