Understanding the internal states of others by listening to action verbs.
The internal state of others can be understood observing their actions or listening to their voice. While the neural bases of action style (vitality forms) have been investigated, there is no information on how we recognize others' internal state by listening to their speech. Here, using fMRI technique, we investigated the neural correlates of auditory vitality forms while participants listened to action verbs in three different conditions: human voice pronouncing the verbs in a rude and gentle way, robot voice pronouncing the same verbs without vitality forms, and a scrambled version of the same verbs pronounced by human voice. In agreement with previous studies on vitality forms encoding, we found specific activation of the central part of insula during listening to human voice conveying specific vitality forms. In addition, when listening both to human and robot voices there was an activation of the posterior part of the left inferior frontal gyrus and of the parieto-premotor circuit typically described to be activated during observation and execution of arm actions. Finally, the superior temporal gyrus was activated bilaterally in all three conditions. We conclude that, the central part of insula is a key region for vitality forms processing allowing the understanding of the vitality forms regardless of the modality by which they are conveyed.
University of Parma, Department of Neuroscience, via Volturno 39/E, 43100 Parma, Italy.
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Di Cesare
University of Parma, Department of Neuroscience, via Volturno 39/E, 43100 Parma, Italy.
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Fasano
University of Parma, Department of Neuroscience, via Volturno 39/E, 43100 Parma, Italy.
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Errante
University of Milan, Department of Computer Science, Via Comelico 39/41, 20135 Milan, Italy.
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Marchi
University of Parma, Department of Neuroscience, via Volturno 39/E, 43100 Parma, Italy; Istituto di Neuroscienze, Consiglio nazionale delle Ricerche, Parma, Italy; IIT (Italian Institute of Technology) Brain Center for Social and Motor Cognition, via Volturno 39/E, 43100 Parma, Italy.
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Rizzolatti
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D012660:Semantics; D055815:Young Adult
D010100:Oxygen
Auditory vitality forms; Insula; Internal states; fMRI