What Time is In? Subjective Experience and Evaluation of Moving Image Time

This paper sketches the main lines and introduces the first results of a theoretical and empirical research set within the framework of Neurofilmology and focused on the Subjective Experience and Evaluation of Moving Image Time (SEEM_ IT). In the first section, the paper reconstructs the state of the art of time studies in different disciplinary fields. The second section explains some underlying options of the research. Notably, it adopts the hypothesis (currently prevalent in neuroscience), that links time perception to movement and proprioception; and connects it to the idea that the perception of movement triggers processes of embodied simulation, which in turn are responsible for the perception of time. Film watching would, therefore, constitute a particularly rich and articulated experience of time. The last section presents the results of an experiment aiming to evaluate the role of editing styles in determining quantitative and qualitative aspects of SEEM_IT. The results show that fast-paced editing usually tends to produce a sensation of higher speed of both the time flow rate and the observed action rate, and an overestimation of the clip durations; however, the type of action displayed can modify this outcome.