New research has discovered that there is a connection in our brain between the areas that receive visual information and the processing of touch, leading us to also feel pain when we see someone in pain.
A new publication in Nature revealed why the public often shrinks, recoils or tenses during painful scenes in films.
Research indicates that the human brain does not limit itself to seeing actions on the screen and partially feeling them. Researchers at the University of Reading have demonstrated that visual information alone can activate the regions of the brain responsible for processing physical touch, causing spectators “simulate” the sensations who observe, explains the .
Led by Nicholas Hedger, the team showed that when people see someone being hit, tickled or hurt, their brains generate touch-like activity in the corresponding regions of the body. “Your brain maps what you see on your own body‘simulating’ a sensation of touch even if nothing physical has happened to it,” explained Hedger.
To study this effect, researchers digitized brains of 174 volunteers while watching short excerpts, each lasting between one and just over four minutes, from six major Hollywood films: The Social Network, Inception, Ocean’s 11, Home Alone, Erin Brockovich e The Empire Strikes Back. Many of these scenes contain moments designed to repulse the audience, offering ideal material for the study of vicarious sensations.
Brain scans revealed two main mechanisms. First, the dorsal visual regions are organized to connect areas of the visual field to corresponding parts of the body. When viewers focused on the top part of the screen, the regions of the brain responsible for the “face” were activated; when the action occurred near the bottom, the regions responsible for the “feet” were activated. This mapping demonstrates that the spatial layout of the screen directly influences neural activity related to touch.
Second, ventral visual regions were activated according to the part of the body being viewed, regardless of its position on the screen. If a character’s hand was hit, the area of the brain responsible for the viewer’s “hand” responded. Taken together, these findings show that visual and tactile systems are deeply interconnectedallowing the brain to combine sensory information into a unified experience.
Hedger notes that this interaction works both ways. In everyday life, touch can complement vision, for example, when navigating a dark room, feeling surfaces helps the brain to form an internal map. This multisensory coordination, he says, “helps us to generate a coherent picture of the world”.
The discovery could have significant implications for understanding neurodivergent conditions like autism. Many theories suggest that internally simulating other people’s experiences is crucial for social understanding, and these processes may be different in autistic individuals.
