Neural association between musical features and shared emotional perception while movie-watching: fMRI study

TL;DR

This fMRI study investigates how musical features in movie soundtracks relate to shared emotional perception among viewers, highlighting specific brain regions involved in processing valence and arousal during film watching.

Contribution

It demonstrates neural correlates of shared emotional perception linked to soundtrack features, emphasizing the roles of the STS and precuneus in processing film-induced emotions.

Findings

Significant correlations between soundtrack features and emotional responses.

Activation of STS and precuneus during shared emotional perception.

Frontal activity linked to negative valence.

Abstract

The growing use of naturalistic stimuli, such as feature films, brings research on emotions closer to ecologically valid settings within brain scanners, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Music is another cultural artifact known to evoke emotions, and film soundtracks are often designed to enhance the emotional impact of the narrative. However, the neural basis of shared emotional perception during movie-watching, and its relationship to the soundtrack, remains unclear. In this study, participants watched Forrest Gump in a 3T fMRI scanner. The reported shared arousal and valence (positive and negative) was correlated with the spectrogram and tempo information extracted from the soundtrack. For neuroimaging, four regions of interest (ROIs) related to audiovisual input and narrative content were examined: the superior temporal sulcus (STS), amygdala, inferior frontal gyrus, and precuneus. Results: Strong correlations between spectral and tempo, and emotional features (Bonferroni corr). BOLD responses associated with shared positive and negative valence and high-arousal moments were compared to film events with low emotional agreement. Significant activations were found in the STS and precuneus (pFWE < 0.05 peak level). No significant responses were observed in the amygdala or inferior frontal gyrus, but whole-brain analysis (pFWE < 0.05 cluster extent) revealed frontal activity linked to negative valence, alongside expected occipito-temporal lobe responses to the audiovisual stimuli. The STS and precuneus were particularly active during shared emotional perception of valenced and high-arousal events, with the precuneus encoding valence from auditory information. Naturalistic stimuli show promise as diagnostic and therapeutic tools for emotion regulation deficits although challenges may arise when crafting an experimental control.