A total of 210 participants (age 18‑35, 56 % female) were recruited across three studies (70 per study). All provided informed consent; the protocol was approved by the Stanford IRB (protocol #HS‑2025‑048).
The term transfixed—originally derived from the French transfixer (“to pierce through”)—has long been used metaphorically to describe moments when viewers, readers, or users become “stuck” in a perceptual‑emotional loop (Miller, 2015). While anecdotal accounts abound (e.g., audiences “held captive” by a theatrical monologue, gamers “lost in the world”), systematic scientific investigation of this phenomenon remains fragmented across disciplinary silos. transfixed siri dahl khloe kay eva maxim l
Salient sensory cues (e.g., sudden motion, high‑contrast color, or distinctive sound) capture bottom‑up attention (Itti & Koch, 2001). In transfixed states, salience is not merely a trigger but a sustainer: recurring cues keep the attentional spotlight from drifting. A total of 210 participants (age 18‑35, 56
Our results bridge bottom‑up attentional theories with top‑down narrative models, offering a dual‑process account of transfixed immersion. The model aligns with the Predictive Coding framework (Friston, 2010), where salience and narrative coherence reduce prediction error, while embodied interaction and affective resonance reinforce the precision of priors. Possible Themes and Directions :
Recall accuracy was highest when Narrative Coherence and Affective Resonance were both strong (mean = 84 % of story elements, SD = 7). Participants described feeling “stuck” or “pulled through” the story, echoing the colloquial sense of being transfixed.
| Goal | Practical Strategy | |------|--------------------| | Maximize Salience | Use contrastive visual cues that evolve rhythmically; avoid overstimulation that leads to habituation. | | Strengthen Narrative Coherence | Maintain clear causal links; provide character back‑story early, then introduce controlled ambiguities. | | Enhance Embodiment | Integrate naturalistic gestures, spatial locomotion, and haptic feedback that map directly onto story events. | | Foster Affective Resonance | Align music, lighting, and pacing with the intended emotional arc; employ adaptive affective algorithms in interactive media. |
Possible Themes and Directions: