Gaze -- Psychological aspects

Eye fixations of the face are normally directed towards either the eyes or the
mouth, however the proportions of gaze to either of these regions are dependent on
context. Previous studies of gaze behavior demonstrate a tendency to stare into a target’s
eyes, however no studies investigate the differences between when participants believe
they are engaging in a live interaction compared to knowingly watching a pre-recorded
video, a distinction that may contribute to studies of memory encoding. This study
examined differences in fixation behavior for when participants falsely believed they
were engaging in a real-time interaction over the internet (“Real-time stimulus”)
compared to when they knew they were watching a pre-recorded video (“Pre-recorded
stimulus”). Results indicated that participants fixated significantly longer towards the
eyes for the pre-recorded stimulus than for the real-time stimulus, suggesting that
previous studies which utilize pre-recorded videos may lack ecological validity.

Within the past thirty years, privacy concerns among American citizens are rising
with counter-terrorist surveillance going beyond targeting people of interest. These
concerns are reflected in American cinema where many contemporary films have
explored surveillance in society. The textual analyses presented in the thesis will focus on
three such films, Strange Days (1995), Southland Tales (2005), and Nightcrawler (2014).
Throughout this thesis, I examine how each of these films offers a unique, reflexive take
on surveillance, adhering to generative mechanisms that evoke differing attitudes about
surveillance through their form. My analysis draws on Laura Mulvey and Patricia Pisters’
theories on the gaze to understand the politics of looking in contemporary surveillance
cinema and highlight how cinematic scopophilia evolved into a networked perspective.
My analysis suggests that the politics of surveillance cinema is reflected in these films as
their differences mirror the changing perception of surveillance and the gaze over time.