Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, ON, Canada.
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2012 Mar;1251:62-76. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2011.06369.x. Epub 2012 Jan 18.
Disgust is characterized by a remarkably diverse set of stimulus triggers, ranging from extremely concrete (bad tastes and disease vectors) to extremely abstract (moral transgressions and those who commit them). This diversity may reflect an expansion of the role of disgust over evolutionary time, from an origin in defending the body against toxicity and disease, through defense against other threats to biological fitness (e.g., incest), to involvement in the selection of suitable interaction partners, by motivating the rejection of individuals who violate social and moral norms. The anterior insula, and to a lesser extent the basal ganglia, are implicated in toxicity- and disease-related forms of disgust, although we argue that insular activation is not exclusive to disgust. It remains unclear whether moral disgust is associated with insular activity. Disgust offers cognitive neuroscientists a unique opportunity to study how an evolutionarily ancient response rooted in the chemical senses has expanded into a uniquely human social cognitive domain; many interesting research avenues remain to be explored.
厌恶的刺激触发因素多种多样，从非常具体的（难闻的味道和疾病载体）到非常抽象的（道德违规和违规者）。这种多样性可能反映了厌恶感在进化过程中的作用的扩展，从最初保护身体免受毒性和疾病的侵害，到抵御其他威胁生物适应性的因素（例如乱伦），再到参与选择合适的互动伙伴，厌恶感通过激发对违反社会和道德规范的个体的排斥来实现。前岛叶，以及程度较小的基底神经节，与与毒性和疾病相关的厌恶形式有关，尽管我们认为岛叶的激活并不是厌恶感所独有的。目前尚不清楚道德厌恶是否与岛叶活动有关。厌恶为认知神经科学家提供了一个独特的机会来研究一种源于化学感觉的古老的进化反应是如何扩展到人类独特的社会认知领域的；还有许多有趣的研究途径有待探索。
