Visual Perception of Incomplete Human-Like Body Postures: A Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study

Abstract

Previous studies have reported that the mirror neuron system plays a crucial role in social cognition. We examined whether the higher-order cognitive functions are involved in the activations in the mirror neuron area when we perceive simplified pseudo-postures. We measured 14 participants' brain activation during the posture-recognition task using near-infrared spectroscopy. The participants' task was to observe five sequentially presented target pseudo-postures and judge whether a test pseudo-posture was identical to one of the preceding five target pseudo-postures. The results in the majority of participants (n = 10/14) revealed that the activity in the inferior frontal mirror neuron area is modulated by perception of human-likeness, but not in the remaining four participants (n = 4/14). These results suggest that the degree of the activation of higherorder cognitive functions, which may be engaged in the inhibitory and/or facilitative processing of human body or bodily movement, leads to the distinctive activities in the inferior frontal mirror neuron area.

Stimulus-Response Compatibility Effect: An Attempt to Replicate Cook’s ‘Automatic Imitation in a Strategic Context’

“…That is, playing rock-paper-scissors apparently activates certain brain areas of the human MNS. Recent studies in neuroimaging, however, indicate that certain brain regions involved in the inhibitory mechanism are engaged to control automatic MNS activity (Brass, Ruby, & Spengler, 2009;Cross & Iacoboni, 2014;Cross, Torrisi, Losin, & Iacoboni, 2013;Ito et al, 2014).…”

“…Subsequent studies have confirmed that homologous human brain areas are activated both when a person observes somebody else executing an action and when the person executes the same action. Neuroimaging studies have reported such mirror activations in the ventral and dorsal premotor cortices, inferior parietal lobule, and primary motor cortex (Iacoboni, 2009;Iacoboni et al, 1999;Ito et al, 2014;Rizzolatti, Fogassi, & Gallese, 2001;Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004;Rizzolatti & Sinigaglia, 2010). This brain network is known as the human mirror neuron system (MNS).…”