Frank P. Schulte1, 2, Stefan Maderwald3, Nicole C. Kraemer4, Matthias Brand1, 2
1General Psychology: Cognition, University Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany; 2Erwin L. Hahn Institute for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, University Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany; 3Erwin L. Hahn Institute for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, University Duisburg-Essen , Essen, Germany; 4Social Psychology: Media and Communication, University Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany
Media psychology suggests that watching sad movies does not only include sad aspects, but also positive messages, and elicits bittersweet feelings. Using 7T-fMRI, we examined neural activity during the presentation of positive, negative and bittersweet movies. Data from 10 female participants shows activation differences in the left orbitofrontal cortex (BA 47,11), indicating that this region is crucially involved in integrating the sweet and the bitter component of bittersweet movies. We found no activation differences within key brain structures of the limbic system, indicating that the different presented films seem to have induced equally strong emotional experiences.