Identifying moments of peak audience engagement from brain responses during story listening

ABSTRACT Stories in general, and peak moments within a single story in particular, can evoke strong responses across recipients. Between the content of a story and these shared audience responses lies an explanatory gap that neuroimaging can help close. Accordingly, this study examined how the brains of an audience responded during a story. We performed two types of analyses: First, we correlated the story’s physical characteristics to brain activity. Second, we reverse-correlated moments of peak brain engagement to story segments. We found that activity peaks in the temporo-parietal junction identify socially engaging points within the story, such as a pie-in-the-face scene, hyperbole, and sexual references. We discussed how these results and reverse correlation neuroimaging more broadly advance communication science.