Gaze-related mimic word activates the frontal eye field and related network in the human brain: An fMRI study

This is an fMRI study demonstrating new evidence that a mimic word highly suggestive of an eye gaze, heard by the ear, significantly activates the frontal eye field (FEF), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), dorsolateral premotor area (PMdr) and superior parietal lobule (SPL) connected with the frontal–parietal network. However, hearing a non-sense words that did not imply gaze under the same task does not activate this area in humans. We concluded that the FEF would be a critical area for generating/processing an active gaze, evoked by an onomatopoeia word that implied gaze closely associated with social skill. We suggest that the implied active gaze may depend on prefrontal–parietal interactions that modify cognitive gaze led by spatial visual attention associated with the SPL.