The neural basis of understanding the expression of the emotions in man and animals.

摘要: Humans cannot help but attribute human emotions to non-human animals. Although such attributions are often regarded as gratuitous anthropomorphisms and held apart from the humans make about each other's internal states, they may be product of a general mechanism for flexibly interpreting adaptive behavior. To examine this, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in compare neural mechanisms associated with attributing animal undergoing fMRI, participants first passively observed facial displays human, primate domestic dogs, subsequently judged acceptability emotional (e.g. 'annoyed') descriptions 'baring teeth') same images. For all targets, emotion selectively activated regions prefrontal anterior temporal cortices causal explanation prior studies. These were similarly by both targets even during passive observation task; moreover, degree similarity was dependent on participants' self-reported beliefs mental capacities results encourage non-anthropocentric view understanding, one that treats idea animals have no more than other ourselves do.