Abstract
A recent article reports that human perception of heartbeat timing is mediated by right (non-dominant) anterior insular cortex, and that the activity and the size of this region is directly correlated with individuals' subjective awareness of inner body feelings and emotionality.
Functional neuroimaging investigations in the fields of social neuroscience and neuroeconomics indicate that the anterior insular cortex (AI) is consistently involved in empathy, compassion, and interpersonal phenomena such as fairness and cooperation. These findings suggest that AI plays an important role in social emotions, hereby defined as affective states that arise when we interact with other people and that depend on the social context. After we link the role of AI in social emotions to interoceptive awareness and the representation of current global emotional states, we will present a model suggesting that AI is not only involved in representing current states, but also in predicting emotional states relevant to the self and others. This model also proposes that AI enables us to learn about emotional states as well as about the uncertainty attached to events, and implies that AI plays a dominant role in decision making in complex and uncertain environments. Our review further highlights that dorsal and ventro-central, as well as anterior and posterior subdivisions of AI potentially subserve different functions and guide different aspects of behavioral regulation. We conclude with a section summarizing different routes to understanding other people’s actions, feelings and thoughts, emphasizing the notion that the predominant role of AI involves understanding others’ feeling and bodily states rather than their action intentions or abstract beliefs.
Social neuro-science has recently started to investigate the neuronal mechanisms underlying our ability to understand the mental and emotional states of others. In this review, imaging research conducted on theory of mind (ToM or mentalizing) and empathy is selectively reviewed. It is proposed that even though these abilities are often used as synonyms in the literature these capacities represent different abilities that rely on different neuronal circuitry. ToM refers to our ability to understand mental states such as intentions, goals and beliefs, and relies on structures of the temporal lobe and the pre-frontal cortex. In contrast, empathy refers to our ability to share the feelings (emotions and sensations) of others and relies on sensorimotor cortices as well as limbic and para-limbic structures. It is further argued that the concept of empathy as used in lay terms refers to a multi-level construct extending from simple forms of emotion contagion to complex forms of cognitive perspective taking.
Keywords: Social neuro-science; Theory of mind; Empathy; Pain; mPFC; Insula; ACC; Emotional processing
Article Outline
1. Introduction
2. Mind reading
3. Empathy
4. Future research perspectives: distinguishing mentalizing and empathizing
5. Implications for developmental neuro-sciences
6. Mentalizing and empathizing not only separate but also intertwined
Ralteria wrote:Doc,
In your experience, do you feel it's possible to give and receive simultaneously, similar to movement and stillness existing simultaneously in the concept of Taiji? I know you mentioned that it didn't carry the same effectiveness but wasn't sure if at higher levels of awareness if that was possible and still effective (i.e. Liangyi returning to Taiji). Very cool thread!
RickMatz wrote:I used to be in sales, and am still in a customer facing role. When I am training regularly, I find that I can read what is going on with people in a room a whole lot better.
The Japanese word for this is kan, or "feeling". 勘
At http://classicbudoka.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/38-ken-and-kan-seeing-and-feeling, there was a post about this characteristic.
Doc Stier wrote:In this way, the mind most often remains capable of intuitively receiving thoughts, feelings, and images projected by outside sources. At this point, however, a reasonable degree of mental filtering needs to be mentally established as well in order to minimize the additionally distracting tendency to consciously look at all of them throughout the day, while still allowing that which really needs to be acknowledged to enter your normal consciousness for appropriate response as needed.
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