Linked Life Data

18083518

Source:http://linkedlifedata.com/resource/pubmed/id/18083518

Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
24
pubmed:dateCreated
2007-12-19
pubmed:abstractText
In our daily life, we continuously monitor others' behaviors and interpret them in terms of goals, intentions, and reasons. Despite their central importance for predicting and interpreting each other's actions, the functional mechanisms and neural circuits involved in action understanding remain highly controversial. Two alternative accounts have been advanced. Simulation theory assumes that we understand actions by simulating the observed behavior through a direct matching process that activates the mirror-neuron circuit. The alternative interpretive account assumes that action understanding is based on specialized inferential processes activating brain areas with no mirror properties. Although both approaches recognize the central role of contextual information in specifying action intentions, their respective accounts of this process differ in significant respects. Here, we investigated the role of context in action understanding by using functional brain imaging while participants observed an unusual action in implausible versus plausible contexts. We show that brain areas that are part of a network involved in inferential interpretive processes of rationalization and mentalization but that lack mirror properties are more active when the action occurs in an implausible context. However, no differential activation was found in the mirror network. Our findings support the assumption that action understanding in novel situations is primarily mediated by an inferential interpretive system rather than the mirror system.
pubmed:commentsCorrections
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Dec
pubmed:issn
0960-9822
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Print
pubmed:day
18
pubmed:volume
17
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
2117-21
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
2007
pubmed:articleTitle
Investigating action understanding: inferential processes versus action simulation.
pubmed:affiliation
Department of Experimental Psychology and Ghent Institute for Functional and Metabolic Imaging, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium. marcel.brass@ugent.be
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't