The actor is too deep into the drama, will he really lose himself?

When I was in school in the 1990s, my friends and I would spend a lot of time obsessed with role-playing games. Our favorite characters are the game characters in Vampire: The Masquerade. I still remember the aftermath of my heart after playing a cruel and vicious vampire all afternoon. It took me a long time to get rid of that fantasy figure. During this period, I had to pay great attention to my words and behaviors and morals, so as not to get myself into real trouble.

If a small illusion role-playing game can lead to a change in one's self-awareness, then for professional actors, especially those who follow the teachings of Konstantin Stanislavsky (Russian dramatist), real performance What about the character's so-called experience actor?

Ps: experience actor (method actor): method pie is a branch of experience pie.

Actors go through a process where their real selves merge with fictional characters. For example, Benedict Cumberbatch says that although he likes playing complex roles like Sherlock Holmes, it also "has a side effect. I do get affected by it Become impatient. My mother said that I was more perfunctory and impatient with Sherlock during the filming. "

Benedict Cumberbatch says playing Sherlock has also affected his personality off screen

Mark Seton is a researcher in the Department of Drama and Performance Studies at the University of Sydney. He coined an inflammatory term "post-dramatic stress disorder" to describe the kind of difficult and lasting effects that an actor occasionally experiences while indulging in a character. He wrote: "Actors often continue their addictive, dependent, and destructive habits in the roles they play."

But some commentators are skeptical. For example, Samuel Kampa of Fordham University in New York City recently commented on Aeon that the concept of role immersion is exaggerated and actors "do not really forget who they are, they Actual beliefs and aspirations are constant. "

For a long time, this debate about whether actors really lost themselves in their roles was largely a guess. But two psychological papers published this year provide concrete evidence for this. The findings show that actors' self-awareness is profoundly altered by the role they play.

In an article published in the journal Royal Society's Open Science, a research team led by Steven Brown recruited 15 young Canadian actors who were taught by Stanislavsky's method, and based on their Gender scanned their brains as they played Romeo or Juliet. The actors spent some time entering the characters in the balcony scene, and then they lay in the scanner, and the researchers asked them a series of personal questions, such as "Will you go to a party that you were not invited to?" Or "Will you tell your parents when you are in love?" Such a question. The actors' task is to compile an answer in their brain that reflects the character of their virtual character.

The researchers then tested their brain activity during role play, comparing this result to their test results when they answered similar questions as themselves or on behalf of an acquaintance (friend or relative, responding in the third person in the brain). . Key results show that the patterns of brain activity associated with playing Romeo or Juliet do not appear in other contexts, even though other contexts involve thinking about intentions and emotions, and / or adopting another personal perspective.

The Clown as Jacques Phoenix

Role-playing is particularly related to the most severe inactivation at the front and midline of the brain, and these two regions are related to self-cognition. "This may mean that acting as a neurocognitive phenomenon is an inhibition of the process of self-cognition," the researchers said. Another consequence is that performance is associated with a reduction in inactivation of the brain area called the anterior wedge. This brain region is near the back of the brain. Usually, its activity decreases when it is focused (such as contemplation). Researchers have speculated that the increased activity of the anterior wedge during performance is related to the allocation of resources required to play a role-"dual consciousness as described by performance theorists."

In fact, these new brain scan findings suggest that self-lostness is quite prone (this is also the first time neuroimaging technology has been used in performance research). There is also a fourth scenario in previous research, in which actors are asked to respond to questions in their own identities, but with a British accent. They were explicitly instructed not to pretend to be British, but merely imitating British accents would lead to a pattern of brain activity similar to performance. Researchers said, "Even when a character has not been explicitly deduced, gesture changes through personal imitation may be the first step leading to characterization and contraction of self-awareness."

The last finding suggests that the ego can be easily weakened or obscured. This coincides with the views of another recent paper published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: A Review, which was led by Meghan Meyer's research team at Dartmouth College and Princeton University Post. In several studies, researchers asked volunteers to evaluate their own personality, memories, or physical fitness before doing another assessment from the perspective of others. For example, they may score emotional states in various personal memories, and then evaluate how emotionally a friend or relative will face the same event. They also evaluate how well the various character description words match them, and then how well those words match one of their friends.

After evaluating from another angle, the volunteers will score themselves again. Consistent with previous results, it was found that their self-perception was now changed-they scored themselves closer to the scores given to another person. For example, if they initially say that the trait of "confidence" has little to do with themselves, and then evaluate a friend's personality as very confident, then when he scores himself again, they tend to see themselves more confidently. It is worth noting that this change in self-awareness caused by another person is still visible even after a 24-hour gap between the evaluation of others and themselves.

In these studies, neither public performance nor professional actors were involved, and just spending some time thinking about another person seemed to affect the self-awareness of the volunteers. "Just by imagining another person, we can shape ourselves as that person," Meyer and her colleagues said. Based on these findings, it's no wonder that actors who sometimes immerse themselves in another character's identity for weeks, months, or even a year will experience drastic changes in self-awareness.

The idea that our self-awareness is short-lived can be a bit disturbing, especially for those trying to build a strong sense of identity. But this is also optimistic news: the challenge of improving ourselves, or at least looking at ourselves with a more positive perspective, may be easier than we think. Through role-playing, or acting like another person we want to become, or just imagining and spending time with those who show our desired character, we will find that self-awareness is moving towards satisfaction development of. Meyer and her colleagues wrote: "When each of us chooses to be friends with, whom to use as examples, and who to ignore, we must realize that they not only shape our social network, but also our self conscious."