Visual Perception of Incomplete Human-Like Body Postures: A Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study

Abstract

Previous studies have reported that the mirror neuron system plays a crucial role in social cognition. We examined whether the higher-order cognitive functions are involved in the activations in the mirror neuron area when we perceive simplified pseudo-postures. We measured 14 participants’ brain activation during the posture-recognition task using near-infrared spectroscopy. The participants’ task was to observe five sequentially presented target pseudo-postures and judge whether a test pseudo-posture was identical to one of the preceding five target pseudo-postures. The results in the majority of participants (<i>n</i> = 10/14) revealed that the activity in the inferior frontal mirror neuron area is modulated by perception of human-likeness, but not in the remaining four participants (<i>n</i> = 4/14). These results suggest that the degree of the activation of higher-order cognitive functions, which may be engaged in the inhibitory and/or facilitative processing of human body or bodily movement, leads to the distinctive activities in the inferior frontal mirror neuron area.