Surfing uncertainty with screams: predictive processing, error dynamics and horror films

2023/12/17 by Mark Miller, Ben White, Coltan Scrivner · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Neuroscience · #Aesthetic Perception and Analysis #Face Recognition and Perception #Media Influence and Health

paper · doi:10.1098/rstb.2022.0425

openalex publication_date 2023/12/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/13

Abstract

Despite tremendous efforts in psychology, neuroscience and media and cultural studies, it is still something of a mystery why humans are attracted to fictional content that is horrifying, disgusting or otherwise aversive. While the psychological benefits of horror films, stories, video games, etc. has recently been demonstrated empirically, current theories emphasizing the negative and positive consequences of this engagement often contradict one another. Here, we suggest the predictive processing framework may provide a unifying account of horror content engagement that provides clear and testable hypotheses, and explains why a 'sweet spot' of fear and fun exists in horror entertainment. This article is part of the theme issue 'Art, aesthetics and predictive processing: theoretical and empirical perspectives'.

Citations

• The concept of allostasis in biology and biomedicine
• Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation.
• Pandemic practice: Horror fans and morbidly curious individuals are more psychologically resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic
• Extending predictive processing to the body: Emotion as interoceptive inference
• The theory of constructed emotion: an active inference account of interoception and categorization

Discussions

• Our pattern-seeking brains seem to need to be rattled from time to time. The combination of predictability (established tropes) and resolving states of uncertainties (what will happen next) might be a [bsky, 6 points, 2 comments]

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