Current theories in cognitive neuroscience assume that internal simulation, i.e., the reproduction of brain activity underlying another person’s inner state and behaviour in the perceiver’s brain, plays an important role in understanding others. Here we test the prediction that common neural activity during facial communication of affect leads to interpersonal understanding. Six female senders and 30 male observers (six of which were the senders romantic partners and 24 unknown others) underwent pseudo-hyperscanning fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging). Senders were asked to submerge themselves into emotional situations and facially express their emotional feelings as they arose to the observer. Observers were uninformed about the sender’s task and were asked to watch and feel with the sender. Using between-brain spatial correlation analysis we found that mere emotion recognition was not closely related to the degree to which an observer reproduced the sender’s spatial pattern of neural activity in his own brain. However, in runs in which the observer had correctly identified the communicated emotion between-brain similarity of spatial patterns of neural activity predicted the degree to which the observer experienced a similar emotional feeling as the sender. This effect remained significant when differences between romantic partners and unknown others and sender effects were removed. These findings are in line with previous studies that suggest that facial emotion recognition, at least at a coarse level, might be supported by neural processes that do not rely on internal simulation. Shared affective experiences, on the other hand, might arise from common neural activity between the sender’s and the observer’s brain, leading to a “shared space of affect” which might be critical for the flow of more subtle affective information between brains.

认知神经科学的当前理论认为内部模拟（即，在感知者的大脑中重现另一个人的内部状态和行为的大脑活动）在理解他人方面起着重要作用。在这里，我们测试了以下预测：面部情感交流中常见的神经活动会导致人与人之间的理解。六名女性发送者和30位男性观察者（其中六位是浪漫的发送者，另外24位未知者）进行了伪超扫描功能核磁共振成像（功能磁共振成像）。发件人被要求将自己沉浸在情绪状态中，并在出现给观察者时以面部表情表达自己的情绪。观察者不了解发送者的任务，并被要求与发送者进行观察和感受。使用脑间空间相关性分析，我们发现，单纯的情感识别与观察者在其自己的大脑中复制发送者的神经活动的空间模式的程度没有密切关系。但是，在观察者已正确识别出所传达的情感的神经活动空间模式的大脑之间相似性的运行中，预测了观察者与发送者经历相似情感情感的程度。当浪漫伴侣和陌生人之间的差异以及发件人的影响被消除时，这种影响仍然很明显。这些发现与先前的研究相吻合，后者表明，至少在粗略水平上的面部情感识别可能受到不依赖内部模拟的神经过程的支持。另一方面，分享情感经验，