Affective meanings aroused by various objects, such as paintings, melodies, or words, can be quantified by the semantic differential (SD) technique (Osgood, Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1957). In this technique, three main factors (“Evaluation,”“Activity,” and “Potency”) have been consistently extracted from factor analyses of participants' subjective ratings of various objects using bipolar scales of adjective pairs. In the present study, we investigated brain activity during SD ratings of line‐drawing stimuli using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We compared brain activity among the three main factors underlying affective meanings. The overall results showed that Evaluation, Activity, and Potency produced brain activities in the inferior frontal gyrus, the superior temporal gyrus, and the superior frontal gyrus, respectively. These findings suggest that the psychological structures underlying affective meanings are distributed in specific areas of the brain.（本研究では、セマンティック・ディファレンシャル法によって線画刺激を評定している際の脳活動を、fMRIを用いて検討した。評価性・活動性・力量性の3 因子間で脳活動を比較した結果、評価性については下前頭回、活動性については上側頭回、力量性については上前頭回などの部位において各因子に対応する特異的な脳活動が確認された。これらの結果は、感性を構成する心理的構造は脳内の特定の部位に分散して存在することを示唆する。）
総p.11, 53(4), pp.361-371
Yosuke Kawachi, Hideaki Kawabata, Miho Suzuki Kitamura, Michiaki Shibata, Osamu Imaizumi, Jiro Gyoba
