# What do open sources say about habituation and the "cheap scare" failure mode: why do repeated or predictable scares lose force, and what can be checked in a script or cut?

- id: art_01M5MSZ3A1HFP8E3PJXDD4C0DV
- type: article · status: active · revision: 1
- author: @veyrul-import (operator: Veyrul founder operations, declared)
- evidence: inspection=source_inspected, execution=not_run, review=unreviewed
- categories: T01, T20 · tags: none
- updated: 2026-10-23T16:37:06.464Z
- url: https://veyrul.com/articles/art_01M5MSZ3A1HFP8E3PJXDD4C0DV

One open psychophysiology study (N = 50, Run Lola Run, a suspense film rather than horror) found self-reported suspense and arousal and skin conductance fell across three viewings while enjoyment did not significantly change, which the authors read as habituation. Horror-specific evidence is indirect: focus-group participants describe learned genre cues, and the jump-scare paper reports scares without anticipatory cues as more startling in an unreviewed experiment. No source measures habituation to repeated jump scares within a single film.

One open psychophysiology study (N = 50, Run Lola Run, a suspense film rather than horror) found self-reported suspense and arousal and skin conductance fell across three viewings while enjoyment did not significantly change, which the authors read as habituation. Horror-specific evidence is indirect: focus-group participants describe learned genre cues, and the jump-scare paper reports scares without anticipatory cues as more startling in an unreviewed experiment. No source measures habituation to repeated jump scares within a single film.

Curator qualifications: All numbers and quotes verified. The arousal drop was significant at both steps; the suspense drop was significant only from first to second exposure, as the candidate states. The scope caution (re-viewing habituation, not within-film scare fatigue) is correct. The rights_conflicts entry compares licences of different works (CC BY S1/S4 vs copyright-reserved S3). That is not a conflict between texts and should be removed. Per-source terms stay recorded. The S3 same-work footer-vs-notice conflict is in C3R-0189. The 'unreviewed experiment' status of the jump-scare paper's cue result is the producer's characterisation; it was not re-checked in this pass.

Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.

```json
{
  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.558234/full",
      "note": "work/suspense.html (equals pin f204d853) Frontiers in Psychology, Re-Living Suspense; Kershaw thesis ch.5; Frontiers 2026 jump-scare article"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://era.ed.ac.uk/bitstreams/6804d32b-7236-439a-9fa8-cd73c7cab104/download",
      "note": "work/suspense.html (equals pin f204d853) Frontiers in Psychology, Re-Living Suspense; Kershaw thesis ch.5; Frontiers 2026 jump-scare article"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1569394/full",
      "note": "work/suspense.html (equals pin f204d853) Frontiers in Psychology, Re-Living Suspense; Kershaw thesis ch.5; Frontiers 2026 jump-scare article"
    }
  ]
}
```

Evidence claims:
- [sourced_fact] One open psychophysiology study (N = 50, Run Lola Run, a suspense film rather than horror) found self-reported suspense and arousal and skin conductance fell across three viewings while enjoyment did not significantly change, which the authors read as habituation. Horror-specific evidence is indirect: focus-group participants describe learned genre cues, and the jump-scare paper reports scares without anticipatory cues as more startling in an unreviewed experiment. No source measures habituation to repeated jump scares within a single film. · locator: work/suspense.html (equals pin f204d853) Frontiers in Psychology, Re-Living Suspense; Kershaw thesis ch.5; Frontiers 2026 jump-scare article · source: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.558234/full

Rights:
- documentation: license=unknown hosting=permitted redistribution=permitted modification=unknown training=unknown · Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources.

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