Hitchcock’s Brain Control

This interesting article appeared on the UPI.com web site yesterday…

Health News: Some movies affect more brain activity

Using advanced functional imaging, U.S. and German neuroscientists found some motion pictures can exert considerable control over brain activity.

Study authors New York University neuroscientists Uri Hasson, Barbara Knappmeyer, Nava Rubin and David Heeger and doctoral candidate Ohad Landesman as well as Ignacio Vallines of the University of Munich used fMRI and inter-subject correlation, or ISC analysis, used to measure similarities in brain activity across viewers.

The study, published in the Projections: The Journal for Movies and Mind, found:

• The Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode “Bang! You’re Dead” evoked similar responses across all viewers in more than 65 percent of the neocortex, indicating a high level of control on viewers’ minds.
• Sergio Leone’s “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” evoked 45 percent of the neocortex.
• Lower ISC — 18 percent was recorded for “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and less than 5 percent for an unstructured video clip filmed during a concert.

“The fact that Hitchcock was able to orchestrate the responses of so many different brain regions, turning them on and off at the same time across all viewers, may provide neuroscientific evidence for his notoriously famous ability to master and manipulate viewers’ minds,” the researchers said in a statement.