Hans Hermas Überlegungen zur Bildhaftigkeit des Films im Vergleich mit anderen Darstellungsformen -- Vorstellung einer Arbeit aus den Forschungen zum Film am Wiener Institut für Psychologie in den 1930er Jahren

This chapter examines the doctoral dissertation of Hans Herma (Johann/John
Leopold Herman, * 1911 in Wien, † 1966 in New York), Die Bildhaftigkeit des Films. This
dissertation was part of an extensive research program at the Vienna Institute for
Psychology in the 1930s. Herma’s work focused on a specific aspect of film: its
ability to take the viewer out of their immediate perceptual environment and place
them in the scene represented by the film. According to Herma, film goes beyond
the deictic possibilites of a novel through its ability to offer an ad oculos
demonstration. Taking the pictorial character of film as his starting point, Herma provides in
his dissertation a detailed and empirically based description of the perceptual
psychological foundations of film and how they interact with the technical features of
the medium.