Now that I've got "Experimental Film" by They Might be Giants in my head

I'm wondering.

Mostly, the term "experimental film" just seems to mean:

"Visually Record Stream-of-Consciousness images in a deliberately weird way, and use that to make some sort of point regarding humanity proving that I'm smarter than everyone else in the room."

But -- since "Experiment" actually has a specific meaning:

1. To observe
   
2. To formulate a question about your observations
   
3. To come to a tentative answer to your question, in the form of an hypthesis -- i.e. "And idea you can test."
   
4. Design the test for your idea.
   
5. Run the test.
   
6. Observe the result to see if your tentative answer was right.
   
7. If it is, ask someone else to run the test, and see if the answer is still right.
   
8. If it's not, then:
   
9. GoTo 1.

So -- What would a real (scientifically) experimental film be like? What sorts of things could a cinematic scientist test by using film as a medium?

What sort of hypotheses are lurking out there?