Filmmakers know exactly how to help you read on-screen emotions - via @SpringerNature

Summary: Movie makers implicitly know how important it is to be able to read someone's expression, and that distance influences how easy this is done. This explains why close-ups of an actor appear on screen for shorter periods than shots in which the person's face is smaller and is surrounded by distracting objects, according to a study by James Cutting and Kacie Armstrong of Cornell University in the US, published in Springer's journal Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics . They argue that the craft of popular movie making relies on psychological principles about how much humans can absorb and comprehend.