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Neural evidence that suspense narrows attentional focus
Abstract
The scope of visual attention changes dynamically over time. Although previous research has reported conditions that suppress peripheral visual processing, no prior work has investigated how attention changes in response to the variable emotional content of audiovisual narratives. We used fMRI to test for the suppression of spatially peripheral stimuli and enhancement of narrative-relevant central stimuli at moments when suspense increased in narrative film excerpts. Participants viewed films presented at fixation, while flashing checkerboards appeared in the periphery. Analyses revealed that increasing narrative suspense caused reduced activity in peripheral visual processing regions in the anterior calcarine sulcus and in default mode network nodes. Concurrently, activity increased in central visual processing regions and in frontal and parietal regions recruited for attention and dynamic visual processing. These results provide evidence, using naturalistic stimuli, of dynamic spatial tuning of attention in early visual processing areas due to narrative context.
Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
... To make that concept more concrete, I review a project I conducted with my students, Matthew Bezdek and Jeffrey Foy (Bezdek et al., 2015). Our overarching goal was to motivate and populate a taxonomy of participatory responses. ...
... Participants' responses enabled us to define a taxonomy of participatory responses with eight basic categories (see, Bezdek et al., 2015) (Table 1). Two categories accounted for the largest numbers of the responses: outcome preferences and problem-solving instructions. ...
... To provide more direct evidence for that claim, Matthew Bezdek and I (Bezdek & Gerrig, 2017; see also, Bezdek et al., 2015) tested the particular hypothesis that when people are transported, their attention is directed into the narrative world and, as such, away from the real world. In our experiments, we asked participants to view excerpts from commercial films. ...
In this article, I use the metaphor that readers journey to narrative worlds to review research that has spanned my career. In the first section, I consider the processes that enable readers to undertake these journeys as well as the processes that allow them to participate in the narrative worlds once they have arrived. In the second section, I review research that supports claims that readers’ journeys to narrative worlds create distance from their worlds of origin. In the final section, I consider research that documents fundamental ways in which readers’ real-world beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors are changed by their experiences of narrative worlds.
... Studies of brain activity evoked by naturalistic stimuli have found narrative suspense produces reliable patterns of activation consistent with increased attention to the narrative and decreased processing of non-narrative stimuli (Bezdek et al., 2015). Yet the progression of brain states (i.e. ...
... While the patterns of brain activation over time vary across participants during resting state scans, during the naturalistic presentation of edited commercial films, responses can be highly synchronized across sets of participants, as measured with the locations of eye fixations (Mital et al., 2011;Wang et al., 2012), electroencephalography (EEG; Dmochowski et al., 2012), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI; Hasson et al., 2004Hasson et al., , 2010. Suspenseful film stimuli in particular have been shown to elicit time-locked patterns of behavioral and neural activity across participants (Bezdek et al., 2015Bezdek & Gerrig, 2017;Dmochowski et al., 2012;Hasson et al., 2008). ...
... Prior research using univariate BOLD analyses has identified networks of brain regions that reliably increase or decrease in activity as a function of narrative suspense. Moments of increasing narrative suspense produce increased activity in higher-order visual processing regions and the ventral attention network and decreased activity in the default mode network (Bezdek et al., 2015. These findings complement behavioral studies of suspenseful films that have reported suspense impairs performance on secondary tasks (Bezdek & Gerrig, 2017;Cohen et al., 2015). ...
Studies of brain activity evoked by naturalistic stimuli have found narrative suspense produces reliable patterns of activation consistent with increased attention to the narrative and decreased processing of non-narrative stimuli (Bezdek et al., 2015). Yet the progression of brain states (i.e. patterns of activity levels across the whole brain) at suspense peaks and how they differ from suspense valleys or resting state scans has not previously been investigated. We used a fast fMRI acquisition sequence to measure sub-second brain states at peaks and valleys of narrative suspense and during rest. We found five brain states that occur during suspenseful film viewing, four of which differ in their frequency near suspense peaks compared to valleys. The pattern of results is consistent with the theoretical view that suspense captures and focuses attentional processing, triggering subsequent cognitive processing of narrative events.
... Chatman, 1980). Despite the numerous studies on felt suspense (e.g., Bezdek, 2012;Bezdek, Gerrig, Wenzel, Shin, Revill, & Schumacher, 2015;Brewer & Lichtenstein, 1982;Zilmann, 1991), and on the relationship between felt suspense and narrative absorption (e.g., Bezdek & Gerrig, 2016;de Graaf & Hustinx, 2011), the nature and the media specificity of the relationship between the two have remained unclear. ...
... All the available scales for narrative absorption include a "focused attention" component to capture attention focused on the story events (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2009;Green & Brock, 2000;Kuijpers, Hakemulder, Tan, & Doicaru 2014). Similarly, research has shown that felt suspense narrows attention on specific events in the story world (Bezdek, Gerrig, Wenzel, Revill, & Schumacher, 2015;Bezdek & Gerrig, 2016). Third, felt suspense and narrative absorption both include readers' or viewers' emo- tional engagement with characters. ...
... It accounts for 18% of the variance in felt suspense, whereas emo- tional engagement accounts for 3%. This finding is in line with our expectations based on previous research, which showed that both suspense and narrative ab- sorption narrow down attention on specific events in the story (e.g., Bezdek et al., 2015;Bezdek & Gerrig, 2016). The most surprising result is the significant negative relationship of transportation with felt suspense when controlling for attention and emotional engagement. ...
The present study was to further the understanding of the conceptual relationship between narrative absorption, that is the intense engagement with a story world, and felt suspense, that is the anticipation of a narrative outcome event. To this end, a media comparative online experiment was conducted with a 2 (Media format: film vs. literature) × 2 (Suspense structure: diegetic vs. non-diegetic delay) × 2 (Stories) between subject design. Results revealed a complex relationship among felt suspense, attention, emotional engagement, and transportation, showing the high importance of attention in felt suspense, and the moderating effect of media format and gender. Findings indicate that non-diegetic suspense delay unlike diegetic suspense decreases felt suspense and narrative absorption independently of media format.
... Neuroscience literature already consented to the narrowing effect of suspense on visual attentional focus in the context of narrative films. The study of Bezdek et al. (2015) revealed that increasing narrative suspense reduces peripheral visual processing. In contrast, the sponsorship literature states almost exclusively an opposite effect: The games' degree of suspense influences the viewers' visual attention to sponsor messages significantly negative (e.g., Boronczyk et al., 2021;Breuer et al., 2021), indicating lower game suspense decreasing visual attention toward the peripheral perceived sponsor messages. ...
... The game's degree of suspense is negatively associated with the visual attention allocation to sponsor messages, in line with findings from advertising research (Bee & Madrigal, 2012;Oshimi et al., 2014). However, this is contrasting to neuroscience literature (Bezdek et al., 2015). Suspenseful time frames seem to capture more cognitive capacity toward the broadcast, which also benefits the visual processing of sponsor messages during games. ...
This study aims to increase the effective use of in-stadium sponsor message placement by analyzing the influence of various run-of-play characteristics on television viewers' visual attention allocation. Sports broadcasts constitute one potential platform for sponsors to place personalized messages. However, literature still questions the effectiveness of in-stadium sponsor messages, and the influence of game-related factors on viewers' visual attention has received little consideration in this context. In addition, researchers call for more reliable and realistic measures concerning the effective evaluation of sponsorship-linked marketing. Therefore, this study uses real-time adaptions (eye-tracking, in-play betting odds, etc.) utilizing live soccer broadcasts as one of the first. Data were analyzed second by second (n = 100,298) using generalized linear mixed models. Results indicate significant associations of several run-of-play characteristics with viewers' visual attention to sponsor messages depending on the characteristic, the games' degree of suspense, and playing time. Findings provide hands-on advice for practitioners to enhance sponsor message placement during live broadcasts.
... Suspense and emotional content in narratives has been shown to modulate attention. In a study on visual narratives, narrative suspense has been shown to suppress attentional focus to peripheral sensory input and deactivation of the default mode network 49 . The default mode network also has been linked to accumulative plot formation 50 (see also ref. 51 ). ...
... The observation that greater emotional intensity during engagement with literature is linked to decreased activation in the FPAN might be linked to suspended executive control and directed attention, as participants' attention is guided by the story, rather than their active seeking of information. Similar findings have been shown for the related concept of narrative suspense 39,49 . ...
Humans are deeply affected by stories, yet it is unclear how. In this study, we explored two aspects of aesthetic experiences during narrative engagement-literariness and narrative fluctuations in appraised emotional intensity. Independent ratings of literariness and emotional intensity of two literary stories were used to predict blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal changes in 52 listeners from an existing fMRI dataset. Literariness was associated with increased activation in brain areas linked to semantic integration (left angular gyrus, supramarginal gyrus, and precuneus), and decreased activation in bilateral middle temporal cortices, associated with semantic representations and word memory. Emotional intensity correlated with decreased activation in a bilateral frontoparietal network that is often associated with controlled attention. Our results confirm a neural dissociation in processing literary form and emotional content in stories and generate new questions about the function of and interaction between attention, social cognition, and semantic systems during literary engagement and aesthetic experiences.
... Scientists Bezdek et al. (2015) studied the change of attention during the demonstration of emotional-semantic audiovisual narratives. Scientists state that the amount of visual attention is dynamic over time. ...
... During the experiment, the researchers suggested focusing on contemplating the film in the center of the screen while flashing chessboards on the periphery. They found changes in brain activity in the calcaneus sulcus, and noticed an increase in the activity in the central areas of the brain responsible for visual information processing and in the frontal and parietal lobes (Bezdek et al., 2015). Thus, the results of the study confirm, that the dynamics of spatial adjustment of attention through narrative in areas of the brain are responsible for visual processing of information, which indicates the emergence of tunnel vision. ...
The article highlights the issue of the psychological impact of fakes on the individual, which is intensively increased through various mass media and especially social networks. The general research aim comprises the study of features of the psychological influence of fakes on an individual and classification of this influence. It was proven that fakes intensify the person's stress, weaken adaptive reserves, reduce efficiency, and lead to stress disorders. Numerous fake messages cause intense emotional transformation of the individual through the emotional receptivity of the message. It was found that under the influence of fakes, a person's direct participation in the information cycle through the mass media contributes to the consolidation of his behavior into certain groups. Fake information encourages fake modeling of one's own future and determines its influence on one's status in society. It was shown that human perception of emotional audiovisual narratives causes the tunnel vision. Pragmatic assumptions stimulate the individual to perceive fake information as the absolute truth, and in situations of uncertainty - to show a pronounced activity with a growing preference for information. Fakes can worsen physical and mental health, cause changes in mental processes, motivation, priorities and affect interaction in the society. That is why, the knowledge of features of the psychological impact of fakes on an individual will help understand the need to analyze information content, search, critically select and test messages to maintain one’s mental health.
... Increasing top-down narrative suspense produced reduced activity in peripheral visual processing brain areas. Concurrently, the activity in central visual pro- cessing regions and in the regions recruited for attention and dynamic visual processing where tuned for focused attention (Bezdek et al. 2015, Bezdek andGerrig 2017). ...
... 288 sources to relevant information and attenuates conceptual and spatial attention. In short, suspense guides cognitive and attentional allocation (Bezdek et al. 2015, Bezdek andGerrig 2017). ...
... The expectations or questions that guide the gaze may be minimally articulated, e.g., 'what or whom are these characters looking at' as in gaze following, but the operation of higher level cognitive schemas are not excluded. The best demonstration to date of the control of focus of attention by the narrative is given in research on suspense and its effects on film viewer gazes by Bezdek et al. (2015) and Bezdek and Gerrig (2017). 34 Their results can be taken to imply that suspense, a state of high absorption, is associated with focal attention to story-world details supervised by expectations created by the narrative (see also Doicaru, 2016). ...
... Artistically motivated violations are taken seriously, but dealt with as atypical for the canonical set-up. 34 Bezdek et al. (2015) report a study in which participants were shown a film scene at the centre of fixation while checkerboard patterns were flashed in the periphery of vision. The results of fMRI analyses showed that activity of peripheral visual processing areas in the brain was diminished with increasing narrative suspense of the scenes, whereas activity in areas associated with central vision, attention and dynamic visual processing increased. ...
The cinema as a cultural institution has been studied by academic researchers in the arts and humanities. At present, cultural media studies are the home to the aesthetics and critical analysis of film, film history and other branches of film scholarship. Probably less known to most is that research psychologists working in social and life science labs have also contributed to the study of the medium. They have examined the particular experience that motion pictures provide to the film audience and the mechanisms that explain the perception and comprehension of film, and how movies move viewers and to what effects. This article reviews achievements in psychological research of the film since its earliest beginnings in the 1910s. A leading issue in the research has been whether understanding films is a bottom-up process, or a top-down one. A bottom-up explanation likens film-viewing to highly automated detection of stimulus features physically given in the supply of images; a top-down one to the construction of scenes from very incomplete information using mental schemata. Early film psychologists tried to pinpoint critical features of simple visual stimuli responsible for the perception of smooth movement. The riddle of apparent motion has not yet been solved up to now. Gestalt psychologists were the first to point at the role of mental structures in seeing smooth movement, using simple visual forms and displays. Bottom-up and top-down approaches to the comprehension of film fought for priority from the 60s onwards and became integrated at the end of the century. Gibson’s concept of direct perception led to the identification of low-level film-stylistic cues that are used in mainstream film production, and support film viewers in highly automated seamless perception of film scenes. Hochberg’s argument for the indispensability of mental schemata, too, accounted for the smooth cognitive construction of portrayed action and scenes. Since the 90s, cognitive analyses of narration in film by film scholars from the humanities have revolutionised accounts of the comprehension of movies. They informed computational content analyses that link low-level film features with meaningful units of film-story-telling. After a century of research, some perceptual and cognitive mechanisms that support our interaction with events in the real world have been uncovered. Today, the film experience at large has reappeared on the agenda. An integration of top-down and bottom-up mechanisms is sought in explaining the remarkable intensity of the film experience. Advances are now being made in grasping what it is like to enjoy movies, by describing the absorbing and moving qualities of the experience. As an example, a current account of film viewers' emotional experience is presented. Further advances in our understanding of the film experience and its underlying mechanisms can be expected if film psychologists team up with cognitive film studies, computer vision and the neurosciences. This collaboration is also expected to allow for research into mainstream and other genres as forms of art.
... evoking empathy with a character). These narratively-important moments may narrow attention 6,58 , reflected here through temporal alignment of audience physiology. ...
Audio-visual media possesses a remarkable ability to synchronise audiences’ neural, behavioural, and physiological responses. This synchronisation is considered to reflect some dimension of collective attention or engagement with the stimulus. But what is it about these stimuli that drives such strong engagement? There are several properties of media stimuli which may lead to synchronous audience response: from low-level audio-visual features, to the story itself. Here, we present a study which separates low-level features from narrative by presenting participants with the same content but in separate modalities. In this way, the presentations shared no low-level features, but participants experienced the same narrative. We show that synchrony in participants’ heart rate can be driven by the narrative information alone. We computed both visual and auditory perceptual saliency for the content and found that narrative was approximately 10 times as predictive of heart rate as low-level saliency, but that low-level audio-visual saliency has a small additive effect towards heart rate. Further, heart rate synchrony was related to a separate cohorts’ continuous ratings of immersion, and that synchrony is likely to be higher at moments of increased narrative importance. Our findings demonstrate that high-level narrative dominates in the alignment of physiology across viewers.
... Obviously, continuous measurements have nearly infinitely high granularity, only constrained by the measurement device resolution. Continuous measurements have been taken for biological signs of tension, suspense and fear e.g. in music (Farbood, 2012;Krumhansl, 1996;Lehne et al., 2014;Madsen & Fredrickson, 1993;Vines et al., 2006), film suspense (Bezdek, 2012;Bezdek & Gerrig, 2017;Bezdek et al., 2015), emotional affect (Ruef & Levenson, 2007), and audio renditions of literary stories (Kaakinen & Simola, 2020;Riese et al., 2014). However, whenever the conscious experience of suspense was asked for, it was again not on a continuous level. ...
... This is especially problematic in the narrative settingif individuals are absorbed in the narrative and do not attend to the physical world, they may not be able to reliably recollect their own attention at postexposure. To address this issue, some recent scholars have begun to use non-self-report measures of attention during narrative exposure, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI; Bezdek et al., 2015), heart rate (Sukalla, et al., 2016), and response times (Bezdek & Gerrig, 2017;Cohen et al., 2015). However, these more recent studies have only considered engagement with film. ...
Narrative messages have demonstrated consistent effects on attitude change, with transportation as one of the most prominent explanations for their effects. However, the transportation process has yet to be fully understood. The present study investigated how attentional changes during audio narrative exposure, operationalized as secondary task reaction times, related to postexposure self-reports of transportation. Results demonstrated, unexpectedly, that faster reaction times were associated with increased transportation. Additionally, the study investigated multitasking propensity as a moderator, finding that low multitaskers exhibited slower reaction times during narrative compared to nonnarrative exposure whereas high multitaskers showed no differences in reaction time for narratives compared to nonnarratives. There were no differences in self-reported transportation for high and low multitaskers. The findings revealed limitations of the transportation self-report measure to capture attention, while highlighting the nuanced relationship between attention and transportation.
... There is a profound body of research on audiences' emotional responses to narratives that focuses on single emotions (Bezdek et al., 2015;de Graaf & Hustinx, 2011;Nabi, 2002;So et al., 2016), overall emotions (Altmann et al., 2012;Carrera et al., 2010;Dunlop et al., 2010;Hoeken & Sinkeldam, 2014;Knobloch-Westerwick & Keplinger, 2006;Kreibig, 2010;Murphy et al., 2013;Prestin, 2013;Rodrigue et al., 2014), or an end emotion specifically (e.g., Hamby & Brinberg, 2016). However, Nabi and Green (2015) have argued that the combination of all emotional shifts in response to a story (emotional flow) is a crucial factor in ongoing receptive processes such as narrative engagement. ...
Varying emotional content guides audiences’ attention during story reception. This study explored audiences’ emotional responses to stories to examine how emotional flow is related to the narrative material in valence and structure. We investigated the match between textual and emotional valence trajectories and examined accompanying further immediate and retrospective affective responses. Responses were tracked to three auditory short stories of different genres (happy-ending story, tragedy, and thriller) over four plot units (introduction, complication, climax and end). Sympathetic and vagal activation were measured continuously. Valence, arousal, and emotional intensity were measured retrospectively. Textual valence trajectories acquired by sentiment analyses corresponded mostly to retrospective ratings of stories with textually clear content of happiness and sadness. Immediate and retrospective emotional responses corresponded evidently to structural narrative features such as the climax. We discuss our work as clarifying groundwork for future research on emotional flow that links textual analyses to emotional responses.
... In contrast to HC and mTLE-NO patients, our investigation demonstrated that abnormal sReHo or dReHo took place in the bilateral visual cortex of mTLE-IPI patients. The visual network, which is located in occipital lobe and includes CAL, LG, cuneus and so on, is the key part of the brain for visual information integration and attention processing (Bezdek et al., 2015). A section of the primary visual cortex known as the CAL receives visual information directly from visual stimuli . ...
Objectives
Initial precipitating injury (IPI) such as febrile convulsion and intracranial infection will increase the susceptibility to epilepsy. It is still unknown if the functional deficits differ between mesial temporal lobe epilepsy with IPI (mTLE-IPI) and without IPI (mTLE-NO).
Methods
We recruited 25 mTLE-IPI patients, 35 mTLE-NO patients and 33 healthy controls (HC). Static regional homogeneity (sReHo) and dynamic regional homogeneity (dReHo) were then adopted to estimate the alterations of local neuronal activity. One-way analysis of variance was used to analyze the differences between the three groups in sReHo and dReHo. Then the results were utilized as masks for further between-group comparisons. Besides, correlation analyses were carried out to detect the potential relationships between abnormal regional homogeneity indicators and clinical characteristics.
Results
When compared with HC, the bilateral thalamus and the visual cortex in mTLE-IPI patients showed an increase in both sReHo and variability of dReHo. Besides, mTLE-IPI patients exhibited decreased sReHo in the right cerebellum crus1/crus2, inferior parietal lobule and temporal neocortex. mTLE-NO patients showed decreased sReHo and variability of dReHo in the bilateral temporal neocortex compared with HC. Increased sReHo and variability of dReHo were found in the bilateral visual cortex when mTLE-IPI patients was compared with mTLE-NO patients, as well as increased variability of dReHo in the left thalamus and decreased sReHo in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Additionally, we discovered a negative correlation between the national hospital seizure severity scale testing score and sReHo in the right cerebellum crus1 in mTLE-IPI patients.
Conclusion
According to the aforementioned findings, both mTLE-IPI and mTLE-NO patients had significant anomalies in local neuronal activity, although the functional deficits were much severer in mTLE-IPI patients. The use of sReHo and dReHo may provide a novel insight into the impact of the presence of IPI on the development of mTLE.
... There are theoretical reasons to expect reduced movement during engagement in passive viewing. The narrowing of attention 13,23 could lead individuals to neglect content-unrelated information, including physical discomfort, which would normally cause fidgeting. There is research linking selective attention to parasympathetic activity-a state of lowered heart rate and bodily relaxation 24 , which is consistent with evidence of lowered heart rate during media engagement 4,25,26 . ...
Responses to arts and entertainment media offer a valuable window into human behaviour. Many individuals worldwide spend the vast majority of their leisure time engaging with video content at home. However, there are few ways to study engagement and attention in this natural home viewing context. We used motion-tracking of the head via a web-camera to measure real-time cognitive engagement in 132 individuals while they watched 30 min of streamed theatre content at home. Head movement was negatively associated with engagement across a constellation of measures. Individuals who moved less reported feeling more engaged and immersed, evaluated the performance as more engaging, and were more likely to express interest in watching further. Our results demonstrate the value of in-home remote motion tracking as a low-cost, scalable metric of cognitive engagement, which can be used to collect audience behaviour data in a natural setting.
... The mSFG is anatomically mostly associated with the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the medial cingulate cortex (MCC) (Li et al., 2013) and that it is functionally related to cognitive control including conflict monitoring (Sohn et al., 2007;Ursu et al., 2009), error detection (Gehring and Fencsik, 2001;Pourtois et al., 2010), attention control (Crottaz-Herbette and Menon, 2006;Luo et al., 2007). Visual information integration and attention processing are important functions of the calcarine sulcus, which is part of the visual attention network (Bezdek et al., 2015). Yang et al. (2022) has found decreased static functional connectivity density in the calcarine sulcus in nicotine dependent individuals. ...
Background
Chronic smokers have abnormal spontaneous regional activity and disrupted functional connectivity as revealed by previous neuroimaging studies. Combining different dimensions of resting-state functional indicators may help us learn more about the neuropathological mechanisms of smoking.
Methods
The amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (ALFF) of 86 male smokers and 56 male non-smokers were first calculated. Brain regions that displayed significant differences in ALFF between two groups were selected as seeds for further functional connectivity analysis. Besides, we examined correlations between brain areas with abnormal activity and smoking measurements.
Results
Increased ALFF in left superior frontal gyrus (SFG), left medial superior frontal gyrus (mSFG) and middle frontal gyrus (MFG) as well as decreased ALFF in right calcarine sulcus were observed in smokers compared with non-smokers. In the seed-based functional connectivity analysis, smokers showed attenuated functional connectivity with left SFG in left precuneus, left fusiform gyrus, left lingual gyrus, left cerebellum 4 5 and cerebellum 6 as well as lower functional connectivity with left mSGF in left fusiform gyrus, left lingual gyrus, left parahippocampal gyrus (PHG), left calcarine sulcus, left cerebellum 4 5, cerebellum 6 and cerebellum 8 (GRF corrected, Pvoxel < 0.005, Pcluster<0.05). Furthermore, attenuated functional connectivity with left mSGF in left lingual gyrus and PHG displayed a negative correlation with FTND scores (r = −0.308, p = 0.004; r = −0.326, p = 0.002 Bonferroni corrected).
Conclusion
Our findings of increased ALFF in SFG with reduced functional connectivity to visual attention areas and cerebellum subregions may shed new light on the pathophysiology of smoking.
... There are theoretical reasons to expect reduced movement during engagement in passive viewing. The narrowing of attention 13,23 could lead individuals to neglect contentunrelated information, including physical discomfort, which would normally cause dgeting. There is research linking selective attention to parasympathetic activity-a state of lowered heart rate and bodily relaxation 24 , which is consistent with evidence of lowered heart rate during media engagement 4,25,26 . ...
Responses to arts and entertainment media offer a valuable window into human behaviour. Many individuals worldwide spend the vast majority of their leisure time engaging with video content at home. However, there are few ways to study engagement and attention in this natural home viewing context. We used motion-tracking of the head via a web-camera to successfully measure real-time cognitive engagement in 132 individuals while they watched 30 minutes of streamed theatre content at home. Head movement was negatively associated with engagement across a constellation of measures. Individuals who moved less reported feeling more engaged and immersed, evaluated the performance as more engaging, and were more likely to express interest in watching further. Our results demonstrate the value of in-home remote motion tracking as a low-cost, scalable metric of cognitive engagement, which can be used to collect audience behaviour data in a natural setting.
... The BOLD response is dominated by the QPP waveform when visual stimulation overlaps with ongoing infraslow brain activity. Even though flashing checkerboards are salient visual stimuli known to produce extensive brain activity (Bezdek et al., 2015;Schwartz et al., 2005), across both conditions nearly 70% of the BOLD stimulus responses overlap with and are swamped by ongoing QPP waveforms. The BOLD response in this set is significantly greater than the 30% of . ...
Infraslow (<0.1Hz) electric activity, involved in attention and arousal fluctuations, serve as the unique neurophysiological basis for infraslow BOLD fluctuations. Particularly, the dynamics of infraslow electrical activity in both resting and task-performing human brains exhibit a quasi-periodic pattern (QPP) of consistent, phase-locked spatiotemporal BOLD signal changes. However, it is unclear how environmental stimuli affect the infraslow dynamic QPP or how the ongoing infraslow dynamics might modify the response to the environment in awake humans. To investigate this, we presented checkerboard sequences flashing at 8Hz to subjects. This is a salient visual stimulus that is known to produce a strong response in visual processing regions. Three central questions were investigated: 1) how does visual stimulation affect the QPPs compared to rest, 2) how does variability in visual stimulus onset affect the QPPs, and 3) how does the BOLD response to visual stimuli depend on the phases of the QPPs. Two different visual stimulation sequences were employed, a systematic stimulation sequence in which the visual stimulus appeared every 20.3 secs and a random stimulation sequence in which the visual stimulus occurred randomly every 14~62.3 secs. Three central observations emerged. First, the systematic condition produced a different spatiotemporal pattern of infraslow dynamics compared to both the resting-state and the random stimulation conditions. Second, the QPP was more frequent in the systematic condition with significantly shorter intervals between consecutive QPPs compared to the random condition. Third, the BOLD signal response to the visual stimulus across both conditions was swamped by the QPP at the stimulus onset. These results provide novel insights into the relationship between intrinsic patterns and task-evoked brain activity.
... Suspenseful scenes capture attention and therefore will enhance the processing of the scenes, resulting in a higher inter-subject synchronization during these scenes. Compatible with our results, several studies have found that increased suspense in the narrative induces higher activity in the ventral attention network 28,29 . Our results go beyond this finding and show that increased attention in its turn modulates the ongoing processing similarly across individuals. ...
It has been suggested that the richness of conscious experience can be directly linked to the richness of brain state repertories. Brain states change depending on our environment and activities we engage in by taking both external and internally derived information into account. It has been shown that high-level sensory stimulation changes local brain activity and induces neural synchrony across participants. However, the dynamic interplay of cognitive processes that underlie moment-to-moment information processing remains poorly understood. Using naturalistic movies as an ecological laboratory model of the real world, here we assess how the processing of complex naturalistic stimuli alters the dynamics of brain networks' interactions, and how these in turn support information processing. Participants underwent fMRI recordings during movie watching, scrambled movie watching, and rest. Measuring phase-synchrony between different brain networks, we computed whole-brain connectivity patterns. We showed that specific connectivity patterns were associated with each experimental condition. We hypothesized that functional connectivity dynamics would be similar across participants during the plot-driven movie. We found a higher synchronization of brain patterns across participants during movie watching compared to resting state and scrambled movie conditions. Moreover, synchronization increased during the most engaging parts of the movie. The synchronization dynamics across participants were associated with suspensefulness; more suspenseful scenes induced higher synchronization. These results suggested that processing of the same high-level information elicits common neural dynamics among individuals and that whole-brain functional connectivity tracks variations in the processed information and the subjective experience.
... Compared with nonsmokers, both heavy and light smokers also showed alternations of dFCD in bilateral calcarine and right cuneus. Previous studies have demonstrated that calcarine is a component of the visual attention network and plays a major role in visual information integration and attention processing (44). The cortex around the calcarine fissure is the primary visual cortex (45). ...
Previous studies have implicated abnormal functional coordination in brain regions of smokers. Neuroimaging studies demonstrated alternations in brain connectivity by using the resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) method which arbitrarily chooses specific networks or seed regions as priori selections and cannot provide a full picture of the FC changes in chronic smokers. The aim of this study was to investigate the whole-brain functional coordination measured by functional connectivity density (FCD). As the variance of brain activity, dynamic FCD (dFCD) was performed to investigate dynamic changes of whole-brain integration in chronic smokers. In total, 120 chronic smokers and 56 nonsmokers were recruited, and static FCD and dFCD were performed to investigate aberrance of whole-brain functional coordination. Shared aberrance in visual areas has been found in both static and dFCD study in chronic smokers. Furthermore, the results exhibited that both heavy and light smokers demonstrated decreased dFCD in the visual cortex and left precuneus, and also increased dFCD in the right orbitofrontal cortex, left caudate, right putamen, and left thalamus compared with nonsmokers. In addition, alternations of dFCD have been found between heavy and light smokers. Furthermore, the dFCD variations showed significant positive correlation with smoking-related behaviors. The results demonstrated that chronic smokers not only have some initial areas, but also have some regions associated with severity of cigarette smoking. Lastly, dFCD could provide more subtle variations in chronic smokers, and the combination of static and dFCD may deepen our understanding of the brain alternations in chronic smokers.
... ACC plays a major role in conflict processing, error detection, and action selection (for a review, see: REF 42 ). The calcarine gyrus located in the primary visual cortex is thought to be responsible for visual information integration and selective attention 43 . www.nature.com/scientificreports/ ...
Using a visual short-term memory task and employing a new methodological approach, we analyzed neural responses from the perspective of the conflict level and correctness/erroneous over a longer time window. Sixty-five participants performed the short-term memory task in the fMRI scanner. We explore neural spatio-temporal patterns of information processing in the context of correct or erroneous response and high or low level of cognitive conflict using classical fMRI analysis, surface-based cortical data, temporal analysis of interpolated mean activations, and machine learning classifiers. Our results provide evidence that information processing dynamics during the retrieval process vary depending on the correct or false recognition—for stimuli inducing a high level of cognitive conflict and erroneous response, information processing is prolonged. The observed phenomenon may be interpreted as the manifestation of the brain’s preparation for future goal-directed action.
... For example, Wiley et al [17] found that participants responded more quickly but also less accurately to a dot probe task when points were awarded for faster, correct responses. Other features could also manipulate attention; for example, increasing narrative suspense has been linked to a narrowed attentional focus [21]. In go/no-go games, using gamelike stimuli such as cartoon characters has resulted in decreased performance compared with standard tasks, possibly because it is more difficult to differentiate between complicated graphical stimuli than simple colored shapes [13]. ...
Background
Serious games are now widely used in many contexts, including psychological research and clinical use. One area of growing interest is that of cognitive assessment, which seeks to measure different cognitive functions such as memory, attention, and perception. Measuring these functions at both the population and individual levels can inform research and indicate health issues. Attention is an important function to assess, as an accurate measure of attention can help diagnose many common disorders, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and dementia. However, using games to assess attention poses unique problems, as games inherently manipulate attention through elements such as sound effects, graphics, and rewards, and research on adding game elements to assessments (ie, gamification) has shown mixed results. The process for developing cognitive tasks is robust, with high psychometric standards that must be met before these tasks are used for assessment. Although games offer more diverse approaches for assessment, there is no standard for how they should be developed or evaluated.
Objective
To better understand the field and provide guidance to interdisciplinary researchers, we aim to answer the question: How are digital games used for the cognitive assessment of attention made and measured?
Methods
We searched several databases for papers that described a digital game used to assess attention that could be deployed remotely without specialized hardware. We used Rayyan, a systematic review software, to screen the records before conducting a systematic review.
Results
The initial database search returned 49,365 papers. Our screening process resulted in a total of 74 papers that used a digital game to measure cognitive functions related to attention. Across the studies in our review, we found three approaches to making assessment games: gamifying cognitive tasks, creating custom games based on theories of cognition, and exploring potential assessment properties of commercial games. With regard to measuring the assessment properties of these games (eg, how accurately they assess attention), we found three approaches: comparison to a traditional cognitive task, comparison to a clinical diagnosis, and comparison to knowledge of cognition; however, most studies in our review did not evaluate the game’s properties (eg, if participants enjoyed the game).
Conclusions
Our review provides an overview of how games used for the assessment of attention are developed and evaluated. We further identified three barriers to advancing the field: reliance on assumptions, lack of evaluation, and lack of integration and standardization. We then recommend the best practices to address these barriers. Our review can act as a resource to help guide the field toward more standardized approaches and rigorous evaluation required for the widespread adoption of assessment games.
... These findings, linking negative emotional stimuli with interference in global processing, are in line with other studies linking negative mood and depression with reduction in the tendency to attend to the bigger picture and prioritize global level processing [106,107]. Correspondingly, in healthy subjects, hearing a suspenseful narrative suppressed attention to the visual periphery, narrowing attentional focus [108] Young healthy subjects have a global perceptual bias i.e., tendency to see the big picture over the details, unlike older subjects [109], subjects with depression [106], attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) [110] or autism spectrum disorder [111]. Aging, negative mood and neurodevelopmental disorders interfere with a normal tendency to see the big picture over the details. ...
Hemispheric asymmetries in affective and cognitive functions have been extensively studied. While both cerebral hemispheres contribute to most affective and cognitive processes, neuroscientific literature and neuropsychological evidence support an overall right hemispheric dominance for emotion, attention and arousal. Emotional stimuli, especially those with survival value such as threat, tend to be prioritized in attentional resource competition. Arousing unpleasant emotional stimuli have prioritized access, especially to right-lateralized attention networks. Interference of task performance may be observed when limited resources are exhausted by task- and emotion-related processing. Tasks that rely on right hemisphere-dependent processing, like attending to the left visual hemifield or global-level visual features, are especially vulnerable to interference due to attention capture by unpleasant emotional stimuli. The aim of this review is to present literature regarding the special role of the right hemisphere in affective and attentional brain processes and their interaction. Furthermore, clinical and technological implications of this interaction will be presented. Initially, the effects of focal right hemisphere lesion or atrophy on emotional functions will be introduced. Neurological right hemisphere syndromes including aprosodia, anosognosia and neglect, which further point to the predominance of the intact right hemisphere in emotion, attention and arousal will be presented. Then there will be a brief review of electrophysiological evidence, as well as evidence from patients with neglect that support attention capture by emotional stimuli in the right hemisphere. Subsequently, experimental work on the interaction of emotion, attention and cognition in the right hemispheres of healthy subjects will be presented. Finally, clinical implications for better understanding and assessment of alterations in emotion–attention interaction due to brain disorder or treatment, such as neuromodulation, that impact affective brain functions will be discussed. It will be suggested that measuring right hemispheric emotion–attention interactions may provide basis for novel biomarkers of brain health. Such biomarkers allow for improved diagnostics in brain damage and disorders and optimized treatments. To conclude, future technological applications will be outlined regarding brain physiology-based measures that reflect engagement of the right hemisphere in affective and attentional processes.
... This tendency was demonstrated for the case of movie watching: Finucane's (2011) study shows that watching fearful movie sequences narrows attention. Bezdek and Gerrig (2017; see also Bezdek et al., 2015) came to corresponding conclusions finding that suspense (the potential of negative future events) in films increases narrative transportation and, therefore, the accuracy of recollection and decreases attention to external stimuli or secondary tasks. As the film clips used in the present study evoke suspense and present scenes with intense emotional tension (i.e., fear for the main protagonist's unsuccessful wire-walking act and death), the narrative itself and its emotional content may have affected our results in terms of attention to the movie, lack of attention to external stimuli, arousal, and engagement. ...
The popularity of watching movies and videos on handheld devices is rising, yet little attention has been paid to its impact on viewer behaviour. Smartphone spectatorship is characterized by the small handheld screen as well as the viewing environment where various unrelated stimuli can occur, providing possible distractions from viewing. Previous research suggests that screen size, handheld control, and external stimuli can affect viewing experience; however, no prior studies have combined these factors or applied them for the specific case of smartphones. In the present study, we compared smartphone and large-screen viewing of feature films in the presence and absence of external distractors. Using a combination of eye tracking, electrodermal activity measures, self-reports, and recollection accuracy tests, we measured smartphone-accustomed viewers’ attention, arousal, engagement, and comprehension. The results revealed the impact of viewing conditions on eye movements, gaze dispersion, electrodermal activity, self-reports of engagement, as well as comprehension. These findings show that smartphone viewing is more effective when there are no distractions, and smartphone viewers are more likely to be affected by external stimuli. In addition, watching large stationary screens in designated viewing environments increases engagement with a movie.
... The brain loves good stories [47]. The importance of stories is so important for human beings that, even though it is mentioned in the final point of the preceding section, we believe that it merits a specific tip. ...
Many engineering professors teach their classes without having received previous training in psycho-pedagogy and neuroscience. While a few of them have received some form of pedagogical training during their academic career, the vast majority have not acquired any training in the field of didactics, that is, in the science of teaching. Teaching is a difficult task, and teaching effectively is even more difficult. Much literature exists on different teaching-learning methodologies that have been empirically tested in engineering studies. However, practically none of these works make reference to the main factor in any learning process: how does the human brain learn? This paper analyses learning from the perspective of its three main phases (motivation, attention, memorization), and how these phases should be addressed in a lecture, since many of the Engineering classes at universities around the world are given as lectures. The current knowledge of neuroscience is used in the paper to provide twelve recommendations on how a lecture should be successfully given in Engineering Degrees. For the selection of these twelve tips we use two criteria: they must be relevant in a lecture, and they must have a neuroscientific basis, which is explained in the framework of the paper. For the selection of these twelve tips, we use two criteria: they must be relevant in a lecture, and they must have a neuroscientific basis, which is explained in the framework of the paper. The relationship between the twelve tips and the seven principles of good practice in undergraduate studies enunciated by Chickering and Gamson has also been established. The relation of each tip with the learning phases to which it refers is explained, and an example of how to apply it in a lecture is given. This paper presents a new way of working in engineering education: how to apply the knowledge provided by neuroscience to the teaching-learning process. This work provides some ideas about how this can be done in a lecture, but it is also necessary to conduct experiments to validate the effectiveness of the twelve tips proposed herein. It is likewise necessary to carry out similar work for other teaching methodologies such as PBL, flipped classroom or service-learning. The future of education cannot be developed without taking into account the functioning of the human brain or by applying educational practices that are unsupported by scientific evidence of their effectiveness.
... Although some studies suggest positivity bias in language in general [17,24], there is a large body of research indicating a general negativity bias in information processing [21,5,39,46], most often linked to the "smoke detector" principle-negatively valenced stimuli are less likely to be ignored as they are more likely to signal negative developments [33]. Moreover, research suggests that negatively valenced information is more likely to attract the attention of individuals [36], and narrow their attentional focus [10,11], while positively valenced emotion widens the breadth of attentional allocation [38]. Research on emotion in cultural transmission suggests a bias for negatively valenced emotion, for example in rumors [47] and stories [6]. ...
Despite the recent upswing of computational research on Victorian novels, it has largely overlooked insight from cultural evolution and the cognitive sciences. This study aims to contribute to this incipient scholarship by testing the hypothesis that novels containing content with a lower mean emotional valence are more likely to trigger recommendation-based transmission chains, and as a result tend to have greater cultural longevity. This study performs a correlation analysis between the mean sentiment and the contemporary popularity (using the number of user ratings from Goodreads) of a selection of late Victorian novels published in the United Kingdom between 1891 and 1901, taken from Project Gutenberg (n=846). Moreover, the study looks into the implications of this correlation for the differences between novels that were bestsellers at the time of publication and those that can be considered canonical today (that have recently had Broadview, Oxford University, or Penguin Press editions). The results show a weak negative correlation between the present day popularity and the mean emotional valence of the novels, which nevertheless holds true for both the bestselling and canonical novels. Moreover, canonical novels tend to have a lower mean emotional valence than the bestsellers.
... Heightened ISC across audience brains has been shown during powerful political speeches, and health messages that were evaluated as more effective also prompt higher ISC than weaker messages, particularly in mediofrontal brain regions (Imhof, Schmälzle, Renner, & Schupp, 2017;Schmälzle, Häcker, Honey, & Hasson, 2015). Together with several other studies (Dmochowski et al., 2014;Nummenmaa, Lahnakoski, & Glerean, 2018;Nummenmaa et al., 2014), this suggests that ISC analysis could be beneficial to investigate suspense, which has been intensively studied within media psychology (Vorderer et al., 2013;Zillmann, 1980) and has begun to attract interest from neuroscience (Bezdek et al., 2015;. ...
Suspense not only creates a strong psychological tension within individuals, but it does so reliably across viewers who become collectively engaged with the story. Despite its prevalence in media psychology, limited work has examined suspense from a media neuroscience perspective, and thus the biological underpinnings of suspense remain unknown. Here we examine continuous brain responses of 494 viewers watching a suspenseful movie. To create a time-resolved measure of the degree to which a movie aligns audience-wide brain responses, we computed dynamic inter-subject correlations of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) time series among all viewers using sliding-window analysis. In parallel, we captured in-the-moment reports of suspense in an independent sample via continuous response measurement (CRM). We found that dynamic inter-subject correlations over the course of the movie tracked well with the reported suspense in the CRM sample, particularly in regions associated with emotional salience and higher cognitive processes. These results are compatible with theoretical views on motivated attention and psychological tension. The finding that fMRI-based audience response measurement relates to audience reports of suspense creates new opportunities for research on the mechanisms of suspense and other entertainment phenomena and has applied potential for measuring audience responses in a nonreactive and objective fashion.
... This finding is not surprising in view of the entertainment industry's heavy emphasis on violent programing and its success in drawing viewers (Hamilton, 2000). It is intuitively plausible that narrative features associated with violence, such as strong visuals and emotionally arousing action, have the ability to elicit wide-spread synchronization across viewers (Bezdek et al., 2015). It is also consistent with Nummenmaa et al. (2012), who found greater ISC associated with emotional arousal but not emotional valence. ...
Movies that involve violence increasingly attract large audiences, leading to concern that such entertainment will encourage imitation by youth, especially when the violence is seen as justified. To assess differences between brain responses to justified and unjustified film violence, we computed intersubject correlation (ISC) of fMRI BOLD time courses in a sample of late adolescents while they watched pairs of movie segments featuring violent characters prior to and during violent action. Based on a virtue-ethics approach that emphasizes motives in moral evaluation, we hypothesized significant ISC in lateral orbital frontal cortex (lOFC) and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in response to unjustified and justified scenes of movie violence, respectively. Our predictions were confirmed. In addition, unjustified violence elicited greater intersubject synchrony in insular cortex, consistent with an empathic response to the pain experienced by victims of this kind of violence. The results provide evidence supporting the notion that lOFC and vmPFC play unique roles in moral evaluation of violence, with lOFC becoming more synchronous in response to unacceptable violence and vmPFC becoming more synchronous in response to virtuous forms of self-defense, thereby expanding the purview of current models that only focus on vmPFC. The results suggest that justified violence in popular movies is acceptable to youth who are accustomed to viewing such entertainment.
... As the primary visual cortex, the calcarine plays a major role in visual information integration and attention processing (83). Structural and functional alterations in the calcarine were revealed in ADHD (84,85). ...
Internet addiction (IA) has become a global mental and social problem, which may lead to a series of psychiatric symptoms including uncontrolled use of internet, and lack of concentration. However, the exact pathophysiology of IA remains unclear. Most of functional connectivity studies were based on pre-selected regions of interest (ROI), which could not provide a comprehensive picture of the communication abnormalities in IA, and might lead to limited or bias observations. Using local functional connectivity density (lFCD), this study aimed to explore the whole-brain abnormalities of functional connectivity in IA. We evaluated the whole-brain lFCD resulting from resting-state fMRI data in 28 IA individuals and 30 demographically matched healthy control subjects (HCs). The correlations between clinical characteristics and aberrant lFCD were also assessed. Compared with HCs, subjects with IA exhibited heightened lFCD values in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), left parahippocampal gyrus (PHG), and cerebellum, and the bilateral middle cingulate cortex (MCC) and superior temporal pole (STP), as well as decreased lFCD values in the right inferior parietal lobe (IPL), and bilateral calcarine and lingual gyrus. Voxel-based correlation analysis revealed the significant correlations between the Young's Internet Addiction Test (IAT) score and altered lFCD values in the left PHG and bilateral STP. These findings revealed the hyper-connectivity in cognitive control network and default mode network as well as the hypo-connectivity in visual attention network, verifying the common mechanism in IA and substance addiction, and the underlying association between IA, and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder in terms of neurobiology.
... In the present study, two approaches have been used to identify relevant media events for T-pattern detection: optical flow as a basic, perception-related property of the stimulus, and media events related to the cinematic presentation of stimulus content. Future studies could extend the focus on media features further to the domain of media content by considering, for example, suspenseful media events and their relation to attentional focus, as has been addressed for the media use phenomenon of narrative transportation (Bezdek et al., 2015;Bezdek and Gerrig, 2017), or by considering media events with evolutionary and affective relevance (Brill et al., 2018). Regarding methodological aspects, T-pattern analysis offers the researcher several parameters to adapt the analysis to the specific behavior. ...
Due to the complexityof research objects, theoretical concepts, and stimuli in media research, researchers in psychology and communications presumably need sophisticated measures beyond self-report scales to answer research questions on media use processes. The present study evaluates stimulus-dependent structure in spontaneous eye-blink behavior as an objective, corroborative measure for the media use phenomenon of spatial presence. To this end, a mixed methods approach is used in an experimental setting to collect, combine, analyze, and interpret data from standardized participant self-report, observation of participant behavior, and content analysis of the media stimulus. T-pattern detection is used to analyze stimulus-dependent blinking behavior, and this structural data is then contrasted with self-report data. The combined results show that behavioral indicators yield the predicted results, while self-report data shows unpredicted results that are not predicted by the underlying theory. The use of a mixed methods approach offered insights that support further theory development and theory testing beyond a traditional, mono-method experimental approach.
... 60). This is in line with neuropsychological research results (Bezdek, Gerrig, Wenzel, Shin, Pirog Revill, & Schumacher, 2015), where it has been found that neural processing of peripheral cues decreased during suspenseful moments of movies, whereas processing of central stimuli increased at the same time. For a detailed elucidation of such ongoing, dynamic attention processes, online process measures with appropriate temporal resolution are necessary. ...
Spatial presence, a state in which media users temporarily overlook the mediated nature of their media use experience, is frequently assessed by means of post-session self-report scales. However, such methods have methodical limitations, for example concerning measurement of dynamic fluctuations in presence during media use. Consequently, researchers have tested several approaches that try to infer subjective experiences of spatial presence from objectively measurable indicators. The present doctoral thesis examines aspects of temporal structure in spontaneous eye-blink behavior. Cognitive processes—and especially attention—are seen as essential antecedents of presence experiences. Because such cognitive processes influence timing of spontaneous eye-blinks, it is tested if the degree of stimulus-dependent structure in spontaneous eye-blink behavior is related to presence self-report scores. To address this research question, the thesis first establishes a theoretical framework, including theorizing and empirical findings on presence, on related media use phenomena, spontaneous eye-blink behavior, and subjective and objective approaches for presence assessment. Then, three experiments are presented that examine the relation between self-reported presence, and amount of stimulus-dependent structure in blinking behavior. Three different methods for quantification of stimulus-dependent structure are tested in different media environments, and are related to an established presence scale. Discussion of the experimental findings leads, on the one hand, to fundamental questions on the presence concept and on the understanding of stimulus-dependent structure in spontaneous eye-blink behavior. On the other hand, interpretation of the results emphasizes the necessity for methods with appropriate temporal resolution, that consider both media events and user behavior.
... И это понятно, жизнь находится слишком близко, на расстоянии протянутой руки, в ней нет ничего захватывающего, в ней нет интриги и страха. -при восприятии нарративов люди порождают реакции, сходные с теми, как если бы они принимали участие в реальных событиях [ 26 ]; -люди ментально кодируют происходящее так, как если бы они были реальными участниками нарративных событий [ 27 ]; -экспериментально подтверждается, что создатели фильмов контролируют визуальное поведение зрителей [ 28 ]; 8 -нейроисследования демонстрируют, что изменения в нарративном напряжении подавляет внимание к визуальной периферии [ 29 ]. ...
From “Game of Thrones” to “Peppa Pig”: worlds where people, big and small, have already moved
... They concluded that a congruent music track led to greater absorption in the film, leading to slower reaction time to notice something irrelevant appearing in the periphery of one's vision. Bezdek and colleagues also monitored viewers' visual attention to the periphery of highly suspenseful film clips (such as the crop duster chase sequence in Hitchcock's North by Northwest), by using an fMRI machine to record brain activity in regions of the brain associated with visual attention to peripheral areas of the screen, where they had added a flashing checkerboard border (Bezdek et al., 2015). They found that peaks in suspense elicited greater activation in central visual processing regions and stimulus-driven attention networks, while suppressing activation in peripheral visual processing regions [6] ...
Kock and Louven (in this issue) examined the effects of music, sound effects, full sound design (music and sound effects) and no sound on self-reported measures of immersion and suspense in real time, as viewers watched very brief original films. This commentary discusses the method, analysis, and implications of their findings within the broader context of the state of the art of film music research, and future directions for investigations in this area.
... In an fMRI study, participants viewed suspenseful film scenes in the center of a screen while checkerboards flashed continuously in the visual periphery (Bezdek et al., 2015). We found that increases in moments of suspense in the film were associated with increases in activity in regions that process the center of the visual field (where the film was presented) and decreases in regions that process the peripheral flashing checkerboards. ...
Cognitive control is the term applied to the set of processes that allow us to adapt our behavior to a changing environment and evolving goals. Much of the research on cognitive control is conducted using relatively simple experimental tasks. In this review, we propose an integrative account of cognitive control to more complex task situations. Specifically, we relate cognitive control theories from the laboratory to situations where people attempt to comprehend a narrative through watching films. We also incorporate how changes or breakdowns in control lead to mind wandering. To accomplish this integration, we rely on the concept of task representation. That is, we propose that changes in activation across a complex mental representation of a "task," incorporating knowledge about relevant stimulus, response, motivational, and other representations may explain conscious and unconscious behavior across a wide variety of real-world situations.
... The anticipations driven by a Fall-to-Death action schema direct top-down attention to details in next views, priming one where to look and what to perceive (cf. Bezdek et al., 2015;Doicaru, 2016;Magliano, Dijkstra & Zwaan, 1996). (See also the study by Balint, Kuijpers, & Doicaru in Chapter 9 of this vol- ume). ...
Most film viewers know the experience of being deeply absorbed in the story of a popular film. It seems that at such moments they lose awareness of watching a movie. And yet it is highly unlikely that they completely ignore the fact that they watch a narrative and technological construction. Perhaps film viewers experi- ence being in a story world while simultaneously being aware of its construction. Such a dual awareness would seem paradoxical, because the experience of the one would go at the cost of the other. We argue that the solution of this paradox requires dropping the notion of an undivided consciousness, and replacing it with one of consciousness as coming in degrees. In this chapter we present both cognitive and film-analytic arguments for differential awareness of story and narration/technology, and argue that a characteristic of absorption is to be found in story world super-consciousness.
Adaptive behaviors require the ability to resolve conflicting information caused by the processing of incompatible sensory inputs. Prominent theories of attention have posited that early selective attention helps mitigate cognitive interference caused by conflicting sensory information by facilitating the processing of task-relevant sensory inputs and filtering out behaviorally irrelevant information. Surprisingly, many recent studies that investigated the role of early selective attention on conflict mitigation have failed to provide positive evidence. Here, we examined changes in the selectivity of early visuospatial attention in male and female human subjects performing an attention-cueing Eriksen flanker task, where they discriminated the shape of a visual target surrounded by congruent or incongruent distractors. We used the inverted encoding model to reconstruct spatial representations of visual selective attention from the topographical patterns of amplitude modulations in alpha band oscillations in scalp EEG (∼8–12 Hz). We found that the fidelity of the alpha-based spatial reconstruction was significantly higher in the incongruent compared with the congruent condition. Importantly, these conflict-related modulations in the reconstruction fidelity occurred at a much earlier time window than those of the lateralized posterior event-related potentials associated with target selection and distractor suppression processes, as well as conflict-related modulations in the frontocentral negative-going wave and midline-frontal theta oscillations (∼3–7 Hz), thought to track executive control functions. Taken together, our data suggest that conflict resolution is supported by the cascade of neural processes underlying early selective visuospatial attention and frontal executive functions that unfold over time.
It has been suggested that conscious experience is linked to the richness of brain state repertories, which change in response to environmental and internal stimuli. High-level sensory stimulation has been shown to alter local brain activity and induce neural synchrony across participants. However, the dynamic interplay of cognitive processes underlying moment-to-moment information processing remains poorly understood. Using naturalistic movies as an ecological laboratory model of the real world, here we investigate how the processing of complex naturalistic stimuli alters the dynamics of brain network interactions and how these in turn support information processing. Participants underwent fMRI recordings during movie watching, scrambled movie watching, and resting. By measuring the phase-synchrony between different brain networks, we analyzed whole-brain connectivity patterns. Our finding revealed distinct connectivity patterns associated with each experimental condition. We found higher synchronization of brain patterns across participants during movie watching compared to rest and scrambled movie conditions. Furthermore, synchronization levels increased during the most engaging parts of the movie. The synchronization dynamics among participants were associated with suspense; scenes with higher levels of suspense induced greater synchronization. These results suggest that processing the same high-level information elicits common neural dynamics across individuals, and that whole-brain functional connectivity tracks variations in processed information and subjective experience.
When an audience member becomes immersed, their attention shifts towards the media and story, and they allocate cognitive resources to represent events and characters. Here, we investigate whether it is possible to measure immersion using continuous behavioural and physiological measures. Using television and film clips, we validated dual-task reaction times, heart rate, and skin conductance against self-reported narrative engagement. We find that reaction times to a secondary task were strongly positively correlated with self-reported immersion: slower reaction times were indicative of greater immersion, particularly emotional engagement. Synchrony in heart rate across participants was associated with self-reported attentional and emotional engagement with the story, although we found no such relationship with skin conductance. These results establish both dual-task reaction times and heart rate as candidate measures for the real-time, continuous, assessment of audience immersion.
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s41235-023-00475-0.
Narrative transportation is a state of total immersion that arises when one becomes engaged in a story. In Cohen et al. (2015), participants viewed a suspenseful film either with order of scenes intact or scrambled (out of chronological order). Participants had to remember to raise their hand every time they heard a film character say the word “gun.” Results revealed participants were less likely to remember this instruction in the intact condition because their attention shifted away from processing their own goals to the goals of the protagonist. In three studies, we examined the boundary conditions of this effect by including a spoiler by telling participants the film ending (Study 1), having participants view the film individually or in groups (Study 2), and offering a reward incentive (Study 3). Overall, results showed that knowing the ending of the story did not improve performance, however, offering an incentive did boost goal maintenance. Implications of these findings are discussed.
Background:
Many people deny science and reject health recommendations despite widely distributed facts and statistics. Didactic science and health communication is often dry, and relies on the false assumption that people make purely evidence-based decisions. Stories can be a powerful teaching tool by capturing attention and evoking emotion.
Objective:
We explore the impact and appeal of, and describe best practices for, using narrative (storytelling) versus didactic methods in science and health communication.
Patient involvement:
No patients were involved in the review process.
Methods:
We searched PubMed and Web of Science for articles either: assessing effectiveness of narrative science/health communication; assessing acceptability of (or preference for) narrative science/health communication; giving advice on how best to use narrative; and/or providing science-based explanations for how/why narrative succeeds.
Results:
Narrative science/health communication is effective and appealing for audiences across a variety of topics and mediums, with supporting evidence across fields such as epidemiology, neuroscience, and psychology. Whether narrative or didactic messaging is most effective depends on the topic, audience, and objective, as well as message quality. However, combining narrative with didactic methods is likely to be more effective than using either strategy alone.
Discussion:
Narrative science/health communication merits wider implementation and further research. Narrative communication creates openness to information by delaying the formulation of counterarguments.
Practical value:
Science and health communicators should collaborate with cultural and storytelling experts, work directly with their target audiences throughout the message development and testing processes, and rely on popular story elements (e.g., first-person point of view, relatable protagonists) to improve the comprehension, engagement, and thoughtful consideration of their intended audience.
Funding:
This work was funded by Thirty Meter Telescope, with which two authors (GKS and SD) were affiliated. Otherwise, the funding organization had no role in the study and/or submission.
As demonstrated by the chapters in this Handbook, self-compassion is associated with myriad benefits for mental health and psychological well-being. The beneficial impact of self-compassion is perhaps even more evident in psychotherapy, where self-compassion has long held a role under the umbrella of “self-acceptance.” Drawing primarily on compassion-focused therapy and the mindful self-compassion program, this chapter provides guidance on how to integrate self-compassion into psychotherapy and provides and overview of the evidence connecting self-compassion with therapeutic processes and outcomes.The chapter begins by locating self-compassion in the context of psychotherapy, past and present. Next, we outline the evidence for self-compassion as a transdiagnostic and transtheoretical mechanism of action in therapy. The majority of this chapter describes three levels by which self-compassion can be integrated into psychotherapy—compassionate presence, compassionate relationship, and compassionate interventions—along with supporting research. When all three levels are part of treatment, it can be considered fully self-compassion based. Finally, we explore emotion regulation as the basic mechanism by which self-compassion works in psychotherapy, along with underlying neurophysiological and psychological processes, especially the cultivation of secure attachment and the alleviation of shame.KeywordsSelf-compassionPsychotherapyTherapeutic relationshipTherapeutic allianceEmotion regulation
The affective news extended model (Knobloch-Westerwick et al., 2020) demonstrated that narratives with a suspense-inducing format, a linear compared to inverted pyramid format, led to attitude change across four political topics. Given the lack of narrative persuasion research which considers the audio modality, the present research seeks to extend this model by using audio clip stimuli to (1) investigate whether the findings of Knobloch-Westerwick et al. (2020) will extend to the audio modality and (2) compare persuasive mechanisms and outcomes between the textual and audio modalities to understand the unique impact of suspense on narrative persuasion. Results demonstrated that (1) suspense did not differ by format, nor did it mediate the relationship between format and attitude change in the audio modality. (2) Comparisons between textual and audio modalities revealed that when exposed to the audio modality, participants were persuaded by transportation, feelings of being mentally and emotionally involved in the narrative. Future research and implications for the ANEM, audio narratives, and persuasion are discussed.
Suspense is a cognitive and affective state that is often experienced in the anticipation of information and contributes to the enjoyment and consumption of entertainment such as movies or sports. Ely et al. proposed a formal definition of suspense which relies upon predictions about future belief updates. In order to empirically evaluate this theory, we designed a task based on the casino card game Blackjack where a variety of suspense dynamics can be experimentally induced. Our behavioural data confirmed the explanatory power of this theory. We further compared this formulation with other heuristic models inspired by studies in other domains such as narratives and found that most heuristic models cannot well account for the specific temporal dynamics of suspense across wide range of game variants. We additionally propose a way to test whether experiencing greater levels of suspense motivates more game-playing. In summary, this work is an initial attempt to link formal models of information and uncertainty with affective cognitive states and motivation.
This paper aims to provide insight about viewer experience with movies of different genres: the suspense movie, the western and the comedy.
The qualitative and quantitative analyses based on text mining were conducted for online reviews of the three selected movies. The results of text mining were complemented by a qualitative manual analysis of reviews.
The results of text mining indicated the spectrum of factors shaping viewer experience at different stages of the consumer journey. These factors relate to, for example, the product features (e.g. the recognized movie director, movie stars, soundtrack, and the historical context of the plot), and different touch points (e.g. movie distribution channel). The categories of viewer experience captured in the study can be assessed as adequate to the genre.
The present study is preliminary in nature and is therefore exploratory.
The results indicate the potential usefulness of text mining of online reviews as a method constituting the background for studies based on interviewing subjects. The study also points to the importance of looking for interdisciplinary frameworks in the research field of viewer experience.
This study empirically tested Nabi and Green’s (2015) theoretical postulations regarding the persuasive effects of emotional flow induced by narrative messages. An experiment (N = 347) was conducted to test if emotional flow and ending emotional valence promote transportation and identification, and in turn persuasion. Emotional flow was operationalized as a shift in emotional valence experienced during message exposure (positive-negative, negative-positive). Consistent with the theory of emotional flow, messages inducing an emotional shift led to greater transportation and identification than messages that did not induce a shift. Ending emotional valence had significant effects on transportation but not identification. Finally, transportation and identification mediated effects of shift on attitude and behavioral intention. This paper concludes with avenues for future research on emotional flow including discussion of methodological challenges such as a confound between message length and emotional shift manipulation, which was a limitation in this study.
Significance
Although in our daily lives we engage in many of the same activities as others, we are not privy to their conscious experiences, and can only understand them through their self-reports. Patients who are conscious, but are unable to speak or exhibit willful behavior, are, therefore, unable to report their conscious experiences to others. Indeed, in most cases, it is impossible to know whether they are conscious or not. We introduce a neural index that, in a group of healthy participants, predicted each individual’s conscious experience. Moreover, this approach provided strong evidence for intact conscious experiences in a brain-injured patient who had remained behaviorally nonresponsive for 16 y. These findings have implications for understanding the common basis of human consciousness.
The authors suggest that, as people experience narratives, they often generate mental responses that parallel responses they make when participating in real-world events. In 2 experiments, they used a think-aloud procedure to explore the range of such participatory responses that participants generated while viewing film excerpts. In Experiment 1, participants viewed film excerpts with sympathetic and unsympathetic characters. The authors used viewers’ responses to construct a taxonomy of participatory responses. In Experiment 2, they provided evidence that participatory responses are sensitive to narrative context. They manipulated the level of suspense for excerpts by providing or withholding information about potential negative outcomes and found that viewers generated more participatory responses during suspenseful than nonsuspenseful film excerpts. The authors propose that participatory responses play an important role in how people experience narratives and should be included within theories of narrative comprehension. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)
Over twenty years of research have examined the cognitive consequences of positive affect states, and suggested that positive affect leads to a broadening of cognition (see review by Fredrickson, 2001). However, this research has primarily examined positive affect that is low in approach motivational intensity (e.g., contentment). More recently, we have systematically examined positive affect that varies in approach motivational intensity, and found that positive affect high in approach motivation (e.g., desire) narrows cognition, whereas positive affect low in approach motivation broadens cognition (e.g., Gable & Harmon-Jones, 2008a21.
Gable , P. A. and Harmon-Jones , E. 2008a . Approach-motivated positive affect reduces breadth of attention . Psychological Science , 19 : 476 – 482 . [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®]View all references; Harmon-Jones & Gable, 2009). In this article we will review past models and present a motivational dimension model of affect that expands understanding of how affective states influence attentional and cognitive breadth. We then review research that has varied the motivational intensity of positive and negative affect and found that affect of low motivational intensity broadens cognitive processes, whereas affect of high motivational intensity narrows cognitive processes.
Reviews literature showing how the levels of processing framework (F. I. Craik and R. S. Lockhart; see record
1973-20189-001) has influenced memory research since 1972. Principles underlying the framework include the claim that the memory trace should be understood as a by-product or record of normal cognitive processes (e.g., comprehension, categorization). Subsequent research has confirmed the value of much of the framework. It is now generally accepted that memory performance is directly and strongly linked to the nature of processing underlying the original experience, and theories of memory now include an analysis of these processing operations. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Edited moving images entertain, inform, and coerce us throughout our daily lives, yet until recently, the way people perceive movies has received little psychological attention. We review the history of empirical investigations into movie perception and the recent explosion of new research on the subject using methods such as behavioral experiments, functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI) eye tracking, and statistical corpus analysis. The Hollywood style of moviemaking, which permeates a wide range of visual media, has evolved formal conventions that are compatible with the natural dynamics of attention and humans’ assumptions about continuity of space, time, and action. Identifying how people overcome the sensory differences between movies and reality provides an insight into how the same cognitive processes are used to perceive continuity in the real world.
Using emotional film clips is one of the most popular and effective methods of emotion elicitation. The main goal of the present study was to develop and test the effectiveness of a new and comprehensive set of emotional film excerpts. Fifty film experts were asked to remember specific film scenes that elicited fear, anger, sadness, disgust, amusement, tenderness, as well as emotionally neutral scenes. For each emotion, the 10 most frequently mentioned scenes were selected and cut into film clips. Next, 364 participants viewed the film clips in individual laboratory sessions and rated each film on multiple dimensions. Results showed that the film clips were effective with regard to several criteria such as emotional discreteness, arousal, positive and negative affect. Finally, ranking scores were computed for 24 classification criteria: Subjective arousal, positive and negative affect (derived from the PANAS; Watson & Tellegen, 1988), a positive and a negative affect scores derived from the Differential Emotions Scale (DES; Izard et al., 1974), six emotional discreteness scores (for anger, disgust, sadness, fear, amusement and tenderness), and 15 “mixed feelings” scores assessing the effectiveness of each film excerpt to produce blends of specific emotions. In addition, a number of emotionally neutral film clips were also validated. The database and editing instructions to construct the film clips have been made freely available in a website.
Some of the most compelling characters are morally ambiguous, but little research has examined these characters. This study (N = 313) empirically tests the effects of good, bad, and morally ambiguous characters (MACs) on audience responses. Findings of an experiment reveal that different character types are appealing for different reasons. Specifically, good characters are enjoyed because they are well liked; bad characters are liked the least, but they are equally as transporting, suspenseful, and thus cognitively engaging as other characters. MACs, on the other hand, are liked less than good characters, but they are nevertheless equally as transporting, suspenseful, cognitively engaging, and thereby enjoyable as good characters. The implications of these findings on various media effects theories are discussed.
Our intuition that we richly represent the visual details of our environment is illusory. When viewing a scene, we seem to
use detailed representations of object properties and interobject relations to achieve a sense of continuity across views.
Yet, several recent studies show that human observers fail to detect changes to objects and object properties when localized
retinal information signaling a change is masked or eliminated (e.g., by eye movements). However, these studies changed arbitrarily
chosen objects which may have been outside the focus of attention. We draw on previous research showing the importance of
spatiotemporal information for tracking objects by creating short motion pictures in which objects in both arbitrary locations
and the very center of attention were changed. Adult observers failed to notice changes in both cases, even when the sole
actor in a scene transformed into another person across an instantaneous change in camera angle (or “cut”).
This paper presents a novel two-frame motion estimation algorithm. The first step is to approximate each neighborhood of both
frames by quadratic polynomials, which can be done efficiently using the polynomial expansion transform. From observing how
an exact polynomial transforms under translation a method to estimate displacement fields from the polynomial expansion coefficients
is derived and after a series of refinements leads to a robust algorithm. Evaluation on the Yosemite sequence shows good results.
The rapid and efficient selection of emotionally salient or goal-relevant stimuli in the environment is crucial for flexible and adaptive behaviors. Converging data from neuroscience and psychology have accrued during the last decade to identify brain systems involved in emotion processing, selective attention, and their interaction, which together act to extract the emotional or motivational value of sensory events and respond appropriately. An important hub in these systems is the amygdala, which may not only monitor the emotional value of stimuli, but also readily project to several other areas and send feedback to sensory pathways (including striate and extrastriate visual cortex). This system generates saliency signals that modulate perceptual, motor, as well as memory processes, and thus in turn regulate behavior appropriately. Here, we review our current views on the function and properties of these brain systems, with an emphasis on their involvement in the rapid and/or preferential processing of threat-relevant stimuli. We suggest that emotion signals may enhance processing efficiency and competitive strength of emotionally significant events through gain control mechanisms similar to those of other (e.g. endogenous) attentional systems, but mediated by distinct neural mechanisms in amygdala and interconnected prefrontal areas. Alterations in these brain mechanisms might be associated with psychopathological conditions, such as anxiety or phobia. We conclude that attention selection and awareness are determined by multiple attention gain control systems that may operate in parallel and use different sensory cues but act on a common perceptual pathway.
This paper briefly reviews the evidence for multistore theories of memory and points out some difficulties with the approach. An alternative framework for human memory research is then outlined in terms of depth or levels of processing. Some current data and arguments are reexamined in the light of this alternative framework and implications for further research considered.
This experiment examined the effects of two discrete negative emotions, fear and anger, on selective attention. A within-subjects design was used, and all participants (N = 98) experienced the control, anger, and fear conditions. During each condition, participants viewed a film clip eliciting the target emotion and subsequently completed a flanker task and emotion report. Selective attention costs were assessed by comparing reaction times (RTs) on congruent (baseline) trials with RTs on incongruent trials. There was a significant interaction between emotion condition (control, anger, fear) and flanker type (congruent, incongruent). Contrasts further revealed a significant interaction between emotion and flanker type when comparing RTs in the control and fear conditions, and a marginally significant interaction when comparing RTs in the control and anger conditions. This indicates that selective attention costs were significantly lower in the fear compared to the control condition and were marginally lower in the anger compared with the control condition. Further analysis of participants reporting heightened anger in the anger condition revealed significantly lower selective attention costs during anger compared to a control state. These findings support the general prediction that high arousal negative emotional states inhibit processing of nontarget information and enhance selective attention. This study is the first to show an enhancing effect of anger on selective attention. It also offers convergent evidence to studies that have previously shown an influence of fear on attentional focus using the global-local paradigm.
Observers segment ongoing activity into meaningful events. Segmentation is a core component of perception that helps determine memory and guide planning. The current study tested the hypotheses that event segmentation is an automatic component of the perception of extended naturalistic activity, and that the identification of event boundaries in such activities results in part from processing changes in the perceived situation. Observers may identify boundaries between events as a result of processing changes in the observed situation. To test this hypothesis and study this potential mechanism, we measured brain activity while participants viewed an extended narrative film. Large transient responses were observed when the activity was segmented, and these responses were mediated by changes in the observed activity, including characters and their interactions, interactions with objects, spatial location, goals, and causes. These results support accounts that propose event segmentation is automatic and depends on processing meaningful changes in the perceived situation; they are the first to show such effects for extended naturalistic human activity.
Although there is general agreement that the human middle temporal (MT)/V5+ complex corresponds to monkey area MT/V5 proper plus a number of neighboring motion-sensitive areas, the identification of human MT/V5 within the complex has proven difficult. Here, we have used functional magnetic resonance imaging and the retinotopic mapping technique, which has very recently disclosed the organization of the visual field maps within the monkey MT/V5 cluster. We observed a retinotopic organization in humans very similar to that documented in monkeys: an MT/V5 cluster that includes areas MT/V5, pMSTv (putative ventral part of the medial superior temporal area), pFST (putative fundus of the superior temporal area), and pV4t (putative V4 transitional zone), and neighbors a more ventral putative human posterior inferior temporal area (phPIT) cluster. The four areas in the MT/V5 cluster and the two areas in the phPIT cluster each represent the complete contralateral hemifield. The complete MT/V5 cluster comprises 70% of the motion localizer activation. Human MT/V5 is located in the region bound by lateral, anterior, and inferior occipital sulci and occupies only one-fifth of the motion complex. It shares the basic functional properties of its monkey homolog: receptive field size relative to other areas, response to moving and static stimuli, as well as sensitivity to three-dimensional structure from motion. Functional properties sharply distinguish the MT/V5 cluster from its immediate neighbors in the phPIT cluster and the LO (lateral occipital) regions. Together with similarities in retinotopic organization and topological neighborhood, the functional properties suggest that MT/V5 in human and macaque cortex are homologous.
Although mind wandering occupies a large proportion of our waking life, its neural basis and relation to ongoing behavior remain controversial. We report an fMRI study that used experience sampling to provide an online measure of mind wandering during a concurrent task. Analyses focused on the interval of time immediately preceding experience sampling probes demonstrate activation of default network regions during mind wandering, a finding consistent with theoretical accounts of default network functions. Activation in medial prefrontal default network regions was observed both in association with subjective self-reports of mind wandering and an independent behavioral measure (performance errors on the concurrent task). In addition to default network activation, mind wandering was associated with executive network recruitment, a finding predicted by behavioral theories of off-task thought and its relation to executive resources. Finally, neural recruitment in both default and executive network regions was strongest when subjects were unaware of their own mind wandering, suggesting that mind wandering is most pronounced when it lacks meta-awareness. The observed parallel recruitment of executive and default network regions--two brain systems that so far have been assumed to work in opposition--suggests that mind wandering may evoke a unique mental state that may allow otherwise opposing networks to work in cooperation. The ability of this study to reveal a number of crucial aspects of the neural recruitment associated with mind wandering underscores the value of combining subjective self-reports with online measures of brain function for advancing our understanding of the neurophenomenology of subjective experience.
The borders of human visual areas V1, V2, VP, V3, and V4 were precisely and noninvasively determined. Functional magnetic
resonance images were recorded during phase-encoded retinal stimulation. This volume data set was then sampled with a cortical
surface reconstruction, making it possible to calculate the local visual field sign (mirror image versus non-mirror image
representation). This method automatically and objectively outlines area borders because adjacent areas often have the opposite
field sign. Cortical magnification factor curves for striate and extrastriate cortical areas were determined, which showed
that human visual areas have a greater emphasis on the center-of-gaze than their counterparts in monkeys. Retinotopically
organized visual areas in humans extend anteriorly to overlap several areas previously shown to be activated by written words.
A method of using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure retinotopic organization within human cortex is described. The method is based on a visual stimulus that creates a traveling wave of neural activity within retinotopically organized visual areas. We measured the fMRI signal caused by this stimulus in visual cortex and represented the results on images of the flattened cortical sheet. We used the method to locate visual areas and to evaluate the spatial precision of fMRI. Specifically, we: (i) identified the borders between several retinotopically organized visual areas in the posterior occipital lobe; (ii) measured the function relating cortical position to visual field eccentricity within area V1; (iii) localized activity to within 1.1 mm of visual cortex; and (iv) estimated the spatial resolution of the fMRI signal and found that signal amplitude falls to 60% at a spatial frequency of 1 cycle per 9 mm of visual cortex. This spatial resolution is consistent with a linespread whose full width at half maximum spreads across 3.5 mm of visual cortex.
We investigated the cortical mechanisms of visual-spatial attention while subjects discriminated patterned targets within distractor arrays. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to map the boundaries of retinotopic visual areas and to localize attention-related changes in neural activity within several of those areas, including primary visual (striate) cortex. Event-related potentials (ERPs) and modeling of their neural sources, however, indicated that the initial sensory input to striate cortex at 50-55 milliseconds after the stimulus was not modulated by attention. The earliest facilitation of attended signals was observed in extrastriate visual areas, at 70-75 milliseconds. We hypothesize that the striate cortex modulation found with fMRI may represent a delayed, re-entrant feedback from higher visual areas or a sustained biasing of striate cortical neurons during attention. ERP recordings provide critical temporal information for analyzing the functional neuroanatomy of visual attention.
Transportation was proposed as a mechanism whereby narratives can affect beliefs. Defined as absorption into a story, transportation entails imagery, affect, and attentional focus. A transportation scale was developed and validated. Experiment 1 (N = 97) demonstrated that extent of transportation augmented story-consistent beliefs and favorable evaluations of protagonists. Experiment 2 (N = 69) showed that highly transported readers found fewer false notes in a story than less-transported readers. Experiments 3 (N = 274) and 4 (N = 258) again replicated the effects of transportation on beliefs and evaluations; in the latter study, transportation was directly manipulated by using processing instructions. Reduced transportation led to reduced story-consistent beliefs and evaluations. The studies also showed that transportation and corresponding beliefs were generally unaffected by labeling a story as fact or as fiction.
A baseline or control state is fundamental to the understanding of most complex systems. Defining a baseline state in the human brain, arguably our most complex system, poses a particular challenge. Many suspect that left unconstrained, its activity will vary unpredictably. Despite this prediction we identify a baseline state of the normal adult human brain in terms of the brain oxygen extraction fraction or OEF. The OEF is defined as the ratio of oxygen used by the brain to oxygen delivered by flowing blood and is remarkably uniform in the awake but resting state (e.g., lying quietly with eyes closed). Local deviations in the OEF represent the physiological basis of signals of changes in neuronal activity obtained with functional MRI during a wide variety of human behaviors. We used quantitative metabolic and circulatory measurements from positron-emission tomography to obtain the OEF regionally throughout the brain. Areas of activation were conspicuous by their absence. All significant deviations from the mean hemisphere OEF were increases, signifying deactivations, and resided almost exclusively in the visual system. Defining the baseline state of an area in this manner attaches meaning to a group of areas that consistently exhibit decreases from this baseline, during a wide variety of goal-directed behaviors monitored with positron-emission tomography and functional MRI. These decreases suggest the existence of an organized, baseline default mode of brain function that is suspended during specific goal-directed behaviors.
We review evidence for partially segregated networks of brain areas that carry out different attentional functions. One system, which includes parts of the intraparietal cortex and superior frontal cortex, is involved in preparing and applying goal-directed (top-down) selection for stimuli and responses. This system is also modulated by the detection of stimuli. The other system, which includes the temporoparietal cortex and inferior frontal cortex, and is largely lateralized to the right hemisphere, is not involved in top-down selection. Instead, this system is specialized for the detection of behaviourally relevant stimuli, particularly when they are salient or unexpected. This ventral frontoparietal network works as a 'circuit breaker' for the dorsal system, directing attention to salient events. Both attentional systems interact during normal vision, and both are disrupted in unilateral spatial neglect.
Emotion reduces utilization of cues. In some tasks this can be an advantage (elimination of irrelevant cues); more often, however, such reduction inhibits performance. Attentive behavior fits into the framework of this theory. It can also be easily translated into terms of information theory allowing a qualitative evaluation of task difficulty.
Evidence has accumulated showing that central aspects of negative emotional scenes are remembered better than equivalent aspects of nonemotional scenes. Previous work, and an attentional account of these findings, led the authors to predict that anxiety-prone individuals would remember extremely negative emotional pictures as if seen from a closer perspective (i.e., with a less extended background) than other pictures. Findings showed that boundary extension was indeed reduced in high-trait-anxious individuals for very negative scenes, and this was more generally true for arousing scenes, with the exception of those with positive content. These findings are taken to be support for the view that attending to central aspects of emotionally arousing scenes can restrict the usual extended impression of surrounding space.
This article reviews the hypothesis that mind wandering can be integrated into executive models of attention. Evidence suggests that mind wandering shares many similarities with traditional notions of executive control. When mind wandering occurs, the executive components of attention appear to shift away from the primary task, leading to failures in task performance and superficial representations of the external environment. One challenge for incorporating mind wandering into standard executive models is that it often occurs in the absence of explicit intention--a hallmark of controlled processing. However, mind wandering, like other goal-related processes, can be engaged without explicit awareness; thus, mind wandering can be seen as a goal-driven process, albeit one that is not directed toward the primary task.
Thirty years of brain imaging research has converged to define the brain's default network-a novel and only recently appreciated brain system that participates in internal modes of cognition. Here we synthesize past observations to provide strong evidence that the default network is a specific, anatomically defined brain system preferentially active when individuals are not focused on the external environment. Analysis of connectional anatomy in the monkey supports the presence of an interconnected brain system. Providing insight into function, the default network is active when individuals are engaged in internally focused tasks including autobiographical memory retrieval, envisioning the future, and conceiving the perspectives of others. Probing the functional anatomy of the network in detail reveals that it is best understood as multiple interacting subsystems. The medial temporal lobe subsystem provides information from prior experiences in the form of memories and associations that are the building blocks of mental simulation. The medial prefrontal subsystem facilitates the flexible use of this information during the construction of self-relevant mental simulations. These two subsystems converge on important nodes of integration including the posterior cingulate cortex. The implications of these functional and anatomical observations are discussed in relation to possible adaptive roles of the default network for using past experiences to plan for the future, navigate social interactions, and maximize the utility of moments when we are not otherwise engaged by the external world. We conclude by discussing the relevance of the default network for understanding mental disorders including autism, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's disease.
We review evidence for partially segregated networks of brain areas that carry out different attentional functions. One system, which includes parts of the intraparietal cortex and superior frontal cortex, is involved in preparing and applying goal-directed (top-down) selection for stimuli and responses. This system is also modulated by the detection of stimuli. The other system, which includes the temporoparietal cortex and inferior frontal cortex, and is largely lateralized to the right hemisphere, is not involved in top-down selection. Instead, this system is specialized for the detection of behaviourally relevant stimuli, particularly when they are salient or unexpected. This ventral frontoparietal network works as a 'circuit breaker' for the dorsal system, directing attention to salient events. Both attentional systems interact during normal vision, and both are disrupted in unilateral spatial neglect.
Two central avenues for audience involvement in entertainment are identification and transportation. This study conceptually and empirically differentiated between these processes by manipulating information about the hero of a film and about the plot in order to affect the ways viewers respond to the film and character. The valence of information about the hero affected the level of identification (but not the level of transportation), and the time of deeds affected the level of transportation (but not the level of identification). These results provide evidence that identification and transportation are distinct processes and an analysis of how each of them relates to enjoyment supports this conclusion. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and methodological contribution to the study of audience involvement.
"Transportation into a narrative world" (Green & Brock, 2000, 2002) has been identified as a mechanism of narrative impact. A transported individual is cognitively and emotionally involved in the story and may experience vivid mental images. In the study reported here, undergraduate participants (N = 152) read a narrative about a homosexual man attending his college fraternity reunion, rated their transportation into the story, rated the perceived realism of the story, and responded to statements describing story-relevant beliefs. Transportation was positively correlated with perceived realism. Furthermore, individuals with prior knowledge or experience relevant to the themes of the story (e.g., had homosexual friends or family members, were knowledgeable about American fraternities) showed greater transportation into the story. Highly transported readers showed more story-consistent beliefs, and the positive relationship between transportation and story-consistent beliefs held for those both with and without previous relevant experience.
Research indicates that the extent to which one becomes engaged, transported, or immersed in a narrative influences the narrative's potential to affect subsequent story-related attitudes and beliefs. Explaining narrative effects and understanding the mechanisms responsible depends on our ability to measure narrative engagement in a theoretically meaningful way. This article develops a scale for measuring narrative engagement that is based on a mental models approach to narrative processing. It distinguishes among four dimensions of experiential engagement in narratives: narrative understanding, attentional focus, emotional engagement, and narrative presence. The scale is developed and validated through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses with data from viewers of feature film and television, in different viewing situations, and from two different countries. The scale's ability to predict enjoyment and story-consistent attitudes across different programs is presented. Implications for conceptualizing engagement with narratives as well as narrative persuasion and media effects are discussed.
In 4 experiments with a total of 96 university students, the circumstances under which goal inferences occur during reading were investigated. In Exp 1, whether Ss infer the predicted relationship with the 1st goal was tested, using goal failure and goal success stories. In Exps 2–4, the assumption that the talk-aloud data of Exp 1 predicted the likelihood of on-line goal inferences was tested. Convergent evidence was found for inferences that relate subgoals and actions when they fit directly with a goal's plan, whether they are adjacent to the goal or at a distance in the surface text, and even when local causes and repeated arguments are available. During the reading of actions for the subgoal, the subgoal was mentioned frequently in the talk-aloud protocols whereas the superordinate goal was neither mentioned frequently nor was its recognition facilitated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Decades of research has shown the influence of emotion on attentional capture, and more recently, the influence of emotion on neurophysiological processes related to attentional capture. The current research tested whether some of the earliest neurophysiological underpinnings of emotive attentional processes can be influenced by attentional manipulations of broadening versus narrowing. Previous research has shown that negative affects high in motivational intensity (e.g., disgust, fear) cause a relative narrowing of attentional scope (Gable and Harmon-Jones, 2010a; Easterbrook, 1959). Because of the strong link between motivation and attention, attentional scope should also influence the attentional capture of negative stimuli. The current study manipulated a local attentional scope or global attentional scope, then measured attentional capture towards disgust and neutral pictures using the N1 event-related potential component. Results revealed that a manipulated global attentional scope reduced N1 amplitude towards disgust pictures compared to a manipulated local attentional scope.
Whether emotional distracters call for attentional resources has been discussed in several studies. We have earlier shown that brief unpleasant distracters captured right hemisphere (RH) attentional resources as evidenced with reduced event-related potential responses and increased reaction times to nonemotional left visual field/RH targets. The aim of this study was to investigate whether emotional distracters selectively interfere with processes predominantly relying on the RH such as processing global visual features. Evoked potentials were recorded from 18 participants carrying out a visual discrimination task engaging global RH and local left hemisphere-dependent processes. Unpleasant distracters reduced global target detection-related right parietal activity. We conclude that brief unpleasant distracters compete for RH attentional resources with global level processing.
Current brain models of emotion processing hypothesize that positive (or approach-related) emotions are lateralized towards the left hemisphere, whereas negative (or withdrawal-related) emotions are lateralized towards the right hemisphere. Brain imaging studies, however, have so far failed to document such hemispheric lateralization. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, 14 female subjects viewed alternating blocks of emotionally valenced positive and negative pictures. When the experience of valence was equated for arousal, overall brain reactivity was lateralized towards the left hemisphere for positive pictures and towards the right hemisphere for negative pictures. This study provides direct support for the valence hypothesis, under conditions of equivalent arousal, by means of functional brain imaging.
We used high-field (3T) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to label cortical activity due to visual spatial attention, relative to flattened cortical maps of the retinotopy and visual areas from the same human subjects. In the main task, the visual stimulus remained constant, but covert visual spatial attention was varied in both location and load. In each of the extrastriate retinotopic areas, we found MR increases at the representations of the attended target. Similar but smaller increases were found in V1. Decreased MR levels were found in the same cortical locations when attention was directed at retinotopically different locations. In and surrounding area MT+, MR increases were lateralized but not otherwise retinotopic. At the representation of eccentricities central to that of the attended targets, prominent MR decreases occurred during spatial attention.
An anatomical parcellation of the spatially normalized single-subject high-resolution T1 volume provided by the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) (D. L. Collins et al., 1998, Trans. Med. Imag. 17, 463-468) was performed. The MNI single-subject main sulci were first delineated and further used as landmarks for the 3D definition of 45 anatomical volumes of interest (AVOI) in each hemisphere. This procedure was performed using a dedicated software which allowed a 3D following of the sulci course on the edited brain. Regions of interest were then drawn manually with the same software every 2 mm on the axial slices of the high-resolution MNI single subject. The 90 AVOI were reconstructed and assigned a label. Using this parcellation method, three procedures to perform the automated anatomical labeling of functional studies are proposed: (1) labeling of an extremum defined by a set of coordinates, (2) percentage of voxels belonging to each of the AVOI intersected by a sphere centered by a set of coordinates, and (3) percentage of voxels belonging to each of the AVOI intersected by an activated cluster. An interface with the Statistical Parametric Mapping package (SPM, J. Ashburner and K. J. Friston, 1999, Hum. Brain Mapp. 7, 254-266) is provided as a freeware to researchers of the neuroimaging community. We believe that this tool is an improvement for the macroscopical labeling of activated area compared to labeling assessed using the Talairach atlas brain in which deformations are well known. However, this tool does not alleviate the need for more sophisticated labeling strategies based on anatomical or cytoarchitectonic probabilistic maps.