Anger, joy, fear, sorrow... can our breath reveal our emotions?
Researchers in Germany who studied nearly 10,000 cinema goers were able to detect changes in the chemical composition of the movie theatre air which mirrored the audience's reactions to particular scenes in flims like The Hobbit and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.
Dracula screenshot Photo: YouTube screenshot
If you can start to tell what someone is feeling from their breath, just think of some of the potential applications... in advertising, in assessing how well political messages might be received by voters, or just in being able to rate films and video games more accurately based on the actual effect they have on people.
"It appears that we can measure whether there is suspense in the air", says Jonathan Williams - at atmospheric chemist working at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and the man behind this research.
"The carbon dioxide and isoprene levels in the air always increased significantly as the heroine began fighting for her life" - Jonathan Williams.
