Cinematographic high-contrast lighting can facilitate empathic affective mimicry

Can cinematographic lightning techniques be used to affect film viewers’ empathic reactions? We investigated the effect of high- and low-contrast lightning on affective empathy towards depicted actors. Fourty one participants watched short clips of professional actors expressing happiness, anger and disgust and rated the valence and intensity of their own and actors’ emotional states. The extent of facial mimicry of actors’ emotional facial expressions, quantified via electromyographic activation of expression-specific facial muscles, was used to assess affective empathy. Results indicated that high-contrast lighting had an amplifying effect on empathic mimicry of happy but not on angry expressions. The results suggest that high-contrast lightning could be used as a way to influence film viewer’s empathic reactions for positive emotions.