The role of electronics in the perception of everyday narratives

Taking into consideration that conversational narratives not only have a verbal but also a nonverbal (i.e., prosodic and kinesic) make-up, the paper focuses on the problem of perceiving and describing/analyzing such complex performances appropriately. The only detailed and accurate way consists in computer-assisted forms of viewing and techniques of analysis and notation. Selected examples from one TV-narrative illustrate the ample possibilities. The achievements are compared to what seems attainable to natural/intuitive viewing and the corresponding way of fixing such impressions. The versions resulting from each approach are dramatically different; but none can be said to be superior to the other because they relate to different cognitive objectives.