…He found that as violence became imminent, the cognitive parts of the brain became more active. And during a fight, emotional parts of the brain, such as the amygdala and parts of the anterior cingulate cortex, were shut down. This pattern is the same as that seen in subjects who have had brain scans during other simulated violent situations such as imagining an aggressive encounter. It is impossible to scan people’s brains during acts of real aggression so Mathiak argues that this is as close as you can get to the real thing. It suggests that video games are a “training for the brain to react with this pattern,” he says.” (New Scientist)
I haven’t read the study; I am just responding to the New Scientist report, but this doesn’t make much sense to me, it sounds like an unwarranted and misguided extrapolation. The fact that ‘cognitive’ areas of the brain are more active and ’emotional’ areas shut down (which by the way is a reductionistic distinction in itself) doesn’t sound much like real preparation for violence as it does the extra cognitive steps necessary to process a virtual simulation. There is of course no way to do fMRI scans of perpetrators in the midst of actual violence; and this study adds nothing to the debate about the core dilemma of whether exposure to violent content makes people violence-prone, whether violence-prone people are more drawn to violent content, or whether a fantasy outlet for violent urges diffuses the possibility of real-world violence.
