Mapping patterns of thought onto brain activity during movie-watching
Movie-watching is a central aspect of our lives and an important paradigm for understanding the brain mechanisms behind cognition as it occurs in daily life. Contemporary views of ongoing thought argue that the ability to make sense of events in the ‘here and now’ depend on the neural processing of incoming sensory information by auditory and visual cortex, which are kept in check by systems in association cortex. However, we currently lack an understanding of how patterns of ongoing thoughts map onto the different brain systems when we watch a film, partly because methods of sampling experience disrupt the dynamics of brain activity and the experience of movie-watching. Our study established a novel method for mapping thought patterns onto the brain activity that occurs at different moments of a film, which does not disrupt the time course of brain activity or the movie-watching experience. We found moments when experience sampling highlighted engagement with multi-sensory features of the film or highlighted thoughts with episodic features, regions of sensory cortex were more active and subsequent memory for events in the movie was better—on the other hand, periods of intrusive distraction emerged when activity in regions of association cortex within the frontoparietal system was reduced. These results highlight the critical role sensory systems play in the multi-modal experience of movie-watching and provide evidence for the role of association cortex in reducing distraction when we watch films.
Authors
- Boris C. Bernhardt (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9256-6041)
- Bridget Mulholland (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0212-4413)
- Robert Leech (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5801-6318)
- Adam G. Turnbull (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1629-562X)
- Ian Goodall-Halliwell (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3401-0085)
- Louis Chitiz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6433-9319)
- Tamara Vanderwal (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8774-9430)
- Theodoros Karapanagiotidis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0813-1019)
- Brontë Mckeown (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4204-2001)
- Ting Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1590-9025)
- Michael Peter Milham (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3532-1210)
- Raven Star Wallace (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-0414-0254)
- Giulia Poerio (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2343-5109)
- Elizabeth Jefferies (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3826-4330)
- Hao-Ting Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4078-2038)
- Jeremy I Skipper (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5503-764X)
- Jeffrey D. Wammes (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8923-5441)
- Samyogita Hardikar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4380-5055)
- Tirso RJ Gonzalez Alam (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4510-2441)
- Jonathan Smallwood (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7298-2459)
- Will Strawson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6515-4244)
- Daniel S Margulies
- Philippe Forest
Institutions
- Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (CA)
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- Bangor University (GB)
- University of Sussex (GB)
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging (GB)
- King's College London (GB)
- Queen's University (CA)
- Queens University (BD)
- Child Mind Institute (US)
- Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal (CA)
- IMT Atlantique (FR)
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (DE)
- University College London (GB)
- McGill University (CA)
- University of York (GB)
- Stanford University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- eLife
- Published
- 2024-12-10
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.97731.4
- Citations
- 5
- Primary Topic
- Mind wandering and attention
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.71
Funders
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada