Influence of mood congruence of images and music on immersion in narrative films

Abstract

This study investigated the influence of the mood congruence of the images and music in video works on viewers’ immersive experiences. Two experiments were conducted in which participants were exposed to audiovisual stimuli in four conditions (the valence [positive/neutral/negative] and arousal [high/low] of video and music were both congruent, valence-congruent and arousal-incongruent, valence-incongruent and arousal-congruent, and both were incongruent). In Experiment 1, participants’ narrative engagement was measured using a questionnaire after viewing each stimulus. Results showed that participants were more engaged in the narrative when either the valence or arousal of the video and music were incongruent than when both were incongruent. However, Experiment 2, which included ratings not only of narrative engagement but also of a subjective sense of congruency and complexity, revealed certain discrepancies between the mood congruency manipulation and the participants’ subjective congruency. This was particularly observed when the audiovisual stimulus pairs in Experiment 1 contained either emotionally neutral movies or music. Therefore, the data from Experiment 1 was reanalyzed after excluding the neutral video and music. The results showed that, overall, engagement tended to increase when the valence of the video and music were congruent. However, these results were not replicated in Experiment 2, possibly due to the slight change in instructions. The results also suggest that the subjective complexity of movies influences immersion in narrative films.