La respuesta cognitivo-emocional del espectador del film Memento

Here we report the results of an investigation involving 60 individuals. The study was carried out under two experimental conditions. Under the first condition, half subjects saw the film Memento by Christopher Nolan according to the director’s original montage. Under the second condition, the remaining half saw a montage wherein the sequences had been reordered in chronological order to fit the story the film tells. After the viewing, all the subjects were asked to fulfill a questionnaire. Then, they were interviewed and participated in a group discussion. The results suggest: i) differences in cognitive-emotional responses according to the film version; ii) five different types of emotional appraisal of the film (fragmentary, nuclear referential, extensive referential, temporal reconstruction, symptomatic, and re-created); and iii) five different types of emotional response to the film (annoyance, comfort, admiration, work-out, and verification). We conclude that it is likely that people do not decode films according to the classic model put forward by the cognitive theory, rather specific types of film montage seem to play a role in eliciting different individual’s cognitive-emotional responses