Artefact 3 - Report

Introduction

The results provided by Artefacts 1 and 2 implied that an audiovisual piece has the potential to induce a relaxed state in the viewer and imagery, as opposed to sound, has a greater ability to do so. Therefore the question posed by Artefact 3 is whether the content or the style a clip is presented in has the strongest impact.

Method

Similarly to the previous artefacts, participants watched a clip and rated the level of relaxation they experienced on a scale of one to ten; ten representing the highest state of calm. One clip contained a calming edit of Nottingham city centre, while another contained nature content, but was not edited in a calming way. Using dissolves and slow motion in comparison to cuts, respectively, the clips separated the calming effects of content and style so as not to be influenced by the other. These results were then compared with the findings of the clip in Artefact 2 that uses both content and style to relax the viewer. Three groups were formed and each watched a different piece before completing the survey.

Results

The preliminary notion was that content of a clip would have a more potent effect than the style it was edited in. This theory was confirmed by the results. The average rating for the content-based piece was 6.3, while the average rating for the style-based clip was 5.3. Although this is not a vast difference, the content piece had a 10% higher ability to calm the viewer, which is significant. Furthermore, when the content and style were both geared towards relaxing the viewer, with an average rating of 6.9, it proved slightly more effective in relaxing the participants.

Conclusion

It is evident that when designing a format for a therapeutic audiovisual clip, more emphasis should be placed on the content.