He is known most recently for his research studying how the structure of movies in American cinema has evolved over the years,[1] in terms of physical attributes and narratives.

In late 1970s, he developed a research interest in biological motion, on which he wrote multiple articles through the early 1980s.

[3] In the 1990s, Cutting began spending time at the Fine Arts Library at Cornell, where he studied books about French Impressionist paintings.

He collected images, counted them, catalogued them, and later used them for an experiment on mere exposure effect, the theory that the more times one is exposed to something, the more one prefers it over something similar but less familiar.

To study this effect, Cutting inserted the pictures of French impressionist paintings into his power point slides over the course of many class lectures.

[9] He concluded in a 2003 paper "that artistic canons are promoted and maintained, in part, by a diffuse but continual broadcast of their images to the public by museums, authors, and publishers.

The repeated presentation of images to an audience without its necessarily focused awareness or remembrance makes mere exposure a prime vehicle for canon formation.

[12] After finishing his editorship of Psychological Science in 2006, Cutting continued his interest in popular culture and focused on how Hollywood movies have evolved over the years, studying their structure, physical attributes, and narratives.

[13] Through their research, Cutting and his students showed that, compared to older movies, contemporary movies have more motion, shorter shot durations, shorter scenes, fewer dissolves, more closeups, fewer characters per frame, less clutter, more parallel action, and higher contrast, all of which help to hold the viewers’ attention, which generally follows a pattern of pink noise.