Anderson joins a small group of theorists who are sounding a call to increase the emphasis on experimental method as the primary and most important tool for research on film viewing. The author regards cognitive theory, which treats the mind as an information processor and a computer as an inspiration, as the research paradigm of choice for film theorists. The film viewer is 'a standard biological audio/video processor.' Thus, Anderson has organized this book according to areas of film theory that can be fruitfully studied from a cognitive perspective—human perception, perception of images and sounds in the film medium, problems of continuity and narrativity, character recognition and attribution, etc. This book will stimulate discussion among those seriously interested in film study."—Choice"[T]his book bucks the tide ... [and] may participate in shifting the direction of film studies as a whole as well as the particular direction of film psychology. . . . The Reality of Illusion deals with the problems—psychology and spectatorship—that are absolutely central to the field of cinema studies. It comes at them from an unorthodox angle. However, that is why the book is so potentially important." —Noel Carroll, author of Mystifying Movies: Fads and Fallacies in Contemporary Film Theory
