The panel “The Invisible Rhythm. Movement Experience Through Rhythmic Organization in Audiovisual Representational Texts” (presents the theoretical framework and experimental results of the research project METRO_ART, which proposes a shift from rhythm as an internal property of audiovisual form to rhythm as spectators’ experience, i.e. a dynamic coupling between the rhythmic profiles of texts and the viewer’s engagement. The project’s frames rhythm from the perspective of the viewer’s embodied experience. In this sense, “invisible” explicitly means “visible-in”, or: embodied. Rhythm is not always thematized at the level of plot or explicit patterning, yet it is felt through sensorimotor attunement, affective modulation, and temporal orientation. This “neurofilmological” framework integrates film-theoretical traditions on rhythm with cognitive/neurocognitive approaches, and study the semiotic components of rhythmic profiles, how these profiles trigger and guide embodied experience over time, and how rhythmic experience relates to affective states and time perception in both traditional and immersive conditions. The panel also presents results from experiments conducted within METRO_ART that operationalize these ideas through controlled stimuli and measurable spectator responses. A first study combines perceptual validation with computational movement analysis: a CAWI study asked non-specialist participants to rate 120 short movement clips in terms of regularity, fluidity, and energy, while the same sequences were examined via 3D motion capture and kinematic modelling. Findings show that perceived rhythm is driven mainly by the internal organization of movement sequences: predictable/symmetrical patterns increase perceived regularity and fluidity, accentuated configurations increase perceived energy, and kinematic measures closely track these judgments. A second experimental line extends the paradigm to VR, using a validated matrix of movement configurations experienced via HMD, with motioncaptured performances mapped onto a digital avatar and assessed through questionnaires and eye-tracking to compare attentional paths and rhythmic perception across viewing conditions.
The NECS 2026 Conference “In/Visible“
Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier
June 19, 2026
Presentation 1
Ruggero Eugeni • The Invisible Rhythm
Presentation 2
Massimo Locatelli • The METRO_ART Research Project on the Perception of Rhythm: Its Roots in Filmology and the History of Theories
Presentation 3
Federico Bionda • The Rhythm of Gesture in Audiovisual Media: Perceptual Validation and Kinematic Analysis of Movement Sequences
Presentation 4
Adriano D’Aloia & Anja Boato • Immersive Rhythms: The Invisible Forms of Movement Perception in Virtual Reality