Mirror-touch synaesthesia: the role of shared ... - UCL Discovery

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CHAPTER 5: FACIAL EXPRESSION RECOGNITION IN
MIRROR-TOUCH SYNAESTHESIA
Chapter 5
The findings from chapter 4 indicate that mirror-touch synaesthesia is linked with
heightened affective empathy. Simulation models of expression recognition contend
that in order to understand another’s facial expressions individuals map the
perceived expression onto the same sensorimotor representations which are active
during the experience of the perceived emotion. To investigate this view, the present
study examines facial expression and identity recognition abilities in mirror-touch
synaesthesia. Mirror-touch synaesthetes outperformed non-synaesthetic controls on
measures of facial expression recognition, but not on control measures of face
memory or face perception. These findings imply a role for sensorimotor simulation
in the recognition of facial affect, but not facial identity.
5.1 Introduction
The ability to perceive a face is one of the most highly developed visual skills
in humans, important not only for our ability to recognise the identity of others but
also to facilitate social interaction. Neurocognitive models of face perception
highlight the role of a number of face-specific and domain-general mechanisms in this
process, and distinguish between those involved in the recognition of facial identity
and those involved in the recognition of expressions at different stages of cortical
processing (Bruce and Young, 1986; Calder and Young, 2005; Haxby, Hoffman, and
Gobbini, 2000).
Simulation accounts of expression recognition contend that to understand
another’s facial emotion the observer simulates the sensorimotor response associated
with generating the perceived facial expression (Adolphs, 2002; Adolphs, 2003;
Gallese, Keysers, and Rizzolatti, 2004; Goldman, and Sripada, 2005; Keysers and
Gazzola, 2006). This is supported by evidence that electromyographic responses in
expression relevant facial muscles are increased during subliminal exposure to
emotional expressions (Dimberg, Thunberg, and Elmehed, 2000); that preventing the