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Right brain is the key to understanding facial expressions
NEW YORK, Apr 11 (Reuters Health) -- Ever wonder how you actually
assess another individual's facial expression? That is, how does
the brain link these visible expressions to the emotions behind
them? The answer seems to lie in a particular area of the brain
called the right cortex, according to results of a new study.
Dr. Ralph Adolphs, assistant professor of neurology at the University
of Iowa College of Medicine in Iowa City, together with colleagues
there and elsewhere, evaluated over 100 patients diagnosed with
specific brain injuries to determine which brain areas are involved
interpreting the emotion behind facial expressions.
Their study showed that the ability to recognize emotions from
facial expressions lies in a part of the brain known as the right
somatosensory-related cortex -- a part of the brain also known
to process information sensed by nerve endings throughout the
body.
``The surprising finding here is that damage to parts of the brain
involved in perceiving one's own body -- like the sensation of
touch -- are also important to judge how other people feel,''
said Adolphs in a statement.
``For subjects to retrieve knowledge regarding the association
of certain facial configurations with certain emotions, we presume
it is necessary to reactivate circuits that have been involved
in the learning of past emotions situations of comparable category,''
the researchers write in the current issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.
The findings show that understanding how the body feels is important
in being able to interpret other people's facial expressions.
``To figure out how someone else feels -- for example, from looking
at their face -- requires us to imagine what it would be like
if we made that same face,'' said Adolphs.
Given that ``recognizing an emotion from stimuli engages multiple
(thinking) processes,'' Adolphs and his colleagues suggest that
additional research will be needed to further define how the brain
actually translates the visual appearance of a facial expression
into its emotional content. SOURCE: Journal of Neuroscience 2000;
20:2683-2690. |
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