The Psychological Construction of Emotion. A Filmological Approach

The aim of this paper is a reconsideration of the questions surrounding the film and audiovisual media experience in the light of the current debate in psychology and the neurosciences. It presents four steps to assess the current situation: first and most obviously, to define clearly both the field of research and the methodology proposed; secondly, to employ a grounding paradigm, which may be found in the concept of functional consciousness; thirdly, to address the core theories of the psychology of emotions, which today lies at the heart of the scientific debate, and to do sousing the most up-to-date tools, with particular regard to the psychological construction of emotion and subsequently that of the film and audiovisual media viewing experience; fourthly and finally, to define the relevance of the model with respect to the specific field of film and media, which will be done here through the use of classic filmological models that take into account the dynamics of the attribution of reality to film images, emotional participation, and cinematic selfprojection. The last of these, in my view, allows us on the one hand to draw a richer and more upto- date picture of the film and audiovisual media experience and, and on the other, to understand a neo-filmological approach as a mediator between phenomenology and functionalist psychology. Here, again, emotion will play a crucial role.