Avatar (2009) was among my first 3D movies I have ever seen. Almost ten years after, I still remember parts of the wonderful visual “trip” under the Tree of Voices. However, if someone asked me about my favorite movie, I would definitely say: The Sea Inside – a 2D movie from 2004, inspired by a real story of a Spaniard, quadriplegic, who fought for 30 years for his right to end his life with dignity.
Avatar transported me in an amazingly beautiful reality, where I could probably decide to stay for a while. It also opened the door to some emotions, but I cannot remember them at all, now. As well, without re-watching some of the scenes, I cannot recall who took that trip under the Tree of Voices.
The Sea Inside generated a wave of feelings inside me: I recall how I judged and supported Ramon (the main character) at the same time, how I loved and hated life together with Ramon, how I lived with him the falling in love moments and his frustration of living an impossible love, how I got angry on his family, but also appreciated them, and I how I completely understood the love of the woman who, finally, helped him to end his life. I also remember perfectly the story line, some powerful quotes, and this wonderful flying scene:
Think about this: You’re sitting there, three feet away. What’s three feet? An insignificant distance for any human being. But for me, those three feet that keep me from reaching you, from touching you, are an impossible journey. Just an illusion. A fantasy. That’s why I want to die.
(Ramon, The Sea Inside)
No, do not get there. Not yet. Either you want to go now and watch The Sea Inside, either you want to jump on judging my taste in movies, stay a little bit longer here. This short introduction was not about my favorite movie, but about the spatial immersion version the emotional immersion.
“Spatial immersion versus emotional immersion, which is more immersive?”
Avatar managed to absorb me in the 3D wonderful reality, while The Sea Inside absorbed me in its emotional reality. According to a recent Nordic research, the emotional immersion is more “engaging” than the spatial immersion.
When we refer to immersion – also known as presence, flow, absorption, narrative involvement, transportation, engagement – we refer to the experience of being deeply engaged or absorbed or transported (experiencing sensory richness) in a make-believe world, as it is real.
Chenyan Zhang, Andrew Perkis and Sebastian Arndt, from Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) published in 2017 a research report on immersion – Spatial immersion versus emotional immersion, which is more immersive?. With the support of 45 people – the research subjects, the Norwegian researchers studied the differences between the two big categories of immersion: embodied (spatial) immersion and empathetic (emotional) immersion. Their main conclusion was that “emotional immersion is significantly more immersive than spatial immersion in terms of sense of ‘being there’, time perception, realism, sense of engagement, emotional aspects, sensory cues, etc.”.
Reading their article published in the proceedings of the 2017 Ninth International Conference on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX), I understood why The Sea Inside is still so vivid in my mind, and Avatar – so much less.
The 45 research subjects, split in two random groups, were asked to watch two pieces of storytelling content (2D videos), one being characterized as “spatial content”, while the other one – as “emotional content”. After watching the story assigned to them, the participants responded to a questionnaire (The Spatial and Emotional Immersion Questionnaire), which measured their perception about the overall immersiveness of the content, but also about specific components of immersion, respectively:
- realism – how realistic and vivid the content looks like and how much the content gives the users the feeling of being real;
- bodily presence – how much the content gives the feeling of ‘being there’, ‘into’ the virtual world;
- spatial dis-orientation – how much the content creates confusion, dis-orientation, disruption from the real space the users are actually in;
- emotional aspects – how much the content induces emotions, feelings for users, during and after the experience;
- attention – how much attention the content absorbs/needs from the users, how much distraction from the real space it creates;
- sensory cues – how much the content induces bodily sensations (visual, auditory) to the users;
- image motion – how much the content induces the sense of objects moving or of the users moving inside the virtual environment.
The results obtained by the NTNU team showed that, overall, “the emotional content is significantly more immersive than the spatial content in terms of sense of ‘being there’, time perception, and sense of engagement”.
Surprisingly, even on those immersion components, which our intuition would assign them more to the spatial immersion, such as realism, bodily experience or sensory cues, emotional immersion was still a winner, in this experiment. The emotions induced by the storytelling emotional content made the users to qualify the experience more realistic, closer to the real-life experience. Also, the emotions made them feel more present into the story, and more visually and auditory involved.
Emotional immersion is a higher level immersion
The results of the study enhance the power of the story. We know the stories are powerful, but through this research, the NTNU team also states that the “drama or narrative is the primary factor that enables immersion, and this overshadows other immersive effects such as photo-realistic graphic fidelity or disorientating or dazzling spatial effects”.
Also, more important for storytellers, the research suggests that “emotional immersion is a higher level immersion above spatial immersion, i.e. being spatially immersed does not necessarily mean one is emotionally immersed, yet emotional immersion is always on the premise of spatial immersion. In other words, identification always incorporates elaborated transportation.”
In conclusion, the immersive storytellers should first absorb people at emotional level, with the stories they create, bring them ‘into’ the stories. Afterwards, the spatial immersion will make sense to the users, as long as it also comes to support the emotional engagement already induced.
Finally, if you are still wondering why The Sea Inside is so vivid to me regarding the emotions I felt, 14 years later after the watching experience, here is why. The NTNU study also shows that emotional immersion makes stories to stick with the users. The induced emotions, during a more emotional immersion experience, are felt stronger after the experience ended, when compared to the emotions induced by the spatial immersion. After the experience, the research subjects exposed to the emotional piece of storytelling felt almost double exhilarated than those who watched the more spatial piece of storytelling content. Of course, The Sea Inside is still with me because it is my favorite movie. Subjectivism also plays an important role in how we get immersed in stories.