This reading analyzes the audiovisual relationships with human brain. As Verhagen said, sound stimulates human’s brain before visual picture, we will be easily influenced by the hearing sound. So how do the sound manipulate our mind? By adjustment. As a result, those sound components including timbre, pitch, volume, rhythm, tempo, spatial location, are processed by our brain, produce different reaction of us. There are many works of adjusting sounds, and those works are not conflictive.
I am curious about how the sound impact our brain. After further research, I found that when a sound reaches certain frequency as a stimulator, human brain will make respond to that sound in the same frequency of activity, produces resonance (in brain wave). High frequency of sound can activate the new neuron circuits in human brain, therefore human brain is stimulated and become more active.
Similarly, audiovisual in cinema affects audience’s mental activity. Sound stimulates brain more quickly than visual, this is why silent film have less possibility to get the audience involved. Filmmaker usually use audio effect to create the atmosphere he wants. In horror film, the background music and special sound effect would be towering, strange and uncomfortable, which aim to scare audience. In an action film, normally the audio effect would be intense and excited when the conflict begin; at that moment, audience would get the resonance thus become nervous as well.
This doesn’t mean that visual picture is not as important as sound. The point is, a picture with different sounds can produce different results.