C-CS

The Impact of Cultural Configurations
Green and Brock's “Transportation Imagery Model”

ABSTRACT

Research has established that narratives have the capacity to change beliefs. The phenomenon of psychological transportation is an index of the power of a narratives impact on its audiences. The conditions that enable transportation are: (1) narrative in which images evoke beliefs, (2) absorption in the virtual world, (3) sensitivity to imagery, (4) the aesthetic quality of the narrative, and (5) the quality of the medium's transmission of the imagery. Transportation is a cognitive state of mind occasioned by the evocation of past experiences with emotional resonance. The flow of this "transportation" experience would be nearly identical to immersion in a VR scenario, since both types of narration depend upon the impact of the mental images evoked. The VR scenario, "The Thing Growing," demonstrates the capacity of VR for transportation. Mediums display different degrees of transportation: absorption, entrancement, immersion.

narratives can change beliefs

Recent studies of "narrative impact" support this strategy of social transformation. In Narrative Impact: Social and Cognitive Foundations, the editors state that the subject of their book is "the impact of narratives in the public sphere” (7). Several contributors refer to studies that show the widespread social impact of narratives such as the Bible or Uncle Tom's Cabin. Their remarks are often based on previous research that demonstrates the role that narratives have played in social change.

. In the introduction to their volume, Green, Strange, and Brock note that "the impact of public narratives on beliefs and behavior has received substantial scholarly investigation in disciplines such as sociology (e.g., Gamson, 1992), communications (e.g., Bryant & Zillman, 1994; Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, & Signorielli, 1994), humanities (e.g., Booth, 1988), and political science (e.g., Iyengar & Kinder, 1988)" (2). Since most research focused on advertising without reference to its implicit narratives, Green and Brock conducted a series of experiments involving "imagery-rich narratives." These experiments demonstrate that imagery-rich narratives that confirm or threaten their audiences’ world views can change prior beliefs.

[Narratives Can Change Beliefs] [Transportation is an Index of Narrative Impact] [Conditions that Enable Transportation] [Transportation is a Cognitive Experience] [Absorption & VR Immersion] [Narrative Persuasion in Immersive VR Scenarios] [Degrees of Transportation]

Transportation is an Index of Narrative Impact

The phenomenon of psychological transportation is an index of the power of a narratives impact on its audiences.

Research on the phenomenon of "psychological transportation," which is defined "as a state in which a reader becomes absorbed in the narrative world, leaving the real world, at least momentarily, behind" (Narrative Impact, 317), indicates that readers' propensity to experience transportation is dependent upon mental imagery evoked by the narrative. "A mental image is a representation of a particular stimulus that is formed by activation of a sensory system and, thus, is experienced by the organism as having similar qualities to the actual perception of the stimulus." (Narrative Impact, 321). Such sequences of mental images contextualized by a narrative provide the sensations that accompany actual experiences. Instead of seeing activity in their physical surroundings, transported readers see the action of the story unfolding before them" (Narrative Impact, 317). Such virtual experiences, which are usually "seen in the mind's eye," can be remembered. When recalled, they can be applied to analogous situations in an experience transfer. VR narratives are likely to have similar outcomes.

The Conditions that Enable Transportation

Green and Brock's “transportation imagery model” consists of the following five postulates:

Postulate I. Narrative persuasion is limited to story texts (scripts) (a) which are in fact narratives, (b) in which images are evoked, and (c) in which readers' (viewers’) beliefs are implicated.

Postulate II. Narrative persuasion (belief change) occurs, other things equal, to the extent that the evoked images are activated by psychological transportation, defined (below) as a state in which a reader becomes absorbed in the narrative world, leaving the real world, at least momentarily, behind.

Postulate III. Propensity for transportation by exposure to a given narrative account is affected by attributes of the recipient (for example, imagery skill).

Postulate IV. Propensity for transportation by exposure to a given narrative account is affected by attributes of the text (script). Among these moderating attributes are the level of artistic craftsmanship and the extent of adherence to narrative format. Another conceivable moderator, whether the text is labeled as fact or fiction (as true or not necessarily true), does not limit transportation.

Postulate V. Propensity for transportation by exposure to a given narrative account is affected by attributes of the context (medium). Among these moderating attributes may be aspects of the context or medium that limit opportunity for imaginative investment and participatory responses (316-317).

[Narratives Can Change Beliefs] [Transportation is an Index of Narrative Impact] [Conditions that Enable Transportation] [Transportation is a Cognitive Experience] [Absorption & VR Immersion] [Narrative Persuasion in Immersive VR Scenarios] [Degrees of Transportation]

transportation as a cognitive experience

Restated as a sequence of cognitive experiences, Green and Brock's transportation imagery model would have the following stages:

The experience of a narration that deals in

human or human-like intention and action,
vicissitudes and consequences that mark their course,
a sequence of events which is both "logical" (cause-effect) and implicitly chronological,
which portrays situations that imply beliefs held by the audience.

The narrated events stimulate mental images from past experiences that transport the audience members into the world of narrative where they lose the sense of their physical surroundings
and that evoke sensations (seeing, hearing, feeling) reminiscent of past experiences
which are accompanied by emotions when the associated beliefs are threatened or confirmed by the implications of the narrative
The narrated events enter the memory system
where they can be recalled.

[Narratives Can Change Beliefs] [Transportation is an Index of Narrative Impact] [Conditions that Enable Transportation] [Transportation is a Cognitive Experience] [Absorption & VR Immersion] [Narrative Persuasion in Immersive VR Scenarios] [Degrees of Transportation]

ABSORPTION AND IMMERSION IN VR SCENARIOS

The flow of this "transportation" experience would be nearly identical in a VR scenario, since both types of narration depend upon the impact of the mental images evoked. The major difference is that instead of “reading,” the audience would be viewing the narrative. This difference is one that is anticipated by Green and Brock when they write: "The term ‘reader’ may be broadly construed to include listeners or viewers or any recipient of narrative information" (323).

Green and Brock do not explicitly refer to memory systems, but memory functions are implied in their description of the process of transportation. In the next section, I will revise the basic transportation imagery model to reflect research done both on memory systems and on visualization, delineating a model of the process of configuring and reconfiguring.

Each medium engages our senses in specifically different ways. Absorption is a term suitable for readers of fiction because they become absorbed in the virtual world their imaginations create in response to the narrative. Movie audiences seem entranced by the audiovisual spectacles presented to them because films put their audience members in a trancelike state in which they are controlled by the images and sounds they experience. Of course, the size of the screen and the deployment of sound alter an audience’s experience. Seeing the same film in a fully equipped theatre is not the same as seeing it on TV. Visitors to VR Caves are immersed in an environment with which they interact. Each experience of configuring engages the viewer to a different degree depending on the medium of presentation. Assuming an effective narrative presentation, any of the media mentioned can "transport" its audience, but to varying degrees.

In VR narrative scenarios, visitors encounter configurations of various situations when they enter CAVEs (rooms designed for computer-automated virtual experiences). In the case of Virtual Harlem and Virtual Montmartre, their encounters are virtual experiences of history. Virtual Harlem and Montmartre are set in the past and provide mental images and accompanying sensations that cannot actually be experienced.

Whether or not such narrative experiences can have a transforming impact on visitors is still under investigation. Much depends, I believe, on the impact of the mental images and the extent to which they, as Green and Brock argue, evocatively challenge peoples’ preconceptions. The question that arises is: Do immersive VR experiences have the same capacity for social change as narratives that transport or entrance their readers or viewers?

Narrative Persuasion in Immersive Virtual Reality Scenarios

My answer to this question is yes, but only under certain conditions. The concepts of "suspension of disbelief" and "in the mind's eye" are both conditions of narrative persuasion (the use of narratives to change a person's beliefs and attitudes). Narrative persuasion depends upon the phenomenon of transportation. To be engaged by a VR narrative, viewers have to suspend the belief that they are in a darkened room looking at three-dimensional images on a screen and listening to recorded sounds. Readers see narrated scenes in their imaginations. VR viewers (VRVs) look at images presented directly. Even so, VRVs actively supply much of the detail missing in the images and they also "correct" unrealistic images. This is not evidence, however, that they have been "transported" by viewing the three-dimensional images in the VR scenario.
In their delineation of the phenomenon of transportation, Green and Brock stress the "adherence to narrative format" as one of the chief conditions for the experience.

In 1999, when I frequently demonstrated the impact of immersive VR scenarios through Josephine Anstey's “The Thing Growing,” a VR short story. Her web site describes "The Thing Growing" as "a work of fiction implemented in virtual reality, in which the user is the main protagonist and interacts with computer controlled characters.” Anstey’s story features a responsive character—a manipulative creature designed to encourage the user to jump through “emotional hoops." As a VR narrative, “The Thing Growing” visualizes a short story Anstey had been writing in which she "wanted to explore a relationship that was cloying and claustrophobic but emotionally hard to escape. An immersive, interactive VR environment seemed an ideal medium to recreate the tensions and emotions of such a relationship."

“The Thing Growing” begins with a stark landscape in which a box is visible. Soon, the audience hears "Let me out!" repeated louder and louder in a woman’s voice. With instructions from the "voice" to use the remote control in the hands of their "leader," the leader frees her with a key, which the remote becomes as it is pointed toward the screen. The woman then jumps out and exudes joy, praising the audience. After a few moments, villainous figures appear in the landscape and the voice begs the audience to save her. Again following the voice's instructions, the leader of the group, using his or her remote shot the villains, who disappear as they are hit. Again the voice expresses delight, suggesting that she and the audience leader dance. She gives instructions by waving her arms up and down and invites the leader to join her in a dance. If the leader does not move his remote in the manner she suggests, the voice complains loudly. Depending on whether the leader "dances" or not, the voice becomes increasingly domineering and emotionally ruthless. After a time, audience members find themselves desperate to get out of the situation. Finally, again depending on the tactics of the leader, either the voice is killed with the remote control or, after a lengthy period, she dissolves.

This story does succeed in transporting many of its viewers. As in the case of Fatal Attraction, members of the audience shout at the screen and demand that the woman stop berating them. Viewers have shouted, "Get me out of here." Most viewers find the experience disconcerting and, if they decide to kill the voice, even embarrassing. Some leaders, including women, shoot the voice without compunction and express delight at being rid of her. “The Thing Growing” web site concludes its gloss on the VR story with the following passage:

We believe that the use of narrative techniques can enhance interactivity in VR. Andrew Glasner suggests that, for the construction of interesting computer fiction, the author should control the sequencing of events, and the creation of a causal chain of action. Therefore the narrative in “The Thing Growing” has the classical bridge structure of plays and films; act one introduces the protagonists and the goal; act two revolves around struggles to reach the goal; act 3 resolves those struggles. The difference in our case is that the user is one of the protagonists and in each act she is involved in interaction. The narrative as a whole is moved on either as a result of the user's actions, or by time. [Italics added]

[Narratives Can Change Beliefs] [Transportation is an Index of Narrative Impact] [Conditions that Enable Transportation] [Transportation is a Cognitive Experience] [Absorption & VR Immersion] [Narrative Persuasion in Immersive VR Scenarios] [Degrees of Transportation]

degrees of transportation: absorbing, entrancing, immersive

Josephine Anstey’s VR short story, “The Thing Growing,” places visitors in uncomfortable positions. A virtual woman approaches you seductively, only to become more and more demanding and insistent on getting you to dance in the way she wishes. In the end, most visitors become so frustrated with her behavior that they attack her, using a remote-control device that they have learned can make figures in the scene “disappear.” People in this scenario sometimes shout “let me out of here.” Anstey intended to have the visitors to her VR scenario reenact domestic violence. Virtual figures have real effects on people.

“The Thing Growing,” Fatal Attraction, and almost any John Grisham novel can transport visitors, viewers, or readers. But the different media have different effects on their audiences. To distinguish among them, we can say that Grisham's novels are “absorbing,” films are “entrancing,” and VR scenarios are “immersive,” enveloping their visitors in the environments they display. In each case, audiences dwell in the virtual world the medium creates.

Narratives describe experiences with characters in settings who act during the telling or showing. Their audiences understand all narratives on the condition that they are willing to suspend their beliefs to some extent about actual experiences and allow themselves to imagine a virtual world where the narrated behaviors occur. In this sense all narratives rely upon "virtual reality." The experience of the virtual world, of being transported, ranges in its effects from intense states of mind having the quality of dreams or hallucinations that are difficult to interrupt to mildly preoccupied states of mind that are easily interrupted by actual experiences.

Of course, the configuration that is most absorbing for us is our personal history.

jjs