Brain activity can predict political orientation, Israeli researchers find

“If we try to understand how people who hold opposite political views to ours experience the world, we might be able to conduct a slightly more effective public discussion.”

By Pesach Benson, TPS

Political orientation between right and left can be predicted by differences in brain activity, Israeli researchers at Tel Aviv University have discovered.

“This is the first study to show political-dependent brain activity in early sensory and motor areas, and it can be said that at the most basic brain level, rightists and leftists in Israel literally — and not just metaphorically — don’t see and hear the same things,” said Dr. Yaara Yeshurun, one of the lead researchers.

“I think that if we try to understand how people who hold opposite political views to ours experience the world, we might be able to conduct a slightly more effective public discussion that can hopefully attenuate the current political polarization,” she said.

In the first of its kind study, the research team scanned the brains of dozens of politically involved Israelis while they watched campaign-ads and speeches by parties from both ends of the political spectrum, just before one of the last rounds of elections. An equal number of right and left-wing individuals participated.

The study found that such partisanship-dependent differences in brain synchronization were not limited to “higher” areas of the brain, associated with interpretation and abstract thinking, as expected. Rather, these differences occurred within the sensory, motor, and somatosensory cortices, which are responsible for vision, hearing, and movement.

The researchers also discovered that the right-wing participants had synchronized brain response — meaning their brain worked in a similar manner — while they watched the right-wing stimuli, whereas left-wing participants had their own synchronized brain response while watching left-wing stimuli.

The TAU researchers believe these findings were due to the fact that the participants were already politically involved, and because the research was taking place shortly before national elections.

The study was published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Neuroscience.

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