Neural unscrambling of temporal information during a nonlinear narrative

Abstract

Although we must experience our lives chronologically, storytellers often manipulate the order in which they relay events. How the brain processes temporal information while encoding a nonlinear narrative remains unclear. Here, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging during movie watching to investigate which brain regions are sensitive to information about time in a narrative and test whether the representation of temporal context across a narrative is more influenced by the order in which events are presented or their underlying chronological sequence. Results indicate that medial parietal regions are sensitive to cued jumps through time over and above other changes in context (i.e., location). Moreover, when processing non-chronological narrative information, the precuneus and posterior cingulate engage in on-the-fly temporal unscrambling to represent information chronologically. Specifically, days that are closer together in chronological time are represented more similarly regardless of when they are presented in the movie, and this representation is consistent across participants. Additional analyses reveal a strong spatial signature associated with higher magnitude jumps through time. These findings are consistent with prior theorizing on medial parietal regions as central to maintaining and updating narrative situation models, and suggest the priority of chronological information when encoding narrative events.

Moral Understanding and Media

“…For example, the majority of research in this area has been conducted in controlled laboratory settings, which likely overlook the richness of real-world artistic experiences (see Hanich, 2018). Similarly, most intervention studies in this area have used just one film as a "case study" to demonstrate an empirical effect (e.g., Grall et al, 2023;Kauttonen et al, 2018), which means that it is unclear whether the same pattern extends to other examples. Maintaining ecological validity while ensuring experimental control can be challenging, particularly when studying art that is embedded in specific cultural, social, or historical contexts.…”