Neurocinematic approaches to sonics, ethics, and affect

Audience members reportedly convulsed with sobs during the gruelling survival thriller The Grey (Canahan, 2012) and fled screenings of the lucrative surveillance horror film, Paranormal Activity (Peli, 2007) and the nauseatingly visceral rape-revenge feature, Irreversible (Noë, 2002). Filmmakers have begun experimenting with sonic techniques that catalyse these deep-seated physiological reactions, and for researchers working at the interface of moral philosophy, neuroscience, and cinema studies, such responses provide raw data for understanding the ethical, neurological, and bodily reactions underpinning affective responses to film sound. With a focus on the use of sub-audible registers of sound (subsonics or infrasound), this paper considers how recent empirical findings and ethical considerations intervene in the established literature on affect in film-philosophy research. The use of sonic registers at or below the human threshold of conscious perception is believed to carry a powerful affective charge and opens up new avenues for the analysis of embodiment, spectatorship, and technology. This research examines how sound is felt as a physical vibration that can evoke a pervasive mood and trouble emotional reactions to film. Emotion itself has ethical salience as philosophers including Ronald de Sousa and Martha Nussbaum have argued; yet the ethical implications of attempts by filmmakers to use science and new media technologies for the purposes of manipulating the responses of audience members have yet to be explored. Working at the intersection of philosophical analysis and empirical findings, this study reflects on the ethical and aesthetic issues raised by the deployment of infrasound and neuroscientific research for audience manipulation