The Kuleshov effect is well-known. However, there is no plausible account of the existence of this effect and only a few attempts have been made to study it in terms of psychology.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the Kuleshov effect from a psychological point of view. The effect of serial presentation of two shots on the perception of motion picture segments was investigated. Sixty observers, thirty males and thirty females, ranging in age from 18 to 29 years of age, took part in the experiment. Stimuli consisted of six different shots, three of which were shots of human faces (2000 ms) and three were object shots (7834 ms). These shots were cut from six movie works. These two kinds of shots were presented in the order of object-human face. Observers were asked to rate these motion picture segments on 30 seven-point semantic scales and to answer a question about the story of the motion picture segments.

The results imply that the Kuleshov effect exists on the segments, but no proof was found that it is a phenomenon of perception. It is necessary to investigate the effect under more conditions. In future studies we hope to unveil the factors that provide this effect.

Yokohama Photographs are images that were produced mainly in Yokohama from the 1860s to the end of the nineteenth century. Mounted on paper and bound as albums, they were sold as souvenirs for tourists from the West or exported to Europe and America. These colorful hand-tinted images represented Japanese natural landscapes, historical monuments, and human figures pictured in an exoticized way. Paying attention to topographical representations, this essay aims to locate Yokohama Photographs in the broader context of Western travel photography and to analyze their function in late nineteenth century visual culture.

Albums of Yokohama Photographs were a sort of compact archive that contained geographical, archeological and anthropological information about an unknown terrain, Japan. Furthermore, by appropriating the pictorial convention of the picturesque, the photographs “naturalized” the unfamiliar things, turning them into a romantic spectacle. In this period, the visualization of the Other was equal to the cultural domination of colonized territories by European imperialist countries. Yokohama Photographs, as well as other travel photographs, constituted a collaboration with other forms of visual culture, namely international expositions and that newly-emerged phenomenon, tourism.