Emotional processing is fundamental to social cognition, enabling individuals to recognize and interpret emotional signals and adapt their behavior accordingly. Investigating the neural mechanisms underlying emotion perception, particularly in relation to Self and Other conditions, may provide important insights into social understanding and interpersonal functioning. The present study aimed to examine whether the perception of spontaneous, dynamic facial expressions conveying social signals elicits distinct cortical hemodynamic responses during self- versus other-referential processing, as measured using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS). 30 healthy young adults participated in an event-related emotional recognition task in which they observed short video clips depicting 5 emotional states (laughter, yawning, open mouth, mirror pain, and neutral expressions) presented either in Self or Other conditions, portraying themselves or another individual.