Description
According to the embodied framework of human cognition, “mirroring” and “simulation” mechanisms have a crucial implication underpinning emotional consciousness. Yet, it is not clear up to what extent are these mechanisms are related to perceptual processing of emotionally relevant material and to subjective experience and "feelings", two different aspects of consciousness. This neuroimaging study focuses on the neural correlates of detection of emotional facial expressions and its relationship to subsequent subjective ratings. We presented video morphs of gradual changes of facial expressions (from a neutral to a happy or an angry face) to track the moment where subjects become aware of a new facial display. Subsequently, subjects were invited to (1) identify the change they had detected (accuracy) and to (2) rate the vividness of the detected change (subjective experience). The two questions were presented in random order on every trial after the detection task. A control condition consisted of an abrupt change where faces changed of texture. Findings revealed that while change detection across all conditions recruited specific areas including insula, midbrain and visual associative areas, only detection of facial emotional changes as well as subsequent subjective ratings, but not texture changes, recruited embodied related networks (i.e., Mirror System). Moreover, parametric analyses showed that, at detection, higher signal intensity in the anterior prefrontal cortex (BA10), an area that has been linked to metacognitive ability, is accompanied by subsequent low degrees of vividness. We will discuss the implications of our findings in the context of the antecedents of emotional awareness.| Period | 6 Nov 2014 |
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| Event title | Joint PhD Day VUB-ULB |
| Event type | Other |
| Sponsor | Université libre de Bruxelles |
| Degree of Recognition | National |