Reading about the actions of others: Biological motion imagery and action congruency influence brain activity

• Published in: Neuropsychologia Vol. 48; no. 6; pp. 1607 - 1615
• Main Authors: Deen, Ben, McCarthy, Gregory
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.05.2010; Elsevier
• Subjects: Anatomical correlates of behavior; Behavioral psychophysiology; Biological and medical sciences; Biological motion; Brain; Brain Mapping; Comprehension; Decision Making - physiology; Female; Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; Imagination - physiology; Intention; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Male; Motion; Motion Perception - physiology; Narratives; Neuroimaging Techniques; Neurolinguistics; Oxygen - blood; Photic Stimulation - methods; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reading; Story comprehension; Superior temporal sulcus; Temporal Lobe - blood supply; Temporal Lobe - physiology; Temporal Processing; Visual Pathways - blood supply; Visual Pathways - physiology; Visual Processing; Young Adult; Intention; Biological motion; Reading; Superior temporal sulcus; Story comprehension; Human; Mental imagery; Verbal comprehension; Congruence; Central nervous system; Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging; Encephalon; Language; Body movement; Perception; Motricity; Functional imaging
• ISSN: 0028-3932; 1873-3514; 1873-3514
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.01.028

Prior neuroimaging research has implicated regions within and near the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) in the visual processing of biological motion and of the intentions implied by specific movements. However, it is unknown whether this region is engaged during the processing of human motion at a conceptual level, such as during story comprehension. Here, we obtained functional magnetic resonance images from subjects reading brief stories that described a human character's background and then concluded with an action or decision made by the character. Half of the stories contained incidental descriptions of biological motion (such as the character's walking or grasping) while the remaining half did not. As a second factor, the final action of the story was either congruent or incongruent with the character's background and implied goals and intentions. Stories that contained biological motion strongly activated the pSTS bilaterally, along with ventral temporal areas, premotor cortex, left motor cortex, and the precuneus. Active regions of pSTS in individual subjects closely overlapped with regions identified with a separate biological motion localizer (point-light display) task. Reading incongruent versus congruent stories activated dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and bilateral anterior insula. These results support the hypothesis that reading can engage higher visual cortex in a content-specific manner, and suggest that the presence of biological motion should be controlled as a potential confound in fMRI studies using story comprehension tasks.