Neural substrates of interpreting actions and emotions from body postures.

ABSTRACT: Accurately reading the body language of others may be vital for navigating the social world, and this ability may be influenced by factors, such as our gender, personality characteristics and neurocognitive processes. This fMRI study examined the brain activation of 26 healthy individuals (14 women and 12 men) while they judged the action performed or the emotion felt by stick figure characters appearing in different postures. In both tasks, participants activated areas associated with visual representation of the body, motion processing and emotion recognition. Behaviorally, participants demonstrated greater ease in judging the physical actions of the characters compared to judging their emotional states, and participants showed more activation in areas associated with emotion processing

SUBMITTER: Kana RK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3324569 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature