Cervello e capacità di comprendere lo stato d'animo altrui. Un'animazione

Comprendere lo stato d'animo degli altri è fondamentale. Fa parte delle caratteristiche di base di cui siamo dotati. Non è solamente dal viso che riusciamo a comprendere le emozioni altrui ma anche dal tono della voce, dalla postura e così via. Ma quali sono  le aree cerebrali coinvolte in questi compiti? Su Scientific American hanno preparato questa breve animazione, interessante per farsi una prima idea.

Ecco il testo del filmato.

 Fusiform Face Area

This brain region--about the size of blueberry--is built to detect faces. It helps us recognize our friends and read their expressions.

Amygdala

The amygdala is a hub for emotions. It chats with the fusiform face area and gives us a sense of the mood displayed on a person’s face. 

Insula

The insula registers disgust, a feeling difficult to detect in the human face. Bad smells can heighten activity here, making disgust easier to recognize. 

 Prefrontal Cortex

The prefrontal cortex helps to construct abstract thought. It also combines sights, sounds and other sensory information, helping to create a context for social cues.

Media Prefrontal Cortex

The medial prefrontal cortex helps us to understand another person’s intentions. We now know that it combines information from the face, body and voice to represent mood.

Superior Temporal Sulcus

 The superior temporal sulcus helps us perceive motion in living things. It also tells us the direction someone is looking. This region is like a switchboard. It gathers information from the senses to help us interpret emotions.

Visual Cortex

 The primary visual cortex captures information about the orientation, shape and color of objects. It sends this visual data to the prefrontal cortex, where it mixes with other important sensory cues.

Auditory Cortex

 The auditory cortex handles basic sound information such as pitch and volume. It also responds to things we see like a person’s moving lips. Such responses show that interaction between the senses can occur in basic sensory areas.