Watching movies affects the brain

[The Feedster]

A recent study by New York Universityneuroscientists has found that watching certain films affects brain activitymore than others.

The study has been such a success that the film industry mayuse the findings when making its own movies.

Published in ‘Projections: The Journal for Movies and Mind’ –no, we haven’t heard of it either – the researchers wrote: "In cinema,some films lead most viewers through a similar sequence of perceptual, emotional,and cognitive states.

"Such a tight grip on viewers' minds will be reflectedin the similarity of the brain activity across most viewers.

"By contrast, other films exert – either intentionally orunintentionally – less control over viewers' responses during movie watching.In such cases we expect that there will be less control over viewers' brainactivity."

The films profiled

So, which films made people’s brains hurt and which madethem brain dead? The researchers used three motion picture clips: a half-hour segment of Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad And The Ugly; an episode of AlfredHitchcock Presents Bang! You're Dead; and an episode of Larry David's Curb YourEnthusiasm.

Hitchcock’s effort proved the most worthy when livening 65per cent of the brain’s neocortex, while Larry David proved to be the worstbrain-livener, as it mustered up just 18 per cent neocortex activity. *

Those who watched a clip of McG’s Charlie’s Angels were officiallydeclared braindead. Actually, we just made that last bit up, but if it was in the study we're sure that would have been the result.



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