What your favorite movies say about your brain: German scientists conducted a study

Scientists have found out that a person's favorite movie genre may not be a personal choice, but rather a hardwired into the human brain. That is, people love the genre that activates pleasant emotions and encourages them to come back for more.

Scientists have found that people who like comedies and action movies have more activity in areas related to excitement and reward than people who prefer thrillers and documentaries. The same group showed increased activity in attention networks and sensory areas, indicating that they enjoy intellectual stimulation, MailOnline writes.

Numerous scientific papers have investigated personality traits associated with different movie genres, but the new study conducted by German scientists was the first to look at whether this preference is related to the brain.

The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, involved 257 participants - 129 men and 128 women. To gauge movie preferences and media consumption, participants were asked to choose their two favorite genres from eight options: action, crime/thriller, horror, drama, romance, comedy, documentary, and science fiction/fantasy.

The two most popular combinations were comedy/action and thriller/documentary. Each person was then shown images of frightened and angry faces with electrodes that monitored brain activity. The electrodes monitored the amygdala, the brain's main emotion processing center, linking our emotions to many other brain abilities, especially memory, learning, and sensation.

Participants who preferred action/comedies showed increased activity in the amygdala and increased activity in another area that is critical for motivated behavior when viewing negative emotional stimuli. The researchers hypothesized that this is because they enjoy the strong emotions that the genres often evoke. The team also found that comedies activate reward pathways in response to emotional stimuli in which the person values the genre's involvement.

Whereas action movie fans are filled with adventure, high stakes, and emotional experiences. Thriller/documentary fans showed reduced limbic system activity, indicating a lower emotional response to fear and anger. The lower emotional activity suggests that the group feels rewarded by cognitive activity rather than emotional arousal.

The results also suggest that those who enjoy crime/thrillers may get more satisfaction from solving mysteries or navigating suspense. And fans of documentaries are less focused on evoking strong emotions, but may prefer intellectual stimulation over emotional experiences.

"The findings suggest that moviegoers form preferences that are aligned with their neural predisposition to respond to and approach certain cinematic stimuli," the researchers commented on the study.

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