title: The involvement of emotion recognition in affective theory of mind.
abstract: This study was conducted to explore the relationship between emotion recognition and affective Theory of Mind (ToM). Forty subjects performed a facial emotion recognition and an emotional intention recognition task (affective ToM) in an event-related fMRI study. Conjunction analysis revealed overlapping activation during both tasks. Activation in some of these conjunctly activated regions was even stronger during affective ToM than during emotion recognition, namely in the inferior frontal gyrus, the superior temporal sulcus, the temporal pole, and the amygdala. In contrast to previous studies investigating ToM, we found no activation in the anterior cingulate, commonly assumed as the key region for ToM. The results point to a close relationship of emotion recognition and affective ToM and can be interpreted as evidence for the assumption that at least basal forms of ToM occur by an embodied, non-cognitive process.
authors.affiliation: Division for Imaging in Psychiatry, Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany. Daniela.Mier@zi-mannheim.de
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mier
authors.forename: Stefanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lis
authors.forename: Kerstin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Neuthe
authors.forename: Carina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sauer
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Esslinger
authors.forename: Bernd
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gallhofer
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kirsch
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D056345:Theory of Mind / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult