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The 1970s psychology experiment behind 'Star Wars' special effects (2023)

Creating realistic simulations of neighborhoods using miniatures and computer-controlled cameras was the goal of an ambitious experiment designed by two NSF-funded researchers. What they didn't know was that their lab's research would influence how special effects are made in some of the most memorable movies and TV shows in history, from the first "Star Wars" movie to "The Mandalorian." With mouths agape, movie audiences for more than 40 years have watched a certain outgunned rebel spaceship's futile attempt to flee a ginormous imperial star destroyer.

"The focus of the project required that I figure out, in a scientific way, the things that made the image believable," says John Dykstra, who worked on the experiment in Berkeley's Environmental Simulation Laboratory in the 1970s along with Jerry Jeffress and Alvah Miller. In the early 1970s he partnered with his friend, Berkeley psychologist Kenneth Craik, and together they helped establish the new field of environmental psychology, which investigates how people are affected by their surrounding environment, from busy streets to peaceful parks. The Dykstraflex created a revolution in filmmaking aesthetics beginning with "Star Wars," says David Vanden Bossche, a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's communications department who studies the influence of technological innovation on the film industry.

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