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- Kitada, Ryo, et al.
(author)
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Brain networks involved in haptic and visual identification of facial expressions of emotion : An fMRI study
- 2010
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In: NeuroImage. - : Elsevier BV. - 1053-8119 .- 1095-9572. ; 49:2, s. 1677-1689
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Previous neurophysiological and neuroimaging studies have shown that a cortical network involving the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), inferior parietal lobe (IPL) and cortical areas in and around the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) region is employed in action understanding by vision and audition. However, the brain regions that are involved in action understanding by touch are unknown. Lederman et al. (2007) recently demonstrated that humans can haptically recognize facial expressions of emotion (FEE) surprisingly well. Here, we report a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study in which we test the hypothesis that the IFG, IPL and pSTS regions are involved in haptic, as well as visual, FEE identification. Twenty subjects haptically or visually identified facemasks with three different FEEs (disgust, neutral and happiness) and casts of shoes (shoes) of three different types. The left posterior middle temporal gyrus, IPL, IFG and bilateral precentral gyrus were activated by FEE identification relative to that of shoes, regardless of sensory modality. By contrast, an inferomedial part of the left superior parietal lobule was activated by haptic, but not visual, FEE identification. Other brain regions, including the lingual gyrus and superior frontal gyrus, were activated by visual identification of FEEs, relative to haptic identification of FEEs. These results suggest that haptic and visual FEE identification rely on distinct but overlapping neural substrates including the IFG, IPL and pSTS region.
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2. |
- Kitada, Ryo, et al.
(author)
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Functional specialization and convergence in the occipito-temporal cortex supporting haptic and visual identification of human faces and body parts : An fMRI study
- 2009
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In: Journal of cognitive neuroscience. - : MIT Press - Journals. - 0898-929X .- 1530-8898. ; 21:10, s. 2027-2045
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Humans can recognize common objects by touch extremely well whenever vision is unavailable. Despite its importance to a thorough understanding of human object recognition, the neuroscientific study of this topic has been relatively neglected. To date, the few published studies have addressed the haptic recognition of nonbiological objects. We now focus on haptic recognition of the human body, a particularly salient object category for touch. Neuroimaging studies demonstrate that regions of the occipito-temporal cortex are specialized for visual perception of faces (fusiform face area, FFA) and other body parts (extrastriate body area, EBA). Are the same category-sensitive regions activated when these components of the body are recognized haptically? Here, we use fMRI to compare brain organization for haptic and visual recognition of human body parts. Sixteen subjects identified exemplars of faces, hands, feet, and nonbiological control objects using vision and haptics separately. We identified two discrete regions within the fusiform gyrus (FFA and the haptic face region) that were each sensitive to both haptically and visually presented faces; however, these two regions differed significantly in their response patterns. Similarly, two regions within the lateral occipito-temporal area (EBA and the haptic body region) were each sensitive to body parts in both modalities, although the response patterns differed. Thus, although the fusiform gyrus and the lateral occipito-temporal cortex appear to exhibit modality-independent, category-sensitive activity, our results also indicate a degree of functional specialization related to sensory modality within these structures.
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