title: Vitality Forms Processing in the Insula during Action Observation: A Multivoxel Pattern Analysis.
abstract: Observing the style of an action done by others allows the observer to understand the cognitive state of the agent. This information has been defined by Stern "vitality forms". Previous experiments showed that the dorso-central insula is selectively active both during vitality form observation and execution. In the present study, we presented participants with videos showing hand actions performed with different velocities and asked them to judge either their vitality form (gentle, neutral, rude) or their velocity (slow, medium, fast). The aim of the present study was to assess, using multi-voxel pattern analysis, whether vitality forms and velocities of observed goal-directed actions are differentially processed in the insula, and more specifically whether action velocity is encoded per se or it is an element that triggers neural populations of the insula encoding the vitality form. The results showed that, consistently across subjects, in the dorso-central sector of the insula there were voxels selectively tuned to vitality forms, while voxel tuned to velocity were rare. These results indicate that the dorso-central insula, which previous data showed to be involved in the vitality form processing, contains voxels specific for the action style processing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, University of Parma Parma, Italy.
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Di Cesare
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University Maastricht, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Giancarlo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Valente
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: Cinzia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Di Dio
authors.affiliation: The Laboratory of Perceptual Robotics (PERCRO), Institute of Communication, Information and Perception Technologies (TeCIP), Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Emanuele
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ruffaldi
authors.affiliation: The Laboratory of Perceptual Robotics (PERCRO), Institute of Communication, Information and Perception Technologies (TeCIP), Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Massimo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bergamasco
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University Maastricht, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Rainer
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Goebel
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, University of ParmaParma, Italy; Brain Center for Social and Motor Cognition, Italian Institute of Technology (IIT)Parma, Italy; Istituto di Neuroscienze, Consiglio nazionale delle RicercheParma, Italy.
authors.forename: Giacomo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rizzolatti
keywords: MVPA; action understanding; insula cortex; social interaction; vitality forms