Neuropsychological Underpinnings of Emotional Responsiveness to Media

Responding emotionally to a movie, video game, Instagram post, or a social robot is quite a common experience. Whereas the experience felt is real, the mediated encounter or message often is fabricated, just fiction, and involves artificial nonexistent characters. An intriguing question is thus “why does media use feel so real and how are emotions induced by processing media?” This entry aims to answer that question by outlining the neuropsychological underpinnings of emotional responsiveness to media. It discusses how emotions and emotion regulation are processed in the brain and exemplifies neuropsychological models. Key is the fast processing of feelings and emotions, mostly operated in subcortical‐limbic brain regions, relative to slower and more reflective processing through the prefrontal cortex, which dynamically interact as one system. Then, this entry outlines the neural underpinnings of the rewarding and disturbing effects of (social) media use. Finally, it shows how the parallel processing of emotions in neuropsychological models may explain the often‐found emotional bias in media use. In all, this entry aims to provide insights into the psychology behind media use and open new perspectives for relevant media psychological research.