Cognitive complexity and theatrical information processing: Audience responses to plays and characters

Abstract

This research sought to determine relationships between audience members’ perceptions of dramatic productions and their information‐processing abilities. Independent variables were cognitive complexity‐simplicity of subjects, entropy‐redundance of two stimulus plays, and the set of characters in the two stimulus plays. On particular dimensions of perception, as measured by discriminant analysis, complex and simple subjects responded significantly differently to both plays and characters; subject complexity‐simplicity interacted with stimulus entropy‐redundance; and subject complexity‐simplicity interacted with perceptions of dramatic characters to produce significantly differing response patterns.