Brain Changes When Viewing Violent Media

Ponca City, We Love You writes "Scientists at Columbia University have used Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to show that a brain network responsible for suppressing inappropriate or unwarranted aggressive behaviors became less active after study subjects watched several short clips from popular movies depicting acts of violence. These changes could render people less able to control their own aggressive behavior. Although research has shown some correlation between exposure to media violence and real-life violent behavior, there has been little direct neuroscientific support for this theory until now. 'Depictions of violent acts have become very common in the popular media,' said researcher Christopher Kelly. 'Our findings demonstrate for the first time that watching media depictions of violence does influence processing in parts of the brain that control behaviors like aggression.' The full research paper is published on the The Public Library of Science, a peer-reviewed, open-access, online publication, that publishes all its articles under a Creative Commons Attribution License."

What they proved...

[king-manic]

The brain reacts to violent imagery, may affect impulse control after

What they didn't prove:

Violent imagery makes you violent.

Most of the studies present a violent image and ask you questions after. Partly because it'd be unethical to show them imagery and then attempt to induce violence. Thus they must use proxies which only prove a relationship from the imagery to the proxy.

Common Study:
Show a 3 min clip from bioshock - ask "are you feeling more or less violent" or "please push this button as hard as you want" and then write a conclusion " Bioshock makes you violent".

I doubt violent imagery has no effect on you, it likely agitates the flight or fight response but I am skeptical on whether it can induce violence in a normal/average person. I dislike how media and various groups try to portray a stronger relationship. Doom 3 has not made me a serial killer, it's highly unlikely doom 6 will make my children serial killers, and if it does it's probably partly mine and my communities fault. It my kid does end up being a serial killer there is most likely a biological factor too. Media alone does not make a killer.

The brain learns by imitation

[dave562]

Language is the perfect example of the brain learning by imitation. This research is common sense. If the brain/mind is exposed to a lot of a particular stimulus, it will associate with that stimulus as being okay and worth mimicing. A lot of it probably has to do with survival. If you see everyone around you drinking water, it probably makes sense to drink water. Conversely if you see everyone around you avoiding poisonous berries, you probably want to avoid the berries too.

PloS ONE is not peer reviewed

[Per Abrahamsen]

Not in the traditional sense. It is much more similar to how /. works. PLoS ONE accept articles from all branches of science and medicine, and the articles are deemed "worthy" of publication by the editorial board mostly on technical issues (necessarily so, since no editorial board can cover all branches of science). Like /., the *real* "peer review" is done after publication, by comments and annotations.

This is quite unlike traditional scientific journal (and unlike all the other PLoS journals which are quite traditional apart from being Open Access) where an article is reviewed anonymously by peers (from the same discipline) before publication.

It is actually quite nice that PLoS, apart from pioneering Open Access, also experiments more fundamentally with the scientific process, by adapting techniques from sites like /..

But it is misleading to state that the article has been published in a peer reviewed journal, as it means something different in this case. It would be more correct to say that it has been published for peer review in a journal. At the time I'm writing this, no peers have yet to review the article.

Most scientist would hesitate publishing in PLoS ONE simply because it does not have an impact factor rating, which is very important for how valuated when seeking grants etc.

i wrote this paper

[Chris Kelly]

I'm the author of this paper from Columbia. I'm happy to answer any serious questions about it if people are interested. I can tell you a few things right off, though: 1) We are not advocating censorship of any kind, nor will we participate in any effort that does. This sort of research exists for the sake of being informed, as well as being educated about how the brain works. 2) If you read the paper, we clearly state that these changes in neural processing are not sufficient on their own to make a normal individual become a rabid killer. That would be absurd, and it would totally contradict everyday life. Without a doubt, the observed neural changes must interact with other factors and circumstances that are still being identified. 3) PLoS One is peer-reviewed (or, at least, we were), so I'm not sure where that comment came from suggesting that it wasn't. 4) I assure you that no money was taken away from cancer or dementia research for the sake of this study. 5) Although some people feel the conclusions are obvious (i.e. that the brain is affected by what it sees), assuming something is probably true does not equal scientific evidence.

Not junk science.

[geekoid]

the study was "Is there an effect of the brain." Using an fMRI they detected an effect.

"In a paper in the Dec. 5 on-line issue of PLoS ONE (published by the Public Library of Science), Columbia scientists show that a brain network responsible for suppressing behaviors like inappropriate or unwarranted aggression (including the right lateral orbitofrontal cortex, or right ltOFC, and the amygdala) became less active after study subjects watched several short clips from popular movies depicting acts of violence."

That's not junk science. IT's saying "Is there an effect, and if so what is it?"

They know a lot about what the brain does. the fMRI in it self is amazing. for example, limited studies have shown it to detect when people are lying 100% of the time. Pretty cool stuff. The next question, does that hold for a larger pool of people. If it does work, is it considered self incrimination? or is it physical evidence?

Any ways, the mysteries of the brain are starting to unravel in some very unexpected ways.

This study seems good. certianly good enough to warrant a better study with a larger pool of people.

Re:PloS ONE is not peer reviewed

[Coturnix]

Actually, PLoS ONE is peer-reviewed in a traditional way. Many manuscripts have undergone 2-3 rounds of revisions. Most manuscripts are sent out to external reviewers (whenever no member of the editorial board is an expert in the narrow field of the manuscript). The distinction is that the reviewers are not supposed to make decisions in regard of "newsworthiness" of the paper, just the correctness of science and presentation of it. Thus, papers that are earth-shaking and revolutionary are evaluated the same way as papers that just add another piece of the puzzle. Also, 30-40% of the manuscripts are rejected (much harsher than most small society journals) which is another indication that a true peer-review is going on at PLoS ONE. But you are right about the post-publication peer-review as well. This is something that the scientific community will have to learn to do. Publication of the paper is not the end of the process (pop open the champaign and move on to the next project), but the beginning of it, as the authors respond to commentary of their peers (and lay public). So, while there are more than 300 comments here at Slashdot, why are there still no comments on the paper itself? Don't you all want to engage the authors, ask them additional questions, demand clarifications? They will not come here, but you can go there and use the feedback tools that the TOPAZ platform of PLoS ONE provides: discussions, annotations, trackbacks and ratings. There, the authors will be happy to answer your (politely worded) questions and comments.