Neurophysiological mechanisms of perspective-taking: An MEG investigation of agency

ABSTRACT

According to the embodied cognition framework, sensory and motor areas are recruited during language understanding through simulation processes. Behavioral and imaging findings point to a dependence of the latter on perspective-taking (e.g., first person “I” versus third person “s/he”). The current study aims at identifying possible neurophysiological correlates of perspective in a linguistic context. Twenty healthy participants were measured with magnetoencephalography (MEG) while semantically processing visually presented inflected German verbs in the first- and third-person perspective, simple present tense. Results show that the first-person perspective induces stronger beta (15–25 Hz) desynchronization in the right-hemispheric posterior superior temporal sulcus, ventral posterior cingulate gyrus, and V5/MT+ area; no modulation of sensorimotor cortex emerged. Moreover, a stronger event-related field (ERF) was observed for the first-person perspective at about 150 ms after pronoun-verb onset, originating in occipital and moving to central and left temporal cortical sites. No effect of perspective on sensory gating was found when targeting the N1 component related to tones following the linguistic stimuli. Results indicate an effect of linguistic perspective-taking on brain activation patterns. The contribution of the single brain areas and their role in self-other distinction is further discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Agent
• perspective
• beta
• ERF
• verb
• embodiment

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG project number 192776181-SFB991-B03). We thank Dr. Hanneke van Dijk, Matthias Sure, Dr. Holger Krause, and Frauke Hellwig for technical help.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the German Research Foundation [DFG 192776181-SFB991-B03].