Is the Devil (or Angel) Located in Frontal Cortical Areas?

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Is the Devil (or Angel) Located in Frontal Cortical Areas? Martial Mermillod1, 2*, Brice Beffara1, Amélie Bret1, Johan Lepage3, Tiffany Morisseau4 and Nicolas Vermeulen5, 6 1 Grenoble-Alpes University, France 2 Institut Universitaire de France, France 3 Université Pierre Mendès-France, Laboratoire Inter-Universitaire de Psychologie, France 4 Institut des Sciences Cognitives, L2C2 - (CNRS UMR 5230), France 5 Université Catholique de Louvain, Psychology, Belgium 6 Fund for Scientific Research, Belgium In a recent article, we proposed a theoretical framework specifying the neural and psychological underpinnings of embodiment processes (Niedenthal, Mermillod, Maringer, & Hess, 2010). Under this theoretical model, the recognition of emotional expressions is not only driven by bottom-up processes from perceptual to cognitive areas but also by an important neural activity from high-level cortical areas involved in the processing of conceptual or social information. On the basis of electroencephalography (EEG) and electromyography (EMG) experiments, we have shown that this theoretical model does not only apply to the recognition of emotional facial expressions but also to more complex social situations (e.g. dehumanization of outgroup individuals). These experiments revealed different empirical evidence of such top-down activity during the assessment of complex emotional or social situations. More precisely, we have shown that the level of mimicry (assessed by electromyographic activity), which is at the root of the embodiment theory, is significantly modulated by high-level complex social situations related to the group membership of the participants. Keywords: Visual Perception, EEG, EMG, Embodiment theory, emotional facial expressions, top-down regulation Conference: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014. Presentation Type: Poster Topic: Emotional and Social Processes Citation: Mermillod M, Beffara B, Bret A, Lepage J, Morisseau T and Vermeulen N (2015). Is the Devil (or Angel) Located in Frontal Cortical Areas?. Conference Abstract: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00265 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 19 Feb 2015; Published Online: 24 Apr 2015. * Correspondence: Prof. Martial Mermillod, Grenoble-Alpes University, Grenoble, France, Martial.Mermillod@upmf-grenoble.fr Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Martial Mermillod Brice Beffara Amélie Bret Johan Lepage Tiffany Morisseau Nicolas Vermeulen Google Martial Mermillod Brice Beffara Amélie Bret Johan Lepage Tiffany Morisseau Nicolas Vermeulen Google Scholar Martial Mermillod Brice Beffara Amélie Bret Johan Lepage Tiffany Morisseau Nicolas Vermeulen PubMed Martial Mermillod Brice Beffara Amélie Bret Johan Lepage Tiffany Morisseau Nicolas Vermeulen Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.