The neuroscience of Romeo and Juliet : an fMRI study of acting
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The current study represents a first attempt at examining the neural basis of dramatic acting. While all people play multiple roles in daily life—for example, ‘spouse' or ‘employee'—these roles are all facets of the ‘self' and thus of the first-person (1P) perspective. Compared to such everyday role playing, actors are required to portray other people and to adopt their gestures, emotions and behaviours. Consequently, actors must think and behave not as themselves but as the characters they are pretending to be. In other words, they have to assume a ‘fictional first-person' (Fic1P) perspective. In this functional MRI study, we sought to identify brain regions preferentially activated when actors adopt a Fic1P perspective during dramatic role playing. In the scanner, university-trained actors responded to a series of hypothetical questions from either their own 1P perspective or from that of Romeo (male participants) or Juliet (female participants) from Shakespeare's drama. Compared to responding as oneself, responding in character produced global reductions in brain activity and, particularly, deactivations in the cortical midline network of the frontal lobe, including the dorsomedial and ventromedial prefrontal cortices. Thus, portraying a character through acting seems to be a deactivation-driven process, perhaps representing a ‘loss of self'.
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The study's sample size of six participants (19 data sets) is comparable to previous infant studies of the sense of self in mPFC, fMRI studies of acting, and studies of aesthetic perception in performing arts.
“Thus, for statistical purposes, our sample size is n = 19, which is comparable to previous infant studies of the sense of self in mPFC (Imafuku et al., 2014), fMRI studies of acting (Brown et al., 2019), and studies of aesthetic perception in performing arts (Calvo-Merino et al., 2008).”
From Exploring Theater Neuroscience: Using Wearable Functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy to Measure the Sense of Self and Interpersonal Coordination in Professional Actors (2022) · cites this paper as Brown et al., 2019
Acting involves a suppression of self-processing.
“Hence, they suggested that acting involves a suppression of self-processing.”
From Exploring Theater Neuroscience: Using Wearable Functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy to Measure the Sense of Self and Interpersonal Coordination in Professional Actors (2022) · cites this paper as Brown et al. (2019)
Brown et al. (2019) found reduced engagement of self-related brain systems (dorsomedial pFC, SFG, and ventral medial pFC) when actors responded to questions in character.
“They found that a reduced engagement of self-related brain systems (dorsomedial pFC, SFG, and the ventral medial pFC) occur when actors were responding to questions ' in character. '”
From Exploring Theater Neuroscience: Using Wearable Functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy to Measure the Sense of Self and Interpersonal Coordination in Professional Actors (2022) · cites this paper as Brown et al. (2019)
Previous data suggest that acting might lead to a suppression of the sense of self.
“Previous data suggest that acting might lead to a suppression of the sense of self (Brown et al., 2019).”
From Exploring Theater Neuroscience: Using Wearable Functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy to Measure the Sense of Self and Interpersonal Coordination in Professional Actors (2022) · cites this paper as Brown et al., 2019
The pattern of results is consistent with the hypothesis that acting involves a suppression of the sense of self.
“This pattern is consistent with the hypothesis that acting involves a suppression of the sense of self as (Brown et al., 2019) showed that, when participants in MRI are required to respond as if they were Juliet (or Romeo), they showed reduced activity of the mPFC and SFG (Kampe et al., 2003).”
From Exploring Theater Neuroscience: Using Wearable Functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy to Measure the Sense of Self and Interpersonal Coordination in Professional Actors (2022) · cites this paper as Brown et al., 2019
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Mobile Brain-Body Imaging and Visual Data of Theatrical Actors During Rehearsal and Performance
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Role playing in human evolution: from life to art, and everything in between
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Role reversal enhances an understanding of the other, but not of the self
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Psychometric and Acoustic Investigation of Identity and Phonotraumatic Vocal Hyperfunction
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Merely Players: Theatrical Acting as a Metaphor for Identity
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Working with Emotion: Voice, Ritual, and the Embodied Training of the Actor
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- Authors
- Brown, S., Cockett, P., & Yuan, Y.
- Affiliations
- McMaster University (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Brown, Steven
- Venue
- Royal Society Open Science
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Published
- 2019-03
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 181908
- ISSN
- 2054-5703 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6458376
- OpenAlex
- W2922357075
- Cited by
- 52
- References
- 84
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 7.54
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Royal Society Open Science (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada (371336)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Visual Arts and Performing Arts › Theatre and Performance Studies
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Narrative Theory and Analysis
- Keywords
- dramatic acting, role play, self-other perspective, loss of self, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, brain deactivation, Romeo and Juliet, first-person perspective
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