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Brain hardwired to watch sports
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(AP PHOTO/DAVID J. PHILLIP)
Sotaro Shimada of the Department of Electronics and Bioinformatics, School of Science and Technology, Meiji University, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan has determined why people like watching sports so much. The desire to watch sports and the enjoyment of watching sports is controlled by brain areas collectively known as the mirror neuron system (MNS). The research paper, "Modulation of Motor Area Activity by the Outcome for a Player during Observation of a Baseball Game" was published November 25, 2009.
The MNS is involved social-cognitive ability to understand the internal states of others and is activated when people watch the actions of others and perform that action themselves.
Baseball was selected due to the popularity of baseball in Japan.
A person must have direct physical experience with the activity they are watching for the responses to be detectable in the MNS. The participants were all amateur baseball players who were outfitted with electronic response detectors in the arrangement in this diagram.
"The love of the game" is a matter of physical memory and brain function that is a part of socialization.
A very interesting result of the experiment was a much higher level of response when the subject "rooted" for the hitter than when the "rooted" for the pitcher.
The results are statistically accurate with very small p values as represented in this diagram.
So the next time your wife or boss complains about you watching sports you have a physiological basis that is practically irrefutable. If fact the process appears to be part of a natural brain function that is good for you.
All that "team" drivel, all the hours of sports talk and interviews, and all the money lost gambling on sports can now be attributed to a physiochemical response that is not controllable. Sports addiction clinics might spring up all over the world. Just think of the income at $40,000 a person.
Citation: Shimada S (2009) Modulation of Motor Area Activity by the Outcome for a Player during Observation of a Baseball Game. PLoS ONE 4(11): e8034. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0008034
E-mail: sshimada@isc.meiji.ac.jp
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0008034
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