Applying research findings from studies in visual perception, neurophysiology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and anthropology, Joseph D. Anderson defines the complex interaction of motion pictures with the human mind and organizes the relationship between film and cognitive science.

Anderson s primary argument is that motion picture viewers mentally process the projected images and sounds of a movie according to the same perceptual rules used in response to visual and aural stimuli in the world outside the theater. To process everyday events in the world, the human mind is...

Blending unconventional film theory with nontraditional psychology to provide a radically different set of critical methods and propositions about cinema, "Moving Image Theory: Ecological Considerations" looks at film through its communication properties rather than its social or political implications. Drawing on the tenets of James J. Gibson s ecological theory of visual perception, the fifteen essays and forty-one illustrations gathered here by editors Joseph D. Anderson and Barbara Fisher Anderson offer a new understanding of how moving images are seen and understood.
Focusing on a...