Prägnanzwahrnehmung bei exemplarischen Leitmotiven des Serienuniversums „CW‘s Arrowverse“ – Zwei kognitionspsychologische Studien Perception of Conciseness in Exemplary Leitmotifs From the “CW’s Arrowverse” TV Series – Two Studies in Cognitive Psychology

Abstract

Conciseness is one of the most fundamental concepts in Gestalt psychology yet comparatively little researched for the musical field.Conciseness is often described as a superior law of design, with several subcategories including order. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the influence of melodic and rhythmic entropy, as measures of order, on the perception of conciseness of leitmotifs taken from the film music of the American TV shows known as the ‘CW’s Arrowverse’. Two studies were conducted online which the participants were asked to evaluate 10 leitmotifs using 15 adjectives. Study I was conducted with musical experts (N = 17) and study II with non-experts (N = 27). Based on seven or six of these adjectives two perceptual psychological factors for conciseness or entropy of the leitmotifs could be identified by means of exploratory factor analyses. A negative quadratic relationship (F (2,7) = 1.12, p = .38) was found between these factors, resolving 24.3% of the variance. This is consistent with previous findings and provides inspiration for further research. While random forest models in survey study I still identified the melodic-rhythmic feature "metric_complexity_division" (0.03) as central to computer-based mapping of conciseness perception, the models used in survey study II failed to generate results. Reasons for the weaknesses found are discussed and provide important insights in the field of computational musicology.