Kuleshov Effect

The Kuleshov Effect is a perceptual phenomenon discovered by filmmaker Lev Kuleshev in the early 1900s. Kuleshov edited shots so that one identical shot of an actor was interspersed with differing shots (a bowl of soup, a person in a coffin, a woman on a chair). Although the shot with the actor was the same image every time the audience perceived the actor shot as being different each time. They perceived his identical looks to be different depending on what object was shown. Kuleshov did this to demonstrate the effects of film editing on the audience.

The Kuleshov Effect shows that people attribute emotions to images and their perception of these emotions can change even when presented with the same identical image.