Generating predictive inferences while viewing a movie

Abstract

This study investigated conditions that enable viewers to predict future events while viewing a movie. Predictions about future events can be supported by visual, auditory, and discourse information. These information sources serve to emphasize or introduce the individually necessary, and jointly sufficient, conditions that support predictive inference processes. They may also introduce new, anomalous information that can be understood in terms of future story events. In Experiment 1, viewers were instructed to generate predictions while watching the James Bond movie, Moonraker (Broccoli & Gilbert, 1979).The presence of support through visual and discourse modes increased the likelihood that participants would generate a specific prediction. Furthermore, the likelihood of generating a given prediction increased with multiple sources of visual and discourse modes of support. In Experiment 2, participants provided think‐aloud protocols at different locations in the film, but were not instructed to generate predictions. As in Experiment 1, viewers made predictions when the sources were available, even though they were not specifically instructed to do so. Furthermore, the likelihood that viewers in Experiment 2 would generate the same predictions as in Experiment 1 also increased as a function of the amount of support. The data are interpreted in terms of pragmatic and causal factors in comprehension.