What types of photos make people reach for their wallets? New Stanford University-led research suggests that brain activity can help forecast which wildlife images will inspire people to engage online and donate to conservation causes. The insights could help environmental organizations design more effective communications campaigns. The findings suggest that socioemotional features, such as visible faces or cues that encourage viewers to infer an animal's mental state, played a key role in driving engagement.
The study, published Feb. 17 in PNAS Nexus, combines behavioral experiments, functional MRI (fMRI) brain imaging, and social media data to explore how people respond to wildlife imagery. Researchers found that neural responses not only predicted individuals' choices to like images and donate money, but also forecast broader public engagement with similar images on social media platforms.
"If you want to encourage people to protect an animal, you might depict it in a way that evokes a social or emotional connection," said study coauthor Brian Knutson , a professor of psychology at the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences and an affiliate of the Woods Institute. "For instance, emphasizing facelike features or attention to the viewer."
The work grew out of earlier interdisciplinary research supported by the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment's Environmental Venture Projects grant program.
Participants in the study viewed wildlife images while undergoing fMRI scanning and made decisions about liking images of animals and donating money to preserve them. Researchers then compared brain activity and participant behavior with engagement metrics from a major environmental organization's social media platform.
Activity in brain regions linked to anticipation and value integration predicted both individual engagement and large-scale online responses.
The researchers say the findings could inform future work using advanced tools — including generative AI — to test whether modifying image features can increase engagement and charitable giving.
"Social media is a powerful tool for shaping public opinion and encouraging environmental behavior," "Neuroscience tools could offer insights into what motivates people to support wildlife conservation efforts."
Knutson is also an affiliate of the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence; and a member of Bio-X , the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance and the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute . This study was also funded by National Geographic, the Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging , and the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability .
