Male and Female Brain Activity During the Screening of a Violent Movie: An EEG Study

Abstract

Movies have the ability to trigger our emotions and affect us in powerful ways. But the impact is not the same among all the audience and, according to our results, also not between women and men. In this study, we used an electroencephalogram (EEG) to register the brain activity of a group of 30 students while they watched a violent scene. The results showed that both male and female groups activated the left temporal lobe. However, the female group also activated the left insula and orbitofrontal areas of both hemispheres. The results of Hotelling’s T-squared distribution also showed significant differences in occipital areas of the brain in favour of women. Thus, our findings evidence that the violent scene activated emotional areas in both male and female groups, but in women there was also an activation of brain areas related to shape and colour recognition and to cognitive processes.