In daily communication, we often use indirect speech to establish positive relationships and to reduce listener's experience of negative emotion. However, little is known about the brain mechanisms that underlie the comprehension of indirect speech. In this study, we examined whether indirect speech can reduce listener's experience of negative emotion and what are the underlying cerebral structures that may affect the listener in emotional attenuation brought by indirect speech. We conducted a functional MRI experiment using a scenario reading task. In the main effect of Sentence Type, results revealed significantly greater activation for indirect speech comprehension than literal sentence comprehension in the bilateral Inferior Frontal Gyrus (BA 45/47), Superior Frontal Gyrus (BA8/9), Middle Temporal Gyrus (BA 21), and the right Medial prefrontal Cortex (MPFC; BA 10). These findings suggest that the right and left fronto-temporal networks play a crucial role in detecting contextual violations, whereas the MPFC is important for generating inferences to make sense of remarks within a context. In the main effect of Emotional Type, results revealed significantly greater activation for negative sentence than positive sentence comprehension in the bilateral Postcentral Gyrus (BA 3/5), MPFC (BA 6), In-sula (BA 13), the left Putamen, Lingual Gyrus (BA 18), and the right Anterior Cingulate Cortex (BA 32). These findings indicate that direct negative utterances strongly induce negative emotion in the listener activating the brain regions involved in emotional processing.
|
