The effects of spoiler types on audience immersion: an inter-subject correlation study of heart rate
Xiaohan Zhou, Hao Chai, Wenjuan Zhang, Wuheng Zuo, Qing Liu · 2026
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Description
In a 2026 study, Xiaohan Zhou and colleagues test how spoilers change the way viewers feel drawn into a tense film. Seventy-six university students watched clips from the film Revenge after being placed in one of five spoiler groups, ranging from no spoiler to video, spoken, and written spoilers. Heart signals were tracked to see how closely heart rates moved together across viewers.
Video spoilers gave the strongest result, with higher reported engagement, more frequent checks for key clues, and the closest heart-rate matching while the spoiler was shown. A jumbled scene with no spoiler gave the weakest engagement, mainly in understanding the story. The work suggests that how a spoiler is given matters more than whether one is given, at least during the reveal itself.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Xiaohan Zhou, Hao Chai, Wenjuan Zhang, Wuheng Zuo, Qing Liu |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 66 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |