Mano Yoko, Harada Tokiko, Sugiura Motoaki, Saito Daisuke N, Sadato Norihiro
National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Japan.
Neuropsychologia. 2009 Feb;47(3):813-24. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2008.12.011. Epub 2008 Dec 14.
During narrative comprehension, readers understand the emotions of the protagonist by taking the perspective of the character, which is an essential component of empathy. Spatial perspective-taking is crucial to understanding the standpoints and perceptions of others, and gives clues as to what the protagonist knows. As a default, a "here and now" point-of-view is adopted to make sense of the narrative. If the protagonist is in a different location while an event takes place ("there and now"), in order to comprehend the narrative the reader must take an allocentric perspective, which places greater demands on spatial perspective-taking. Utilizing this phenomenon, we evaluated the neural substrates of perspective-taking in emotional narrative comprehension using functional MRI in 18 normal adults. The subjects read short stories followed by a target sentence, which described an event that might evoke an emotional response in the protagonist if the character were present. The stories involved a scenario in which the character was either present at the same location ("here and now") or at a distant location ("there and now") during the event. The "there and now" scenario activated the posterior cingulate cortex and the right temporo-parietal junction more prominently than the "here and now" condition. In contrast to the control tasks, both scenarios activated the well-known mentalizing network including the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, temporal pole, posterior cingulate cortex and temporo-parietal junction. Along with the mentalizing network, the posterior cingulate cortex and the right temporo-parietal junction are involved in spatial perspective-taking during emotional narrative comprehension.
在叙事理解过程中，读者通过采纳角色的视角来理解主人公的情感，这是共情的一个重要组成部分。空间视角采择对于理解他人的立场和感知至关重要，并能提供关于主人公所知信息的线索。默认情况下，人们会采用“此时此地”的视角来理解叙事。如果主人公在事件发生时处于不同的地点（“彼时彼地”），为了理解叙事，读者必须采取异我中心视角，这对空间视角采择提出了更高的要求。利用这一现象，我们使用功能磁共振成像对18名正常成年人在情感叙事理解中视角采择的神经基础进行了评估。受试者阅读短篇小说后接一个目标句子，该句子描述了一个如果角色在场可能会在主人公身上引发情感反应的事件。这些故事涉及这样一种情景：在事件发生期间，角色要么在同一地点（“此时此地”），要么在远处地点（“彼时彼地”）。与“此时此地”的情景相比，“彼时彼地”的情景更显著地激活了后扣带回皮层和右侧颞顶联合区。与对照任务不同的是，两种情景均激活了包括背内侧前额叶皮层、颞极、后扣带回皮层和颞顶联合区在内的著名的心理化网络。在后扣带回皮层和右侧颞顶联合区与心理化网络一起，参与了情感叙事理解过程中的空间视角采择。
