Role of the First and Second Person Perspective for Control of Behaviour: Understanding other People’s Facial Expressions

Publication date: Available online 18 December 2015 Source:Journal of Physiology-Paris Author(s): Denise Potthoff, Rüdiger J. Seitz Humans typically make probabilistic inferences about another person’s affective state based on her/his bodily movements when viewing body language like emotional facial expressions, emblematic gestures and whole body movements. Furthermore, they deduce tentative predictions about the other person’s intentions. Such interpretations reflect the valuating first person perspective of humans which allows the subject to adopt a second person perspective as in theory of mind and in empathy. Neuroimaging investigations have shown that the medial frontal cortex is a critical node in the circuits underlying theory of mind, empathy, and intention of action. It is suggested that personal perspective taking in social interactions is paradigmatic for the capability of humans to generate personally discriminable accounts of the complex world and to control behaviour.

Source: Journal of Physiology Paris - December 18, 2015 Category: Physiology Source Type: research