Perspective-taking as part of narrative comprehension: a functional MRI study.
During narrative comprehension, readers understand the emotions of the protagonist by taking the perspective of the character, which is an essential component of empathy. Spatial perspective-taking is crucial to understanding the standpoints and perceptions of others, and gives clues as to what the protagonist knows. As a default, a "here and now" point-of-view is adopted to make sense of the narrative. If the protagonist is in a different location while an event takes place ("there and now"), in order to comprehend the narrative the reader must take an allocentric perspective, which places greater demands on spatial perspective-taking. Utilizing this phenomenon, we evaluated the neural substrates of perspective-taking in emotional narrative comprehension using functional MRI in 18 normal adults. The subjects read short stories followed by a target sentence, which described an event that might evoke an emotional response in the protagonist if the character were present. The stories involved a scenario in which the character was either present at the same location ("here and now") or at a distant location ("there and now") during the event. The "there and now" scenario activated the posterior cingulate cortex and the right temporo-parietal junction more prominently than the "here and now" condition. In contrast to the control tasks, both scenarios activated the well-known mentalizing network including the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, temporal pole, posterior cingulate cortex and temporo-parietal junction. Along with the mentalizing network, the posterior cingulate cortex and the right temporo-parietal junction are involved in spatial perspective-taking during emotional narrative comprehension.
Mano
Yoko
Y
National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Japan.
Harada
Tokiko
T
Sugiura
Motoaki
M
Saito
Daisuke N
DN
Sadato
Norihiro
N
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult