Watching Movie Characters Smoke Makes Smokers Plan to Light Up (IMAGE)

Society for Neuroscience

Watching Movie Characters Smoke Makes Smokers Plan to Light Up

Caption

Because of fMRI scanner time limitations, the researchers edited the movie into three 10-minute segments. The excerpts had the same number of smoking and non-smoking scenes, which lasted for equal amounts of time. The authors found that seeing this familiar action -- even when embedded in a Hollywood movie — evoked the same brain responses as planning to actually make that movement.

Credit

Reprinted with permission: Wagner, et al. The <i>Journal of Neuroscience</i> 2011.

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