Hollywood studios and TV firms have long tried to persuade us that donning a pair of 3D glasses will improve our TV and movie experience.

However, researchers have shown they are a waste of money - and that we have exactly the same emotional response whether footage is in 2D or 3D.

Researchers monitored palm sweat, breathing and cardiovascular responses such as heart rate in a bid to see if 3D was worth the extra cash.

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Is one being ripped off? Prince Charles dons a pair of 3D glasses. However, researchers have shown they are a waste of money - and that we have exactly the same emotional response whether footage is in 2D or 3D.

HOW THEY DID IT Researchers looked at several measures of emotional state in 408 subjects, including palm sweat, breathing and cardiovascular responses, such as heart rate. These measures are commonly used to gauge emotional responses. Four film clips were chosen because each prompted one discrete emotion intensely and in context without viewing the entire film. Study participants viewed a 3-D and 2-D clip of approximately five minutes of each film: 'My Bloody Valentine' (fear), 'Despicable Me' (amusement), 'Tangled' (sadness) and 'The Polar Express' (thrill or excitement). Participants were randomized to view the films in a design that balanced the pairs of films watched, in which format, and order of presentation. Advertisement

The increased visual realism of 3-D films is claimed to offer viewers a more vivid and lifelike experience—more thrilling and intense than 2-D because it more closely approximates real life.

Researchers at the University of Utah wanted to see if the claims were true.

Author Sheila Crowell said the results suggest that as an entertainment medium, 3-D may not provide a different experience from 2-D, insofar as evoking emotional responses go.

'We set out to learn whether technological advances like 3-D enhance the study of emotion, especially for young patients who are routinely exposed to high-tech devices and mediums in their daily lives,' says Crowell.

'Both 2-D and 3-D are equally effective at eliciting emotional responses, which also may mean that the expense involved in producing 3-D films is not creating much more than novelty.

Researchers found that 3D is a waste of money - and that we have exactly the same emotional response whether footage is in 2D or 3D.

'Further studies are of course warranted, but our findings should be encouraging to researchers who cannot now afford 3-D technologies.

'This could also be good news for people who would rather not wear 3-D glasses or pay the extra money to see these types of films.'

The results, published recently in PLOS ONE.

The study aimed to validate the effectiveness of 3-D film, a newer technology, as compared to 2-D film that is currently widely used as a research tool.

Film clips are used in psychological and neuroscience studies as a standardized method for assessing emotional development.

Because it is less invasive than other methods, it is especially useful when studying the emotional responses of young people for whom emotional well-being is critical to healthy development.

How the study was conducted

Researchers looked at several measures of emotional state in 408 subjects, including palm sweat, breathing and cardiovascular responses, such as heart rate. These measures are commonly used to gauge emotional responses.

Four film clips were chosen because each prompted one discrete emotion intensely and in context without viewing the entire film.

The only difference was seen during a thrilling scene from 'The Polar Express' in 3-D.The researchers believe that could be because the 3-D content of the film is of especially high quality, with more and a larger variety of 3-D effects than the others.

Study participants viewed a 3-D and 2-D clip of approximately five minutes of each film: 'My Bloody Valentine' (fear), 'Despicable Me' (amusement), 'Tangled' (sadness) and 'The Polar Express' (thrill or excitement). Participants were randomized to view the films in a design that balanced the pairs of films watched, in which format, and order of presentation.

The complex configurations allowed the researchers to compare not only emotional responses, but effects of format and viewing order on the results.

Taken as a whole, the results showed few significant differences between physiological reactions to the films.

When accounting for the large number of statistical tests, only one difference was seen between the formats—the number of electrodermal responses (palm sweat) during a thrilling scene from 'The Polar Express' 3-D clip.