A Study of Cognitive Theories in Audience Perceptions of Imagination Based on the Opinions of David Bordwell and Gregory Curry

Cognitive theory is one of the most important contemporary theories in the field of cinema and media trying to evaluate the audience's perception in the face of film by combining cognitive, philosophical and cinematic achievements and with this approach, while opposing the psychoanalytic and classical theories of cinema, to focus its attention on the mental activity of the audience while watching the film.By focusing on how the viewer perceives cinematic images and the narrative, to prove that the audience is engaging in a conscious activity. This article, firstly by explaining and examining the cognitive patterns of scholars such as David Bordwell and Gregory Currie about perception and the analysis of contemporary imaginative theories, intends to assess the perception and function of the imagination through the audience's encounter with the Surrealist film Easerhead 1977. In this study Questionnaire survey has been adopted: Fifty participants were classified based on education and age and were randomly divided into two groups and answered the questions. The findings prove that Bordwell’s cognitive theories are sporadically formed but do not lead to the perception of the narrative, but according to the characteristics of the imagination, they can be expanded in a cohesive and integrated form. in contrast, Curry’s cognitive theory leads to an understanding of narrative in an experimental state, since imagination plays a key role in his theory, it is possible to revise this theory in a new and more complete form.