Effects of social and emotional context on neural activation and synchrony during movie viewing

Abstract

Sharing emotional experiences impacts how we perceive and interact with the world, but the neural mechanisms that support this sharing are not well characterized. In this study, participants (N = 52) watched videos in an MRI scanner in the presence of an unfamiliar peer. Videos varied in valence and social context (i.e., participants believed their partner was viewing the same (joint condition) or a different (solo condition) video). Reported togetherness increased during positive videos regardless of social condition, indicating that positive contexts may lessen the experience of being alone.Two analysis approaches were used to examine both sustained neural activity averaged over time and dynamic synchrony throughout the videos. Both approaches revealed clusters in the medial prefrontal cortex that were more responsive to the joint condition. We observed a time-averaged social-emotion interaction in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, although this region did not demonstrate synchrony effects.Alternatively, social-emotion interactions in the amygdala and superior temporal sulcus showed greater neural synchrony in the joint compared to solo conditions during positive videos, but the opposite pattern for negative videos. These findings suggest that positive stimuli may be more salient when experienced together, suggesting a mechanism for forming social bonds.

Inter- and intra-subject similarity in network functional connectivity across a full narrative movie

“…Studying viewers’ emotions while watching the identical stimulus used here, Lettieri et al (2019) showed that ratings of basic emotions were consistent across viewers, indicating an overall highly similar emotional experience induced by the movie. Emphasizing the relevance of affective states in movie fMRI, previous studies showed higher alignment of brain states between subjects during highly affective events in a TV show (Chang et al, 2021) and more synchronization of amygdala activity between subjects during positive events in a “shared watching” condition (Dziura et al, 2021).…”

“…Therefore, full narrative movies have clear advantages for studying emotions in a naturalistic setting. Additionally, emotions portrayed in movies affect inter-subject synchronization (Dziura et al, 2021) and inter-subject alignment of brain states (Chang et al, 2021), which makes them a relevant factor for studying individual differences using naturalistic viewing.…”

Emotional intensity supports social bonding independently of emotional similarity during shared experiences

“…For example, participants attending videos on the same screen reported greater prosocial attitudes than participants attending videos on individual screens, although this effect was only observed in response to the most negative and arousing of the videos (Rennung & Göritz, 2015). In contrast, another study found that participants felt more connected to other participants in response to a positive video than to a neutral or a negative video (Dziura et al, 2021). Even when watching negative emotional videos (i.e., drama), increases in positive affect, but not in negative affect, predicted increases in group identification (Dunbar et al, 2016).…”

Leveraging the power of media to drive cognition: a media-informed approach to naturalistic neuroscience

“…2 Environmental influences are also worth considering, such as the impact of co-viewing on media processing ( Tal-Or, 2016 ; Cheong et al. , 2020 ; Dziura et al. , 2021 ).…”