Like haunted houses? Scientists do.

That's because they're an excellent place to study how humans respond to — and actively seek out — fear.

"Typically when we study things in the lab, we're exposing people to these repeated, low-intensity experiences. And that's not really the way we experience threat in the real world," says neuroscientist Sarah Tashjian , head of the Affective Neuroscience and Development Lab at the University of Melbourne. "Haunted houses have a benefit in that they're these really immersive experiences that have all of these sensations going on at the same time … so they're closer to what we might experience in the real world."

That immersive experience often activates what scientists call an "arousal response," which includes sweaty palms, shorter breath and an

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