Department of Experimental Psychology, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3UD, UK; Wellcome Centre for NeuroImaging, University College London, 12 Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK.
Department of Psychology, UCLA, 502 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
Neuropsychologia. 2019 May;128:241-248. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.06.012. Epub 2017 Jun 13.
We argue that there is a relation between the judgements that 'I did it' and 'I saw it'. Both are statements are about the individual, not just the world. We show that the dorsal prefrontal cortex is activated both when human subjects judge that they are the agents of their actions and when they judge that they are confident that they have seen a masked visual stimulus. Macaque monkeys have also been taught to report whether they have or have not seen visual stimuli and cells can be found in the dorsal prefrontal cortex that distinguish between 'seen' and 'not seen'. The judgement is abstract in that it applies largely irrespective of the nature and location of the stimulus. We suggest that the reason why the prefrontal cortex is involved is that it evolved in primates, adapted by searching for fruit and leaves and using their hands to retrieve them. There is cell activity in the dorsal prefrontal cortex that relates to eye movements, covert attention and visual search; activity that relates to learning abstract rules; and activity that relates to the planning of the hand movements that are appropriate. We propose that this is the reason why this area is involved in making judgements about both agency and visual detection.
我们认为，“我做了”和“我看到了”这两个判断之间存在着联系。这两个陈述都是关于个体的，而不仅仅是关于世界的。我们表明，当人类受试者判断自己是自己行为的主体时，以及当他们判断自己有信心看到一个被掩蔽的视觉刺激时，背外侧前额叶皮层都会被激活。猴子也被教导报告他们是否看到了视觉刺激，并且可以在背外侧前额叶皮层中找到区分“看到”和“未看到”的细胞。这个判断是抽象的，因为它主要适用于刺激的性质和位置。我们认为，前额叶皮层参与其中的原因是，它在灵长类动物中进化而来，通过寻找水果和树叶并使用它们的手来获取这些东西而适应。在背外侧前额叶皮层中存在与眼球运动、隐蔽注意力和视觉搜索相关的细胞活动；与学习抽象规则相关的活动；以及与适当的手部运动规划相关的活动。我们提出，这就是为什么这个区域与关于代理和视觉检测的判断有关的原因。
