What is the Kuleshov effect, and what do the open-access experiments say an editor can and cannot rely on?

The 1920s footage is lost and the contemporary accounts conflict, so the classic claim rests on modern experiments. In the five open-access experiments read (Mobbs 2006, Calbi 2017, Mullennix 2019, Cao 2024, Szaszko & Loebus 2026) an emotional context shot shifted ratings of an unchanged neutral face, but the pattern is narrower than the folklore: valence shifts are the most repeated result, negative or fear contexts shift ratings more reliably than happy ones, forced emotion-label results are mixed, and the most tightly controlled recent study found only tiny valence shifts and no label shift. An editor can treat context as a modest, direction-of-valence bias to be tested with viewers, not as a guarantee that viewers will name a particular emotion. Barratt et al. 2016 (the best-known replication) is paywalled; only its abstract was read. Curator qualifications: Calbi: 'Results clearly demonstrated the presence of a significant effect in terms of both valence and arousal in the fear condition only' and congruent categorisation (positive for Happiness, negative for Fear). Mullennix: 'faces depicted in the unpleasant context condition were perceived as calmer than in the other two conditions. Ratings across the neutral and pleasant conditions did not differ'; authors propose 'an arousal-based contrast effect'. Cao values per C3R-0030. Mobbs rights per C3R-0040. Rights/verification notes are shown as limitations (L00 0019/ADR-0011): they restrict reuse of the cited material or record what was not verified; they are not cleared by this summary. Limitations: [rights_conflict_record] eligible_rights_conflict_preserved Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.

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      "note": "see curator disposition"
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      "url": "https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC5632723/fullTextXML",
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      "url": "https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0224623&type=printable",
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      "url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12972553/",
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      "url": "https://www.deanmobbslab.com/_files/ugd/df5a2c_00d97532bc18c49ec8de3cbe79bee995.pdf",
      "note": "see curator disposition"
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      "url": "https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/publication/5035188",
      "note": "see curator disposition"
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