relation: http://eprints.imtlucca.it/2895/
title: Distinct neural systems involved in agency and animacy detection
creator: Gobbini, Maria Ida
creator: Gentili, Claudio
creator: Ricciardi, Emiliano
creator: Bellucci, Claudia
creator: Salvini, Pericle
creator: Laschi, Cecilia
creator: Guazzelli, Mario
creator: Pietrini, Pietro
subject: RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
description: We designed an fMRI experiment comparing perception of human faces and robotic faces producing emotional expressions. The purpose of our experiment was to investigate engagement of different parts of the social brain by viewing these animate and inanimate agents. Both human and robotic face expressions evoked activity in face-responsive regions in the fusiform gyrus and STS and in the putative human mirror neuron system. These results suggest that these areas mediate perception of agency, independently of whether the agents are living or not. By contrast, the human faces evoked stronger activity than did robotic faces in the medial pFC and the anterior temporal cortex—areas associated with the representation of others' mental states (theory of mind), whereas robotic faces evoked stronger activity in areas associated with perception of objects and mechanical movements. Our data demonstrate that the representation of the distinction between animate and inanimate agents involves areas that participate in attribution of mental stance.
publisher: MIT Press Journals
date: 2011-05-31
type: Article
type: PeerReviewed
identifier:   Gobbini, Maria Ida and Gentili, Claudio and Ricciardi, Emiliano and Bellucci, Claudia and Salvini, Pericle and Laschi, Cecilia and Guazzelli, Mario and Pietrini, Pietro  Distinct neural systems involved in agency and animacy detection.  Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23 (8).  pp. 1911-1920.  ISSN 0898-929X      (2011)  
relation: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/jocn.2010.21574#.VkNpiV5HRdg
relation: 10.1162/jocn.2010.21574