Personal narratives are useful tools for engaging audiences and effectively communicating information to many people. However, the neurocognitive components underlying audience engagement remain unclear. To address this knowledge gap, this study takes a media neuroscience approach to examine the cognitive and affective processes associated with engagement in personal narratives. Using intersubject correlation analysis as a measure of audience brain engagement, a neuroimaging study using functional magnetic resonance imaging was conducted to determine whether personal stories engage audiences more than non-narrative messages and investigate the brain regions that facilitate this effect. Analyses showed that personal narratives elicited strong audience engagement as evidenced by robust correlations across the frontal and parietal lobes. Correlations were stronger across regions including the TPJ, pCC, aCC, dmPFC, and dlPFC when listening to narratives compared to a descriptive text. Additional analyses explored how narrative reception and engagement related to subsequent audience responses, although no reliable effects were observed. These findings contribute toward a biologically informed explanation for how narratives engage audiences to convey information.
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