In a scary movie, ominous music playing is a cue to viewers that something bad is about to happen. But new research from University College London reveals that men and women anticipate negative events differently, which effects how these events will be remembered.

In a study that was published in The Journal of Neuroscience, researchers found that the women participating in the study had higher emotional responses, which can be seen through their brain activity, than men when expecting a negative event. According to a UCL release, men did not display any “neural signatures” in anticipation of either positive or negative reactions.

What matters most for the memories of men, said researcher Giulia Galli, is the brain activity while watching the scary scene. “This finding might be relevant for psychiatric disorders such as anxiety,” she said, “in which there is excessive anticipation of future threat and memory is often biased towards negative experiences.”