Skip to content
DraconiticResearch
Search Sources API
182,460 studies31 sourcesUpdated 57 min ago
Peer-reviewedCC BYImaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)

Inter-subject correlations and their behavioral associations vary across movies: Implications for generalizability.

  • Simon Leipold1,2,3
  • Rajat Ravi Rao1,4
  • Jan-Mathijs Schoffelen1
  • Sara Bögels1,5
  • Ivan Toni1
5 affiliations
  1. 1Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
  2. 2Social Brain Sciences Lab, Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences, ETH Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland.
  3. 3Neuroscience Center Zurich, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland.
  4. 4Cognitive Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
  5. 5Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Read full textPDFDOICite

Abstract

Movie-watching functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has become increasingly popular in neuroscience. Movie-fMRI data are commonly analyzed using inter-subject correlation (ISC), which quantifies the similarity of neural time series across individuals. Differences in ISC during movie viewing have been associated with psychological traits and clinical diagnoses. However, most studies investigating group differences in ISC or ISC-behavior associations have drawn conclusions from a single movie. Because ISC is inherently stimulus driven, effects observed for one movie may not generalize to another. Yet, the extent to which ISC patterns and ISC-behavior associations depend on the specific movie being viewed has received limited systematic attention. Here, we analyzed three independent datasets comprising 318 subjects and 36 movies in total to quantify between-movie variability in ISC and assess its consequences for ISC-behavior associations. Across datasets, ISC varied between movies throughout the cortex. This variability was spatially heterogeneous: regions with stronger ISC showed greater between-movie variability. Movie-specific inter-subject representational similarity analysis revealed distinct spatial distributions of ISC-behavior associations, with little overlap between movies. This pattern was observed for two distinct behavioral constructs. These findings suggest that ISC-behavior associations can be strongly movie specific.

Related

  1. A partial least squares approach for within-subject correlations in neuroscience
    Isaac Kinley, Reece Roberts, Donna Rose Addis
    PsyArXivPreprintCC0Full textNeuroscienceOSF
  2. Aberrant single-subject cortical morphological networks and their associations with multiple symptoms in generalized anxiety disorder
    Liqiong Liu, Xinyue Hu, Ranxi Deng +8
    Translational PsychiatryPeer-reviewedCC BY-NC-ND 4.0Full textNeuroscienceCrossref
  3. Heritability of behavioral traits and their genetic correlations with carcass traits in beef cattle
    Akio Onogi, Yuki Oya, Toshio Watanabe +3
    Genetics Selection EvolutionPeer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Full textGenetics & genomicsHAL
  4. Misophonia in adolescents: clinical correlates and associations with autism-related behavioral characteristics within a clinical context.
    Rahime Duygu Temeltürk, Yağmur Özgür Karabiyikioğlu, Kübra Dilara Aynigül +2
    BMC pediatricsPeer-reviewedCC BY-NC-NDFull textNeuroscienceEurope PMCDOAJ
  5. Impaired Control Symptoms in Alcohol Use Disorder Show Convergent Associations Across Behavioral and Neural Markers of Inhibitory Control and Drinking Behavior
    J. Boehmer, P. Reinhardt, M. Bottino +21
    bioRxivPreprintCC BY-NC-NDFull textNeurosciencebioRxiv

Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{leipold2026intersubject,
  title = {{Inter-subject correlations and their behavioral associations vary across movies: Implications for generalizability.}},
  author = {Simon Leipold and Rajat Ravi Rao and Jan-Mathijs Schoffelen and Sara Bögels and Ivan Toni},
  journal = {Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.1162/imag.a.1400},
  url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42903537},
  note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Inter-subject correlations and their behavioral associations vary across movies: Implications for generalizability.
AU  - Simon Leipold
AU  - Rajat Ravi Rao
AU  - Jan-Mathijs Schoffelen
AU  - Sara Bögels
AU  - Ivan Toni
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/16
JO  - Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)
DO  - 10.1162/imag.a.1400
UR  - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42903537
AB  - Movie-watching functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has become increasingly popular in neuroscience. Movie-fMRI data are commonly analyzed using inter-subject correlation (ISC), which quantifies the similarity of neural time series across individuals. Differences in ISC during movie viewing have been associated with psychological traits and clinical diagnoses. However, most studies investigating group differences in ISC or ISC-behavior associations have drawn conclusions from a single movie. Because ISC is inherently stimulus driven, effects observed for one movie may not generalize to another. Yet, the extent to which ISC patterns and ISC-behavior associations depend on the specific movie being viewed has received limited systematic attention. Here, we analyzed three independent datasets comprising 318 subjects and 36 movies in total to quantify between-movie variability in ISC and assess its consequences for ISC-behavior associations. Across datasets, ISC varied between movies throughout the cortex. This variability was spatially heterogeneous: regions with stronger ISC showed greater between-movie variability. Movie-specific inter-subject representational similarity analysis revealed distinct spatial distributions of ISC-behavior associations, with little overlap between movies. This pattern was observed for two distinct behavioral constructs. These findings suggest that ISC-behavior associations can be strongly movie specific.
SN  - 2837-6056
ER  -