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DOI

  • Raven Star Wallace
    Queens's University, Kingston, Canada
  • Bronte Mckeown
    Queens's University, Kingston, Canada
  • Ian Goodall-Halliwell
    Queens's University, Kingston, Canada
  • Louis Chitiz
    Queens's University, Kingston, Canada
  • Philippe Forest
    King's College London
  • Theodoros Karapanagiotidis
    University of Sussex
  • Bridget Mulholland
    Queens's University, Kingston, Canada
  • Adam Turnbull
    Stanford University
  • Tamara Vanderwal
    University of British Columbia
  • Samyogita Hardikar
    Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig
  • Tirso R J Gonzalez Alam
  • Boris C Bernhardt
    McGill University, Montreal
  • Hao-Ting Wang
    Centre de Recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Geriatrie de Montreal
  • Will Strawson
    University of Sussex
  • Michael Milham
    Child Mind Institute
  • Ting Xu
    Child Mind Institute
  • Daniel S Margulies
    University of Paris-Sud
  • Giulia L Poerio
    University of Sussex
  • Elizabeth Jefferies
    University of York
  • Jeremy I Skipper
    University College London
  • Jeffrey D Wammes
    Queens's University, Kingston, Canada
  • Robert Leech
    Mathematical and Electrical Engineering Department
  • Jonathan Smallwood
    Queens's University, Kingston, Canada

Movie-watching is a central aspect of our lives and an important paradigm for understanding the brain mechanisms behind cognition as it occurs in daily life. Contemporary views of ongoing thought argue that the ability to make sense of events in the 'here and now' depend on the neural processing of incoming sensory information by auditory and visual cortex, which are kept in check by systems in association cortex. However, we currently lack an understanding of how patterns of ongoing thoughts map onto the different brain systems when we watch a film, partly because methods of sampling experience disrupt the dynamics of brain activity and the experience of movie-watching. Our study established a novel method for mapping thought patterns onto the brain activity that occurs at different moments of a film, which does not disrupt the time course of brain activity or the movie-watching experience. We found moments when experience sampling highlighted engagement with multi-sensory features of the film or highlighted thoughts with episodic features, regions of sensory cortex were more active and subsequent memory for events in the movie was better-on the other hand, periods of intrusive distraction emerged when activity in regions of association cortex within the frontoparietal system was reduced. These results highlight the critical role sensory systems play in the multi-modal experience of movie-watching and provide evidence for the role of association cortex in reducing distraction when we watch films.

Keywords

  • Humans, Motion Pictures, Female, Male, Brain Mapping, Brain/physiology, Adult, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Young Adult, Thinking/physiology, Cognition/physiology, Visual Perception/physiology
Original languageEnglish
Volume13
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 6 Mar 2025

Publication series

NameElife
PublishereLife Sciences Publications
ISSN (Print)2050-084X
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