This is Your Brain on Culture

How Stories, Poems, Plays, Movies and Other Arts Matter

Norman Holland specializes in the psychology of the arts. His latest book is Literature and the Brain, available at literatureandthebrain.com See full bio

March 4, 2009, Media

Comments on "Your brain on movies"

Your brain on movies

By Norman N. Holland, Ph.D. on March 4, 2009 in This is Your Brain on Culture

Does your brain look like other people's when you are watching a movie? Yes and no. The noes say a lot about movies and about us. Read More

what happened?

Submitted by Bill Benzon on March 4, 2009 - 6:58pm.

Just an aside, Norm. You mentioned that your students often disagreed on the basic facts about what happened. I long ago lost count of how many times I've read professional reviewers of the highest caliber making mistakes at that basic level. Remembering exactly what happened is very difficult.

What happened?

Submitted by Norman N. Holland, Ph.D. on March 9, 2009 - 4:43am.

Too true, Bill. But is this phenomenon confined to movies or plays? Doesn't this parallel the well-known unreliability of eyewitness testimony? I remember a famous experiment (I don't have the citation in front of me) in which a guy in a gorilla suit walks through a scene of students passing a basketball back and forth. Eyewitnesses don't see him.