That Neuroscience Guy - The Neuroscience Behind Why We Can't Look Away

Episode Date: October 12, 2026

In today's episode of that Neuroscience Guy, we discuss the neuroscience behind why we can't look away from something awful.

Hi, my name is Olive Kirk Olson, and I'm a neuroscientist at the University of Victoria. In my spare time, I'm that neuroscience guy. Welcome to the podcast. And welcome back. We've taken a bit of a longer break than usual. Started the semester, was a bit crazy. I moved home from the United States back to Canada, and my students have been running around trying to get organized teaching classes and the rest of it.

But we're back, and we've got lots of episodes planned for the fall semester. You know, the way we think of these things in university terms. Today I want to talk to you about something a little uncomfortable. Why is it so hard to look away from something awful? You know the feeling? You know, you're scrolling online. There's a video you do not really want to watch. It's kind of gross, but you watch it anyway.

You know, it's a gross medical clip, a true crime headline, a disaster video, a strange injury, a horrible story. You know, something that makes you say, oh, I hate this. And then you just keep looking. I know this happened during the World Cup. There was that Canadian soccer player that had a horrific injury. And I watched that over and over again. And every time I cringed and I just couldn't not watch it.

So, you know, why do we do this? You know, you're driving past an accident. Why do people slow down? Like, what are you hoping to see? And you see this. You know, if you're driving a car, there's an accident. People slow down to look. And you say you don't stare, but you do.

Everyone slows down, heads turn. And you know what's happened. So what's going on here? Like, why do we do this? Why are we attracted to things we cannot stand? Well, the short answer is that attention is not the same as enjoyment. You know, your brain can prioritize something without liking it. In fact, some of the things,

your brain prioritizes most strongly are unpleasant. Danger, disease, injury, social threat, uncertainty, anything that might matter for survival, get special access to attention. And that's the key idea for today. When something is disgusting, frightening, taboo, or morally disturbing, the brain may treat it as important information, not pleasant information, not information you approve of, important information. Some people call this morbid curiosity. Morbid curiosity is a curiosity about things that are threatening, you know, disturbing, disgusting, or related to death.

It's why people watch horror movies. It's why true crime is so popular. It's why people read about disasters, cults, serial killers, parasites, rare diseases, is terrible accidents. you know funnily enough given how much i fly i actually i'm afraid of flying i tried to get over that before christmas and did a little bit taking my first flying lesson but you know what do i watch on youtube i watch videos about airline crashes and disasters right which you shouldn't do if you're afraid of flying it makes it worse and this is why the internet contains so many videos that begin

with someone saying do not watch this if you're eating right as soon as someone says that You start watching it, right? So basically, from a neuroscience perspective, morbid curiosity sits at the intersection of attention, emotion, disgust, fear, reward, and learning. So let's start with attention. The brain has limited processing capability, right? It cannot treat everything in the world as equally important. So it needs priority systems. It needs ways of saying, pay attention to this first.

A sudden movement gets priority. A loud sound gets priority. An angry face gets priority. Blood gets priority. A possible contaminant gets priority. A social threat gets priority. This isn't a design flaw. It's a feature for survival.

If something might harm you, infect you, exclude you, or teach you something important about danger, the brain wants that information. This is you trying to survive. One way to think about it is that. unpleasant things can be highly salient. We've talked about salience before. But basically, salience means that something stands out. It grabs the brain and says, this matters.

The salient network, including regions such as the anterior insula, the anterior cinglet cortex, these regions help the brain detect important events, and they shift resources towards them. These regions are not only about disgust or fear, but they're often involved when the brain needs to evaluate something emotionally meaningful and decide what to do next. So when you see something disturbing, your attention system may lock on before your reflective mind has time to say actually no thank you. So you're locking in before you can turn away. Now let's talk about disgust. Disgust is fascinating because it's not just an emotion. It's also a protective system. At its most basic, you know, disgust keeps us away from things that can make us sick, right?

rotting food, bodily fluids, infection, contamination, parasites, bad smells. And again, the insular cortex, it's especially important here. It's involved in representing internal body states, taste, nausea, and disgust. When something makes you feel physically repulsed, the insula is often part of that response. But disgust has expanded beyond food and disease. You know, as we've evolved, we've learned to be disgusted about other things. You can feel disgust towards moral violations, cruelty, betrayal, hypocrisy, exploitation. Certain social behaviors can make us say, well, that's disgusting, even when there's no literal contamination.

And that's just disgust evolving. And it means disgust connects the body, emotion, and social judgment. And because disgust is protective, the brain doesn't simply ignore disgusting things. It monitors them. It asks, what is that? Is it dangerous? Do I need to avoid it? Do I need to tell other people?

That monitoring is part of why gross things can be hard to look away from. Your conscious mind says, I do not want to see this. Your protective system says, hold on, we need to identify the threat. Fear works in a similar way. The amygdala, you knew it had to come in somewhere, and related threat systems help the brain respond to possible danger. They can increase arousal, narrow attention. It makes sense.

information feel more urgent. If something is scarier uncertain, the brain wants more information, and the amygala prompts that desire. This is why horror movies work. A horror movie gives you danger in a controlled setting. Your body reacts as if something matters, heart rate changes, muscles tense, attention narrows, but you're also sitting on a couch, there's popcorn, and you can turn it off. That's a powerful, powerful combination, real arousal, low actual risk.

The brain gets to sample danger without being in danger, hence horror movies. And this is one reason why people enjoy scary stories, haunted houses, roller coasters, and true crime. The experience lets the brain explore threat from a distance. It can ask, what would I do? How does this work? Could I detect the danger earlier? How do people survive? And that brings us to curiosity.

Curiosity is not always cheerful, right? we frame curiosity as a positive trait, but sometimes it can get you in trouble. And curiosity sometimes is driven by an information gap that feels uncomfortable. If something is confusing, uncertain, or incomplete, the brain wants closure. It wants the missing piece. That is headlines work so well when they imply something terrible but do not fully explain it. Your brain gets hooked by the gap. And just think of that one.

The number of times I've clicked on something online because it's a tease, right? It's like, well, what about this? And you want to know what's missing. You want to know, what are they not telling me, right? So that is, you know, you start asking yourself, like, what happened? How bad was it? Why did they do that? What does it look like?

Could that happen to me? And those questions pull attention in, which we've talked about. And once attention is pulled in, reward systems can become involved too. Not because the content is pleasant, but remember, when we say reward, it's a generic, but if you resolve uncertainty, it can be rewarding. Finding out what happened can relieve the tension created by not knowing. And also the idea that if something is a negative reward or a punishment, you want to avoid it. So morbid curiosity can have a strange emotional shape. The content is unpleasant, but the act of learning can feel compelling. This is also why we sometimes

keep watching past the point of comfort. We're not always chasing pleasure. Sometimes we're chasing resolution. You just want to know how it ends. Now, there's another layer here, preparation. The brain learns from bad things. Watching, reading, or hearing about danger can become a kind of simulation. You learn what to avoid.

You learn what people do under pressure. You learn what signs were missed. You learn what disgust means. You learn what your own body can tolerate. This doesn't mean every gross video or true kind binge is healthy. It just means the pull makes some sense. The brain is asking, is there useful information here?

Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes the answer is absolutely not. And you're just three clicks deep into something that will ruin lunch. So when does this become a problem? Morbid curiosity, you know, it's a problem when it leaves you feeling worse, more anxious, more helpless, or more numb. All right. So if you're learning the world is more dangerous than it actually is,

that matters. You know, it's interfering with your sleep maybe, your mood relationships are basic peace of mind. So one way to think of it is attention is a diet. What you repeatedly feed attention becomes part of the mental world your brain expects. So the goal is not to pretend we should never look at disturbing things. That would be unrealistic and frankly not very human. The goal is to notice the difference between useful curiosity and compulsive exposure. Useful curiosity, teaches you something and then lets you leave. Compulsive exposure keeps pulling you back even when you feel worse. So a good question to ask yourself is this.

After I consume this information, do I feel informed or do I feel hijacked? That question, you know, it's kind of simple, but I think it's powerful, right? Because the fact that something grabs your attention does not mean it deserves your attention. And the fact that you look does not mean you like it. This is the main point. Like, I really want you to get out of this. The brain is building. to notice threats, contamination, injury, uncertainty, social danger, disgust pulls us away,

but it can also make us monitor. Fear makes us avoid, but it also makes us gather information. Curiosity can be joyful, but can also be dark, uncomfortable, and urgent. So when you can't look away from something horrible, doesn't mean you're secretly terrible. It means your brain has detected something salient. It's trying to learn, predict, protect, and resolve uncertainty. Sometimes that's useful. Sometimes it's just a track. The trick is learning the difference. So the next time you find yourself staring at something you supposedly cannot stand, pause for a second and ask, what is my brain trying to learn here? And there is an answer. Maybe learn it and move on. If there is no answer, maybe close the tab. Okay, that's it for day. Again, apologize for the delay.

You know, we took a little break at the end of the summer and then semester started and we just got a little bit behind. But now we're back up and running and we'll be bringing you a podcast every week. And there you go. Don't forget the website. That neuroscience guy.com links to Patreon. For those of you supporting us, thank you so much. The money goes to graduate students in my lab here at the University of Victoria. And there's links to our Etsy store. Some people are buying merch. I personally think it's some cool stuff. Again, the money we make on it goes to graduate students in our lab. Social media. Uh, threat. Reds X and Instagram at that neurosac guy.

We post stuff there, and it's a good way to get a hold of us. We want to know what you want to know about the neuroscience of daily life. That is the theme of the podcast when I started it, and it's still true. I want to help explain those things in life that make you wonder, how does this work? And of course, the podcast itself. Thank you so much for listening, and if you haven't already, please subscribe. My name is Olaf Krogolson, and I'm that neuroscience guy. I'll see you soon for another full episode of the podcast.