9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I really don't like to watch horror

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
films alone that stuff is terrifying you

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now I'm sure many of you recognize this

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
situation. You put on a horror film, you

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
turn down the lights, turn up the volume,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and sit back. You’re watching as monsters

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
come creeping out of the dark in search

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of prey. Your heart goes out to the four

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
characters in the film and you start

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
squirming in your seat as the monsters

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
get closer.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Your pulse accelerates, your palms get

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
sweaty and your hair stands on end. This

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is when you begin to throw nervous

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
glances into the corners of the room.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
What was that sound? Surely it didn't

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
come from the television. Was that

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
movement in the shadows? The horror that's

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
on the screen bleeds into your system

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and into the surroundings. The world

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
around you turns threatening and scary.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
You cover your eyes but it doesn't help.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Pretty soon you'll have to switch off

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but even though you shut off the film,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
your heart keeps hammering and you'll

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
probably have nightmares tonight. Still

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
maybe you ought to put the film back on.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
You're kind of curious after all. That's

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
my Saturday night in a nutshell. Anybody

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
else ever been in that situation? Of all

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the strange things that humans do

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
watching horror films has got to be one

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of the strangest. It's also a really

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
interesting behavior scientifically

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
speaking. As a horror researcher

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I've thought about it a lot. Why do we do

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it? Why do we watch horror films and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
read horror novels and play horror

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
video games and why are there so many

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
spooky creatures in our worlds of

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
make-believe? And what is horror? Horror is

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
a kind of entertainment that's designed to

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
spook people. To make them scream and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
shiver with fear and break out in a cold

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
sweat.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Think Stephen King and Paranormal

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Activity and The Exorcist.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's a consistently popular and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
profitable genre. Stephen King has sold

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
more than 350 million books worldwide. In

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the last 20 years in the United States,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
horror films grossed close to 8 billion

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
dollars. It's weird it's weird because

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
horror is by definition designed to make

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
its audience feel bad. A good horror film

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
inspires negative emotion. It makes us

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
feel disgust and dread and terror and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
anxiety and fear. Let me ask you how many

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of you seek out war films from time to

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
time? Show of hands. Please raise your

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
hand if you sometimes seek out horror. Okay

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that's about half, that matches my own

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
research along with some colleagues. I'm

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
looking into the personality profile of

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
horror fans and we're finding that more than

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
half for about 54% answer in the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
affirmative in response to the statement:

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I tend to enjoy horror media. Only 29%

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
say they don't agree with this statement

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and the remaining 17% can't make up

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
their mind. You know they're probably the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
ones who would die first in a horror

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
film. Next would be the ones who say

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
they don't like horror. Anyway people really

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
do tend to like the kind of

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
entertainment that's designed to make

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
them feel bad. Why is that the case and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
how does horror even work? Those are the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
kinds of questions I've been researching

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and here is what I have found out. Horror,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in whatever medium, from films and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
literature to video games and virtual

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
reality, works by exploiting an ancient

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and evolved set of biological defense

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
mechanisms. Let's call it the evolved

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
fear system. If we want to understand how

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that system works and why it became part

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of human nature we have to look at the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
evolutionary history of our species.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now, our evolutionary ancestors found

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
themselves in a world that was full of

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
danger. There was the threat from

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
predators and creepy crawlies and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
invisible microorganisms or disease and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the threat from other humans. In response

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to those dangers our ancestors gradually

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
evolved a

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
fear system that would keep them alert

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and alive. In other words our species

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
evolved to be hyper vigilant and highly

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
fearful because being hyper vigilant and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
highly fearful kept our ancestors alive

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in a dangerous world. The world may now

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
be less dangerous than it was in

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
ancestral times at least in terms of

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
predation. We're not in any immediate

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
danger of being attacked by a

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
saber-tooth cat on our way home from

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
work, but we are no less vigilant and no

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
less fearful

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
than our evolutionary ancestors and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
horror entertainment takes advantage of

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that aspect of human nature. So horror

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
entertainment works by transporting us

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
imaginatively into virtual worlds that

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
are full of danger. In horror films and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
literature we follow and mirror

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
protagonists as they confront terrifying

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
threats. Take Stephen King's The Shining

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
for example, here we follow a family who

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
has snowed in at a haunted hotel. In the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
novel's most famous scene the young boy

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Danny goes into room 217.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
He walks nervously around the room and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
into the bathroom where a hotel guest

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
killed herself some years before. The

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
hotel is now supposed to be empty of

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
guests but to Danny surprise there is

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
somebody in the bathtub or something. To

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Danny's horror it's a corpse.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's the corpse of the woman who killed

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
herself. She's lying there bloated and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
purple and with glassy white eyes. She's

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
rotting like meat festering in the trash.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And then she starts to get up. King provides

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
a detailed and really vivid description

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of this moving corpse and as readers we

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
are forced to hold that image in our

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
minds. That's bad enough but we're also

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
given a detailed description of Danny's

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
response to the situation. We learned

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that he tries to scream and wets himself.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We are made to mirror his fear and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
revulsion and that strengthens our own

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
responses to the horrible image. Our fear

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and revulsion become mixed with

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
sympathetic anxiety for a character in

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
danger.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's a strong emotional cocktail.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Interactive and live-action media turn

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the screw on horror entertainment .Or

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
video games for example make you feel as

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
if you're the protagonist in a digital

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
if you're the protagonist in a digital

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
attraction visitors walk through scary

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
sets populated by scare actors. Here's a

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
picture from dystopia haunted house

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Denmark's scariest haunt. What you see is

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
a couple of visitors were confronted by

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
a big guy with a machete.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
He's called the chef and you can take a

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
guess at what's on the menu here. Around

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
5,000 people pay for this every

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Halloween and around 300 visitors never

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
make it all the way through the haunt.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They have to abort their visit because

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it's too scary.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They have fainted from fear and they

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
have wet themselves in terror. Why do

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
they do it? Why do people pay good money

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to experience true fear and genuine

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
terror like the people in this picture?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They do it because they have an evolved

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
appetite for vicarious experience with

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
threat scenarios and those scenarios or

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
horror entertainment work because they are

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
structured to target the evolved fear

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
system. Just consider the monsters that

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
populate our horror entertainment from

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
scary folk tales to haunted attractions.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Such monsters are universal in the human

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
imagination and the most horrifying ones

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
reflect ancestral threats. Just think of

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the enormous white shark from Jaws you

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Know. Duh duh duh duh duh duh

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the threat depicted here is the threat

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
from an enormous man-eating predator.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That kind of threat really captures our

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
attention and sparks our imagination by

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
engaging the evolved fear system. Now the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
film itself is pretty unrealistic but

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that doesn't matter.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Horror monsters don't have to be

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
realistic to frighten us they have to

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
engage the evolved fear system. They have

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to have qualities that match or over

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
match those of ancestral dangers and the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
white shark in Jaws has that in spades.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's like an ancestral predator on

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
speed. Faster bigger stronger and much

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
more dangerous. Media psychologists have

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
documented how thousands of people were

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
traumatized by jaws. Many viewers even

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
became afraid of swimming in pools and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
freshwater lakes after watching the film.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Consider another well-known and highly

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
unrealistic monster. The zombie now

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
zombies don't exist in the real world

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and we have no archaeological evidence

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to suggest that they ever did but every

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
well-raised child is able to mimic the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
behavior of a zombie. You know they're

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
groaning the outstretch the limp arms

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and the classic stumbling walk. The

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
monster has really infected our popular

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
culture in a big way. A zombie is a

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
effectively targets the evolved fear

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
system in fact the zombie targets the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
fear system from two angles

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
because it combines the threat of

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
predation with the threat of contagion. A

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
zombie is a predator it wants to eat you,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it is also contagious it will infect you

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
with its disease. It is visibly

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
decomposing creeping with rotten

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
pathogens. I mean look at the poor

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
creature.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
[Applause]

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
You can tell that these horror monsters

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
engage the evolved fear system from the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
behavioral and physiological effects of

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the good horror film. You know the goose

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
bumps and the hammering heart and the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
screams. These are all evolved defensive

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
reactions goosebumps are a relic from a

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
distant past when we were covered in fur

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and goose bumps or piloerection would

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
make our first stand on end and so make

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
us look bigger to scare off an attacker.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Cats do the same thing by the way. Our

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
hearts beat faster to pump blood to the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
big muscle groups so that we're ready

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
for fight or flight and screams send a

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
signal to other people a signal for them

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to help or get the hell away. Horror taps

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
into the evolved fear system but that's

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
not all. Horror can help us calibrate that

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
system. It's like when you take your car

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to the mechanic for a check-up the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
mechanic carefully goes through all the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
vital parts of the car and he or she

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
will make sure that the airbags and the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
anti-lock braking system work. Hopefully

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
you'll never need them because you don't

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
want to get into a situation that

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
requires an airbag to deploy but you

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
certainly want them to work. Same with

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the fear system. Through exposure to

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
horror you give it a test run make sure

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it works properly and keep it nicely

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
tuned. Horror lets us learn what it feels

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
like to be truly afraid and it lets us

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
learn how to handle negative emotions. It

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
lets us maintain and refine coping

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
skills that we may apply in critical

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
situations in our own lives. There isn't

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
yet much experimental research into this

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but we do have some support from

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
psychological science. One study suggests

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that hardcore horror fans require more