This study investigates how chromatic manipulation of cinematic content modulates emotional engagement, with specific attention to sex-differentiated responses. We used a mixed factorial design with chromatic condition as a within-subject factor and biological sex as a between-subject factor, counterbalanced across scenes through a 3 × 3 Latin square that renders scene identity orthogonal to chromatic condition by construction. Thirty adult viewers were recorded with synchronised facial-expression analysis (AFFDEX 5.1), blink detection, and galvanic skin response (Shimmer GSR). The primary inferential target was the Condition × Sex interaction on automated positive facial valence. This interaction was statistically reliable under three converging tests: a mixed-effects model (βMod×F=−4.48, SE=2.16, 95% CI −8.81,−0.14, p=0.043), a participant-level cluster bootstrap (2000 resamples; 95% percentile CI −9.78,−0.63; pboot=0.011), and a label-permutation test. The effect was stable under leave-one-subject-out resampling (100% sign-stability) and persisted after introducing scene as a fixed factor. Blink rate and electrodermal activation showed directionally consistent but weaker interaction patterns. A multidimensional engagement framework that separates attentional-autonomic intensity from expressive valence supports interpretation of the finding as specific to expressive affective behavior rather than to overall activation. The results provide empirical evidence that chromatic manipulation in realistic cinematic stimuli modulates expressive affective responses in a sex-dependent manner, and they establish a reproducible multimodal biometric framework for chromatic impact assessment.
Del-Valle-Soto et al. (Mon,) studied this question.
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