Investigating action understanding: Inferential processes versus action simulation
Investigating action understanding: Inferential processes versus action simulation
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DOI：
10.1016/j.cub.2007.11.057
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发表时间：
2007-12-18
期刊：
影响因子：
9.2
通讯作者：
Gergely, Gyoergy
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Brass, Marcel;Schmitt, Ruth M.;Gergely, Gyoergy
在我们的日常生活中，我们不断地监视他人的行为，并根据目标，意图和原因来解释它们。尽管它们对于预测和解释彼此的动作至关重要，但参与动作理解的功能机制和神经回路仍然存在很大争议[1，2]。提出了两个备选帐户。模拟理论[3]假设我们通过激活镜像神经元电路的直接匹配过程模拟观察到的行为来理解行为[4]。另一种解释性解释[5]假设动作理解是基于激活没有镜像特性的大脑区域的专门推理过程[1]。虽然这两种方法都认识到上下文信息在指定行动意图中的核心作用，但它们各自对这一过程的描述在重要方面有所不同[1，5-7]。在这里，我们调查的作用，在行动理解的背景下，使用功能性脑成像，而参与者观察到一个不寻常的行动，在难以置信与似是而非的情况下。我们发现，大脑区域的推理解释过程的合理化和心理化，但缺乏镜像属性的网络的一部分，更活跃的行动时，发生在一个难以置信的情况下。然而，在镜像网络中没有发现差异激活。我们的研究结果支持的假设，在新的情况下，动作理解主要是由推理解释系统，而不是镜像系统介导的。
In our daily life, we continuously monitor others' behaviors and interpret them in terms of goals, intentions, and reasons. Despite their central importance for predicting and interpreting each other's actions, the functional mechanisms and neural circuits involved in action understanding remain highly controversial [1, 2]. Two alternative accounts have been advanced. Simulation theory [3] assumes that we understand actions by simulating the observed behavior through a direct matching process that activates the mirror-neuron circuit [4]. The alternative interpretive account [5] assumes that action understanding is based on specialized inferential processes activating brain areas with no mirror properties [1]. Although both approaches recognize the central role of contextual information in specifying action intentions, their respective accounts of this process differ in significant respects [1, 5-7]. Here, we investigated the role of context in action understanding by using functional brain imaging while participants observed an unusual action in implausible versus plausible contexts. We show that brain areas that are part of a network involved in inferential interpretive processes of rationalization and mentalization but that lack mirror properties are more active when the action occurs in an implausible context. However, no differential activation was found in the mirror network. Our findings support the assumption that action understanding in novel situations is primarily mediated by an inferential interpretive system rather than the mirror system.