Medical Xpress publishes UMaine release on Rosenbaum’s spoilers research
Medical Xpress published a University of Maine news release about research on spoilers conducted by Judith Rosenbaum, an assistant professor of media studies at UMaine. Rosenbaum found that small spoilers actually increased people’s enjoyment of horror movies, contrary to expectations. She and other researchers found varying, and sometimes conflicting, findings about spoiler effects, based on factors like when a spoiler is introduced, whether it reveals the plot or the ending, and the entertainment medium, according to the release. And whether or not spoilers ruin or enhance someone’s enjoyment of a story is based on nuances of enjoyment itself. “Enjoyment also has a more appreciative dimension, when it’s about a moving and thought-provoking experience,” said Rosenbaum. “In our 2015 piece, we found that spoilers impacted the dimensions of enjoyment differently. So one question to ask yourself is why you enjoy something. Is it for the fun or the suspense? Or because something is really moving?” NeuroscienceNews.com also posted the release.