Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (Nov 2012)

Enactive cinema paves way towards understanding complex real-time social interaction in neuroimaging experiments

  • Pia eTikka,
  • Aleksander eVäljamäe,
  • Aleksander eVäljamäe,
  • Aline ede Borst,
  • Roberto ePugliese,
  • Niklas eRavaja,
  • Niklas eRavaja,
  • Mauri eKaipainen,
  • Tapio eTakala

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00298
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6

Abstract

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We outline general theoretical and practical implications of what we promote as enactive cinema for the neuroscientific study of online socio-emotional interaction. In a real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rt-fMRI) setting, participants are immersed in cinematic experiences that simulate social situations. While viewing, their physiological reactions - including brain responses - are tracked, representing implicit and unconscious experiences of the on-going social situations. These reactions, in turn, are analysed in real-time and fed back to modify the cinematic sequences they are viewing while being scanned. Due to the engaging cinematic content, the proposed setting focuses on living-by in terms of shared psycho-physiological epiphenomena of experience rather than active coping in terms of goal-oriented motor actions. It constitutes a means to parametrically modify stimuli that depict social situations and their broader environmental contexts. As an alternative to studying the variation of brain responses as a function of a priori fixed stimuli, this method can be applied to survey the range of stimuli that evoke similar responses across participants at particular brain regions of interest.

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