Dataset Information

Dissimilar processing of emotional facial expressions in human and monkey temporal cortex.

ABSTRACT: Emotional facial expressions play an important role in social communication across primates. Despite major progress made in our understanding of categorical information processing such as for objects and faces, little is known, however, about how the primate brain evolved to process emotional cues. In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare the processing of emotional facial expressions between monkeys and humans. We used a 2×2×2 factorial design with species (human and monkey), expression (fear and chewing) and configuration (intact versus scrambled) as factors. At the whole brain level, neural responses to conspecific emotional expressions were anatomically confined to the superior temporal sulcus (STS) in humans. Within the human STS, we found functional subdivisions with a face-selective right posterior STS area that also responded to emotional expressions of other species and a more anterior area in the right middle STS that responded specifically to human emotions. Hence, we argue that the latter region does not show a mere emotion-dependent modulation of activity but is primarily driven by human emotional facial expressions. Conversely, in monkeys, emotional responses appeared in earlier visual cortex and outside face-selective regions in inferior temporal cortex that responded also to multiple visual categories. Within monkey IT, we also found areas that were more responsive to conspecific than to non-conspecific emotional expressions but these responses were not as specific as in human middle STS. Overall, our results indicate that human STS may have developed unique properties to deal with social cues such as emotional expressions.

SUBMITTER: Zhu Q

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3625447 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Dissimilar processing of emotional facial expressions in human and monkey temporal cortex.

Zhu Qi Q Nelissen Koen K Van den Stock Jan J De Winter François-Laurent FL Pauwels Karl K de Gelder Beatrice B Vanduffel Wim W Vandenbulcke Mathieu M

NeuroImage 20121108

Emotional facial expressions play an important role in social communication across primates. Despite major progress made in our understanding of categorical information processing such as for objects and faces, little is known, however, about how the primate brain evolved to process emotional cues. In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare the processing of emotional facial expressions between monkeys and humans. We used a 2×2×2 factorial design with species ...[more]

PMID: 23142071

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Project description:It is commonly assumed that a person's emotional state can be readily inferred from his or her facial movements, typically called emotional expressions or facial expressions. This assumption influences legal judgments, policy decisions, national security protocols, and educational practices; guides the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric illness, as well as the development of commercial applications; and pervades everyday social interactions as well as research in other scientific fields such as artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and computer vision. In this article, we survey examples of this widespread assumption, which we refer to as the common view, and we then examine the scientific evidence that tests this view, focusing on the six most popular emotion categories used by consumers of emotion research: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. The available scientific evidence suggests that people do sometimes smile when happy, frown when sad, scowl when angry, and so on, as proposed by the common view, more than what would be expected by chance. Yet how people communicate anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise varies substantially across cultures, situations, and even across people within a single situation. Furthermore, similar configurations of facial movements variably express instances of more than one emotion category. In fact, a given configuration of facial movements, such as a scowl, often communicates something other than an emotional state. Scientists agree that facial movements convey a range of information and are important for social communication, emotional or otherwise. But our review suggests an urgent need for research that examines how people actually move their faces to express emotions and other social information in the variety of contexts that make up everyday life, as well as careful study of the mechanisms by which people perceive instances of emotion in one another. We make specific research recommendations that will yield a more valid picture of how people move their faces to express emotions and how they infer emotional meaning from facial movements in situations of everyday life. This research is crucial to provide consumers of emotion research with the translational information they require.

Dataset Information

Dissimilar processing of emotional facial expressions in human and monkey temporal cortex.

Publications

Dissimilar processing of emotional facial expressions in human and monkey temporal cortex.

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