Mental state attribution, an important aspect of social cognition, refers to the verbalization of mental state references observed in another person. Fictional film narratives can elicit social cognition and mental state attribution specifically, however, little is known about the cinematographic techniques underlying this effect and their link to mental state attribution. The present experiment focuses on the role of close-up shots of the character's face in viewers’ mental state attribution, as well as in their cognitive and affective processing more generally. The online experiment (N = 495) included thirteen versions of an animated film and employed a 6 (different number of close-up shots) × 2 (facial expressions) factorial between-subject design, with an additional zero close-up control condition. Participants were randomly assigned to one version of the film and subsequently asked to describe the story (with and without a prompt for mental state attribution). In these free responses, the study used a quantitative content analytic method (with independent blind-coders) to identify the proportion of spontaneous and prompted mental state attributions (i.e. explicit mental state references to the character), as well as cognitive and affective processing employed by viewers. Additionally, we tested the moderation effect of character facial expression (in the close-up) and participant gender. Confirming our main hypothesis, close-up frequency significantly influenced spontaneous, but not prompted mental state attribution. Results indicate that increasing the number of close-ups may elicit a higher proportion of spontaneous mental state attribution up to a certain point, beyond which it may decrease the proportion of spontaneous mental state attributions. Results suggest that the effect of close-up frequency is specific to mental state attribution rather than some general effect on cognitive and affective processing of narratives.

心理状态归因是社会认知的重要方面，是指在另一个人中观察到的心理状态参考的言语化。虚构的电影叙事可以特别地引起社会认知和精神状态归因，但是，对于这种作用背后的摄影技术及其与精神状态归因的联系知之甚少。本实验着重于人物面部特写镜头在观众心理状态归因以及更广泛的认知和情感处理中的作用。在线实验（N = 495）包括13个版本的动画电影，并采用6（不同的近摄数量）×2（面部表情）因果关系主体设计，并附加了零近摄控制条件。参与者被随机分配到电影的一个版本，随后要求描述故事（有或没有提示精神状态归因）。在这些自由回应中，研究使用定量内容分析方法（使用独立的盲人编码器）来识别自发性和提示性心理状态归因（即，对角色的明确心理状态引用）的比例，以及所采用的认知和情感处理由观众。此外，我们测试了人物面部表情（在特写镜头中）和参与者性别的调节作用。确认我们的主要假设，近摄频率显着影响自发性，但不提示精神状态归因。结果表明，增加近摄次数可能会导致更高比例的自发性精神状态归因，直到某个点，超过此数目可能会降低自发性精神状态归因的比例。结果表明，近距离频率的影响是特定于心理状态归因的，而不是对叙述的认知和情感处理的一般影响。