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Mirroring others' emotions relates to empathy and interpersonal competence in children
Abstract
The mirror neuron system (MNS) has been proposed to play an important role in social cognition by providing a neural mechanism by which others' actions, intentions, and emotions can be understood. Here functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to directly examine the relationship between MNS activity and two distinct indicators of social functioning in typically-developing children (aged 10.1 years+/-7 months): empathy and interpersonal competence. Reliable activity in pars opercularis, the frontal component of the MNS, was elicited by observation and imitation of emotional expressions. Importantly, activity in this region (as well as in the anterior insula and amygdala) was significantly and positively correlated with established behavioral measures indexing children's empathic behavior (during both imitation and observation) and interpersonal skills (during imitation only). These findings suggest that simulation mechanisms and the MNS may indeed be relevant to social functioning in everyday life during typical human development.
... Further fMRI investigation into the role of mirror neurons in imitation and facial emotional expressions showed that a large-scale neural network involving the MNS together with the limbic system and insula is responsible for empathy (Carr et al., 2003). According to Goldman (Goldman, 2006), this network provides a simulation-based empathy, and several fMRI studies corroborate the positive association between empathic concern and mirror neuron areas (Gazzola et al., 2006;Iacoboni, 2009;Kaplan and Iacoboni, 2006;Pfeifer et al., 2008). fMRI studies analyzing empathy and imitation in humans showed MNS activation primarily in two different areas, the IFG and rostral posterior parietal cortex (Rppc) (Iacoboni, 2009;Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2009). ...
... The great majority of studies evaluating the role of MNS in humans involve non-invasive techniques, such as fMRI and EEG. These studies involve asking the subjects to observe, identify, match or even imitate facial expressions (Budell et al., 2015;Carr et al., 2003;DiGirolamo et al., 2019;Iacoboni et al., 2005;Kaplan and Iacoboni, 2006;Oberman et al., 2007;Pfeifer et al., 2008;Rayson et al., 2016;van der Gaag et al., 2007). Consideration should be made, however, regarding the underpowered sample size of several fMRI studies, which may not render replicable results (Bossier et al., 2020;Szucs and Ioannidis, 2020). ...
... Non-interacting condition shows the least suppression and interactive condition shows the most suppression. Pfeifer et al., 2008 Evaluation of the relationship between MNS activity and two distinct indicators of social functioning in children: empathy and interpersonal competence. ...
Contagious depression is a theory proposing that depression can be induced or triggered by our social environment. This theory is based on emotional contagion, the idea that affective states can be transferred during social interaction, since humans can use emotional contagion to communicate feelings and emotions in conscious and unconscious ways. This review presents behavioral, physiological, and neuroanatomical aspects of two essential contagious depression mechanisms, automatic mimicry and the mirror neuron system.
... Perspective taking is indeed an important component of action understanding and social cognition, as being able to dissociate oneself from others is needed to successfully understand others' actions (Bird & Viding, 2014;Deschrijver & Palmer, 2020;Quesque & Brass, 2019). Perspective taking has been related to the amount of motor activation during action perception, and higher tendencies to take the perspective of others is usually found to be positively associated with the amount of motor activation (Borgomaneri et al., 2015;Cheng et al., 2008;Gazzola et al., 2006;Pfeifer et al., 2008;but see DiGirolamo, Simon, Hubley, Kopulsky & Gutsell, 2019). These results are often used to justify the relationship between the motor system and the ability to understand others' action goals (Dapretto et al., 2006;Rizzolatti & Fogassi, 2014). ...
... The current aim was to evaluate whether this tendency to prioritize goal-related information could be related to the social characteristics of the observer. Sense of social power, dominance, perspective taking, and level of construal were considered as candidates to predict the individual tendency to prioritize goal over kinematic parameters: social power and dominance because they provide a general overview of individual social characteristics, which is thought to be an important source of individual variability in action understanding (Spaulding, 2018); perspective taking because it has already been related to neurophysiological indicators of action understanding (Borgomaneri et al., 2015;Cheng et al., 2008;Gazzola et al., 2006;Pfeifer et al., 2008); the level of construal because it might be generally related to psychological perspective taking abilities. As expected, social power and dominance predicted goal priority in the action priming protocol. ...
... Therefore, it might be hasty to conclude to the inexistence of these relations, and it is rather wise to conclude that these relations, if they exist, might be small in terms of effect sizes. Although previous studies have reported a strong relationship between perspective taking and the activity of the motor system (e.g., Gazzola et al., 2006;Pfeifer et al., 2008), it may be trickier to evaluate how individual social characteristics show through the temporal dynamics of behavioral responses than to measure their impact on a general level of brain activity. ...
Although goals often drive action understanding, this ability is also prone to important variability among individuals, which may have its origin in individual social characteristics. The present study aimed at evaluating the relationship between the tendency to prioritize goal information over grip information during early visual processing of action and several social dimensions. Visual processing of grip and goal information during action recognition was evaluated in 64 participants using the priming protocol developed by Decroix and Kalénine (Exp Brain Res 236(8):2411–2426, 2018). Object-directed action photographs were primed by photographs sharing the same goal and/or the same grip. The effects of goal and grip priming on action recognition were evaluated for different prime durations. The same participants further fulfilled questionnaires characterizing the way individuals deal with their social environment, namely their sense of social power, dominance, perspective taking, and construal level. At the group level, results confirmed greater goal than grip priming effects on action recognition for the shortest prime duration. Regression analyses between the pattern of response times in the action priming protocol and scores at the questionnaires further showed that the advantage of goal over grip priming was associated with higher sense of social power, and possibly to lower dominance. Overall, data confirm that observers tend to prioritize goal-related information when processing visual actions but further indicate that this tendency is sensitive to individual social characteristics. Results suggest that goal information may not always drive action understanding and point out the connection between low-level processing of observed actions and more general individual characteristics.
... These neurons activate not only during the monkey's own object-related actions but also when observing similar actions in others, providing a neurobiological basis for embodied simulation and intersubjectivity as intercorporeality (Gallese, 2003, Gallese, 2007, Gallese, 2014Gallese and Sinigaglia, 2011b). The discovery of mirror mechanisms (MMs) in humans extends beyond the motor domain, encompassing emotions and sensations, establishing an intersubjective link between self and other (Carr et al., 2003;Wicker et al., 2003;Keysers et al., 2004;Blakemore et al., 2005;Pfeifer et al., 2008;Ebisch et al., 2008Ebisch et al., , 2011. This perspective on the bodily self, grounded in shared neural networks, contributes to the understanding that the grounding of intersubjectivity lies in intercorporeality. ...
Despite the historically consolidated psychopathological perspective, on the one hand, contemporary organicistic psychiatry often highlights abnormalities in neurotransmitter systems like dysregulation of dopamine transmission , neural circuitry, and genetic factors as key contributors to schizophrenia. Neuroscience, on the other, has so far almost entirely neglected the first-person experiential dimension of this syndrome, mainly focusing on high-order cognitive functions, such as executive function, working memory, theory of mind, and the like. An alternative view posits that schizophrenia is a self-disorder characterized by anomalous self-experience and awareness. This view may not only shed new light on the psychopathological features of psychosis but also inspire empirical research targeting the bodily and neurobiological changes underpinning this disorder. Cogni-tive neuroscience can today address classic topics of phenomenological psychopathology by adding a new level of description, finally enabling the correlation between the first-person experiential aspects of psychiatric diseases and their neurobiological roots. Recent empirical evidence on the neurobiological basis of a minimal notion of the self, the bodily self, is presented. The relationship between the body, its motor potentialities and the notion of minimal self is illustrated. Evidence on the neural mechanisms underpinning the bodily self, its plasticity, and the blurring of self-other distinction in schizophrenic patients is introduced and discussed. It is concluded that brain-body function anomalies of multisensory integration, differential processing of self-and other-related bodily information mediating self-experience, might be at the basis of the disruption of the self disorders characterizing schizophrenia.
... Observing an emotionally valent facial expression may activate the motor programs involved in producing the same expression, inducing an experience of the emotional state underlying that facial expression. This can be seen as a 'same face, same emotion' process (Pfeifer et al. 2008;Palagi et al. 2020;Paul et al. 2020). However, it is difficult to disentangle motor mimicry of facial muscular movements from emotional mimicry of the affective state conveyed by the facial expression (Hess and Fischer 2022). ...
During risky interactions like social play, motor resonance phenomena such as facial mimicry can be highly adaptive. Here, we studied Rapid Facial Mimicry (RFM, the automatic mimicking of a playmate’s facial expression, play faces) during play fighting between young rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) living in a large zoo-housed group. For the first time and in contrast to previous data on highly despotic-intolerant macaques, we found RFM to be present at high frequency in young rhesus macaques, especially when the trigger was dominant over the responder and when both players were subadults. The hierarchical modulation of RFM may be associated with the increased uncertainty and riskiness of play involving a higher-ranking playmate. This highlights the importance of mimicry in improving communication and coordination during such interactions. Interestingly, RFM prolonged playful sessions, possibly indicating a more effective fine-tuning of motor patterns. Moreover, the occurrence of RFM had an effect on shortening the latency to restart playing after a break, possibly acting as an engine to potentially maintain playmates’ arousal. When investigating if bystanders could replicate play faces emitted by the playing subjects, we failed to find RFM, thus highlighting that being directly involved in the interaction might be crucial for RFM activation in monkeys. Even though further comparative studies should investigate the role of RFM across tolerant and despotic-intolerant species, our findings offer valuable insights into the communicative and adaptive value of motor resonance phenomena in regulating social play in despotic societies.
Significance statement
In risky interactions involving competition and vigorous physical contact, such as play fighting, replicating partners’ facial expressions can serve as a strategy to convey positive mood and intentions. Here we investigated the presence and possible roles of Rapid Facial Mimicry (RFM) in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). For the first time, our study demonstrates that communicative strategies, including Rapid Facial Mimicry (RFM), can be both present and frequent in despotic-intolerant macaque species. We demonstrate that the role of mimicry not only prolongs playful interactions but can also be linked to the reinforcement and/or transmission of playful arousal. Our study shows how the adaptive value of motor resonance phenomena may have driven their evolution to cope with challenges during social interactions also for despotic-intolerant species.
... Studi neuroscientifici (Bourgeois e Hess, 2008) hanno approfondito il fenomeno detto rapid facial reaction che si riferisce al comportamento imitativo di espressioni facciali legate all'esperienza emotiva, e hanno proposto che a livello neurale la corrispondenza tra espressioni facciali osservate e mimica spontanea sia collegata al sistema dei neuroni specchio. A tale proposito, si ritiene che la percezione di stimoli rilevanti, come quelli legati agli stati emotivi altrui, sia in grado di attivare meccanismi di risonanza motoria o simulazione interna delle emozioni che stanno alla base dell'esperienza di empatia (Pfeifer et al., 2008). ...
Lo sviluppo della comprensione sociale. Una rassegna narrativa focalizzata sul linguaggio nella fascia 0-6 anni. La rassegna ha un duplice obiettivo: esaminare lo sviluppo della comprensione sociale nel periodo 0-6 anni, considerando congiuntamente i costrutti di 'teoria della mente' e 'comprensione delle emozioni', non di rado esaminati separatamente; approfondire il ruolo del linguaggio come correlato e predittore di comprensione sociale. Il lavoro si conclude con l'individuazione di due particolari aree di ricerca futura: lo sviluppo della comprensione sociale implicita, e la validazione di interventi per la promozione della comprensione sociale in bambini con profilo tipico e atipico.
... From an evolutionary perspective, vicarious brain resonance (i.e., overlapping brain activity in the sensory regions during both perception and observation of a given stimulus) may represent a foundational layer of empathy, which is shared at the phylogenetic level between humans and other animals (De Waal, 2008;Langford et al., 2006), and at the ontogenetic level between adults and infants (Bandstra et al., 2011;Decety et al., 2008). Interestingly, overlapping brain activations between personal experience and observation have been shown not only for emotional expressions (Pfeifer et al., 2008) but also for sensory experiences, such as "flesh and bone" pain (Avenanti et al., 2005(Avenanti et al., , 2006 and touch (Blakemore et al., 2005;Keysers et al., 2004). This vicarious brain activity is thought to fundamentally contribute to the somatic experience of others' sensations, which may range from an automatic and unconscious process through an overt experience of the sensation observed in the other person (Fitzgibbon et al., 2014). ...
We conducted a systematic review investigating the influence of visual perspective and body ownership (BO) on vicarious brain resonance and vicarious sensations during the observation of pain and touch. Indeed, the way in which brain reactivity and the phenomenological experience can be modulated by blurring the bodily boundaries of self-other distinction is still unclear. We screened Scopus and WebOfScience, and identified 31 articles, published from 2000 to 2022. Results show that assuming an egocentric perspective enhances vicarious resonance and vicarious sensations. Studies on synaesthetes suggest that vicarious conscious experiences are associated with an increased tendency to embody fake body parts, even in the absence of congruent multisensory stimulation. Moreover, immersive virtual reality studies show that the type of embodied virtual body can affect high-order sensations such as appropriateness, unpleasantness, and erogeneity, associated with the touched body part and the toucher’s social identity. We conclude that perspective plays a key role in the resonance with others' pain and touch, and full-BO over virtual avatars allows investigation of complex aspects of pain and touch perception which would not be possible in reality.
... MVPA is a powerful method for establishing patterns of activation which are predictive of what emotions are being viewed and informational connectivity can synchronize changes in the presence of multivariate patterns over time to provide a more sensitive measure of functional connections between different regions 35,37 . We predicted that mirror neuron changes during the simulation of observed facial expressions would in turn facilitate patterns of neural encoding underlying perception and empathy towards others expressing emotions 38 . Overall, the present study has allowed us to understand for the first time how spatiotemporal changes in MNS processing during repeated imitation of positive and negative facial expressions that may improve social cognition and empathy by taking advantage of methodological advances in neuroimaging analyses. ...
Imitating facial emotion expressions can facilitate social interactions, although the behavioral and neural spatiotemporal dynamics is unclear. Here participants (N=100) imitated facial emotions repeatedly over one month (16 times in total) with neural activity measured on three occasions using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Additionally, the transfer effect of repeated imitation on emotional face and scene perception was assessed by fMRI with multivariate pattern analysis. Valence specific imitation performance was facilitated by the alterations in the similarity of spatiotemporal patterns evoked in the mirror neuron system (MNS) with information flow moving progressively towards the inferior frontal gyrus as the as the number of times of imitation increase. Furthermore, MNS representation predictive patterns of processing emotional faces, but not scenes, were enhanced. Overall, these findings provide a neural changes of information flow within MNS and advance our understanding of the spatiotemporal dynamics from novice to proficient of facial emotion imitation.
... Second, children's emotions while observing their partner's positive or negative emotions could affect their sharing intentions. For example, simply observing another person's emotions activates the brain regions associated with empathy [70]. In addition, numerous studies indicate that empathy plays a significant role in prosocial behavior [44]. ...
The present study investigates whether directing five- to six-year-old children’s attention to hypothetical resource recipients that included familiar and non-familiar people would affect their favoritism toward a familiar person, as reflected in how they allocated resources. In Experiment 1, we instructed participants to give one of several stickers to another person or keep all the stickers for themselves. Under the control conditions, participants more frequently gave stickers to friends than to non-friends. However, when asked about others’ emotions, they distributed stickers equally among friends and non-friends. Therefore, focusing on others’ thoughts reduced participants’ favoritism toward friends. Experiment 2 tested whether focusing on both emotional valences would affect favoritism toward a familiar person, as reflected in children’s resource distribution choices. Experiment 2 was identical to Experiment 1, except we asked participants about the other person’s emotional valence. When asked about others’ negative emotions, participants distributed the stickers equally between themselves and others. However, when asked about others’ positive emotions, they distributed more stickers to friends than to non-friends. Neither others’ emotional valence nor group status affected the perceived intensity of their emotion or the participant’s emotional state. These results suggest that children’s favoritism toward friends can be reduced by encouraging them to think about others’ negative emotional states.
... 20 The ability to imitate others is thought to constitute a cornerstone of cultural learning, collaborative interactions, and communicative exchanges. As such, imitation has been proposed to play an important role in fundamental social capacities such as language development, 21 interpersonal competence, 22 understanding others' intentions, 23 and the cultural evolution of communicative behaviors. 7 Recent work challenged the idea that imitation is inborn (e.g., Oostenbroek et al. and Redshaw 9,11 ). ...
Humans are widely considered the most socially sophisticated species on the planet. Their remarkable abilities in navigating the social world have given rise to complex societies and the advancement of cultural intelligence. But what characterizes us as ultra-social beings? Theoretical advances in social sciences over the last century purport imitation as a central mechanism for the emergence of humans’ unique social-cognitive abilities. Uncovering the ontogeny of imitation is therefore paramount for understanding human cultural evolution. Yet, how humans become able to imitate is unclear and intensely debated. Recently, multidisciplinary findings have challenged long-standing assumptions that imitation is inborn. So what are the underlying processes supporting the development of imitation? One fascinating possibility is that infants become able to imitate by being imitated. Cognitive theories have suggested that by perceiving others imitating one’s own behavior, visual and motor representations of that behavior are coactivated and associated, leading to the emergence of imitation abilities. Here, we show that being imitated by sensitive caregivers in infancy constitutes a psychological process giving rise to infants’ imitation abilities. Results demonstrated (1) that maternal imitation at 14 months positively predicted infants’ imitation abilities at 18 months and (2) that maternal imitation at 14 months mediated the positive effect of maternal sensitivity at 6 months on infants’ imitation abilities at 18 months. This offers substantial evidence for the role of social interactions in the emergence of imitation as a key factor for human cultural learning.
... 20 The ability to imitate others is thought to constitute a cornerstone of cultural learning, collaborative interactions, and communicative exchanges. As such, imitation has been proposed to play an important role in fundamental social capacities such as language development, 21 interpersonal competence, 22 understanding others' intentions, 23 and the cultural evolution of communicative behaviors. 7 Recent work challenged the idea that imitation is inborn (e.g., Oostenbroek et al. and Redshaw 9,11 ). ...
Humans are widely considered the most socially sophisticated species on the planet. Their remarkable abilities
in navigating the social world have given rise to complex societies and the advancement of cultural intelligence. But what characterizes us as ultra-social beings? Theoretical advances in social sciences over the last century purport imitation as a central mechanism for the emergence of humans’ unique social-cognitive abilities. Uncovering the ontogeny of imitation is therefore paramount for understanding human cultural evolution. Yet, how humans become able to imitate is unclear and intensely debated. Recently, multidisciplinary findings have challenged long-standing assumptions that imitation is inborn. So what are the underlying processes supporting the development of imitation? One fascinating possibility is that infants become able to imitate by being imitated. Cognitive theories have suggested that by perceiving others
imitating one’s own behavior, visual and motor representations of that behavior are coactivated and associated, leading to the emergence of imitation abilities. Here, we show that being imitated by sensitive caregivers in infancy constitutes a psychological process giving rise to infants’ imitation abilities. Results demonstrated (1) that maternal imitation at 14 months positively predicted infants’ imitation abilities at 18 months and (2) that maternal imitation at 14 months mediated the positive effect of maternal sensitivity at 6 months on infants’ imitation abilities at 18 months. This offers substantial evidence for the role of social interactions in the emergence of imitation as a key factor for human cultural learning.
... Indeed, in line with the present findings, the IFG was involved while reading about protagonists and inferring their actions and intentions (Mason & Just, 2011). Interestingly, the activation of IFG is known to be more relevant in processing emotional empathy than cognitive empathy (Baird et al., 2010;Bodden et al., 2013;Schlaffke et al., 2015;Oliver et al., 2018;Pfeifer et al., 2008). Further supporting this notion, studies have found that individuals with lesions in the IFG area show poor performance in emotional empathy tasks (Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2009) or emotion inference tasks (Dal Monte et al., 2014). ...
Neuroscientific studies have highlighted the role of the default mode network (DMN) in processing narrative information. Here, we examined whether the neural synchronization of the DMN tracked the appearances of characters with different narrative roles (i.e., protagonists versus antagonists) when viewing highly engaging, socially rich audiovisual narratives. Using inter-subject correlation analysis on two independent, publicly available movie-watching functional magnetic resonance imaging datasets (Sherlock and The Grand Budapest Hotel), we computed whole-brain neural synchronization during the appearance of the protagonists and antagonists. Results showed that the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), which are components of the DMN, had higher ISC values during the appearance of the protagonists compared to the antagonists. Importantly, these findings were commonly observed in both datasets. We discuss the present results in the context of information integration and emotional empathy, which are relevant functions known to be supported by the DMN. Our study presents generalizable evidence that regions within the DMN - particularly the IFG and OFC - show distinctive synchronization patterns due to differences in narrative roles.
... Despite the expanding literature, there is no consensus definition of empathy. Mainly, empathy refers to the psychological phenomenon of experiencing another's feelings (Pfeifer et al., 2008;Gerdes & Segal, 2009) and imaginative apprehension of another's mental state (Lawrence et al., 2004). At a basic phenomenological level, empathy enables us to "put ourselves in someone else's shoes" (Singer & Lamb, 2009, p. 82). ...
Küresel iş ortamını şekillendirmede çok önemli bir rol oynayan, dinamik ve sürekli değişen bir ortam olan pazarlama dünyasına hoş geldiniz. Pazarlama disiplini, hızlı teknolojik ilerleme, toplumsal değişim ve gelişen tüketici davranışları çağında inovasyon ve adaptasyonun ön saflarında yer almaktadır. Bu kitap, pazarlamanın güncel konularını derinlemesine incelemektedir. Dijital devrim, iletişim kurma, bağlantı kurma ve bilgi tüketme şeklimizi önemli ölçüde yeniden şekillendirdi. Sosyal medya platformları, pazarlama kampanyaları için hem yeni fırsatlar hem de yeni zorluklar sunan güçlü araçlar haline geldi. Yapay zekâ ve veri analitiğinin yükselişi, reklamcılıkta benzeri görülmemiş düzeyde kişiselleştirme ve hassasiyetin kilidini açarken, gizlilik ve etik sonuçlarla ilgili endişeleri de artırdı. Dahası, sürdürülebilirlik ve kurumsal sosyal sorumluluk, işletmeler için kritik hususlar olarak ortaya çıkmıştır. Tüketiciler, değerleriyle uyumlu olan, sosyal ve çevresel etkilere olumlu katkıda bulunan markaları tercih ederek giderek daha seçici hale gelmektedirler. Sonuç olarak, pazarlamacılar özgün ve amaca yönelik marka kimlikleri oluşturarak karlılık ve amaç arasındaki hassas dengeyi kurmalıdır. Bu zorluklar ile benzersiz fırsatlar da bulunmaktadır. Yenilikçi şirketler, müşteri deneyimlerinde devrim yaratmak için gelişen teknolojilerden ve verilerden yararlanmıştır. Bu kitap, çağdaş pazarlama ortamına kapsamlı bir genel bakış sunmayı amaçlamaktadır. Pazarlama bilim alanı uzmanları ve akademisyenlerinden oluşan yazar grubunun büyük bir istekle katkı sunduğu, kısa zamanda büyük çaba göstererek ortaya çıkardığı bir eserdir. Sürekli gelişen pazarlama dünyasında bu yolculuğa çıkarken, tartışılan konuları eleştirel bir şekilde değerlendirmenizi ve bunların işletmeler, tüketiciler ve bir bütün olarak toplum üzerindeki etkilerini göz önünde bulundurmanızı öneririz. İster akademisyen ister profesyonel bir pazarlamacı ister öğrenci olun ya da sadece pazarlamanın büyüleyici dünyasını merak ediyor olun, bu kitabın size ilham vereceğini umuyoruz. Kitabın hazırlanmasında emeği geçen tüm yazarlara ve baskıya hazırlık sürecindeki titiz çalışmalarından dolayı Özgür Yayınlarına çok teşekkür ediyoruz.
... Despite the expanding literature, there is no consensus definition of empathy. Mainly, empathy refers to the psychological phenomenon of experiencing another's feelings (Pfeifer et al., 2008;Gerdes & Segal, 2009) and imaginative apprehension of another's mental state (Lawrence et al., 2004). At a basic phenomenological level, empathy enables us to "put ourselves in someone else's shoes" (Singer & Lamb, 2009, p. 82). ...
Küresel iş ortamını şekillendirmede çok önemli bir rol oynayan, dinamik ve sürekli değişen bir ortam olan pazarlama dünyasına hoş geldiniz. Pazarlama disiplini, hızlı teknolojik ilerleme, toplumsal değişim ve gelişen tüketici davranışları çağında inovasyon ve adaptasyonun ön saflarında yer almaktadır. Bu kitap, pazarlamanın güncel konularını derinlemesine incelemektedir. Dijital devrim, iletişim kurma, bağlantı kurma ve bilgi tüketme şeklimizi önemli ölçüde yeniden şekillendirdi. Sosyal medya platformları, pazarlama kampanyaları için hem yeni fırsatlar hem de yeni zorluklar sunan güçlü araçlar haline geldi. Yapay zekâ ve veri analitiğinin yükselişi, reklamcılıkta benzeri görülmemiş düzeyde kişiselleştirme ve hassasiyetin kilidini açarken, gizlilik ve etik sonuçlarla ilgili endişeleri de artırdı. Dahası, sürdürülebilirlik ve kurumsal sosyal sorumluluk, işletmeler için kritik hususlar olarak ortaya çıkmıştır. Tüketiciler, değerleriyle uyumlu olan, sosyal ve çevresel etkilere olumlu katkıda bulunan markaları tercih ederek giderek daha seçici hale gelmektedirler. Sonuç olarak, pazarlamacılar özgün ve amaca yönelik marka kimlikleri oluşturarak karlılık ve amaç arasındaki hassas dengeyi kurmalıdır. Bu zorluklar ile benzersiz fırsatlar da bulunmaktadır. Yenilikçi şirketler, müşteri deneyimlerinde devrim yaratmak için gelişen teknolojilerden ve verilerden yararlanmıştır. Bu kitap, çağdaş pazarlama ortamına kapsamlı bir genel bakış sunmayı amaçlamaktadır. Pazarlama bilim alanı uzmanları ve akademisyenlerinden oluşan yazar grubunun büyük bir istekle katkı sunduğu, kısa zamanda büyük çaba göstererek ortaya çıkardığı bir eserdir. Sürekli gelişen pazarlama dünyasında bu yolculuğa çıkarken, tartışılan konuları eleştirel bir şekilde değerlendirmenizi ve bunların işletmeler, tüketiciler ve bir bütün olarak toplum üzerindeki etkilerini göz önünde bulundurmanızı öneririz. İster akademisyen ister profesyonel bir pazarlamacı ister öğrenci olun ya da sadece pazarlamanın büyüleyici dünyasını merak ediyor olun, bu kitabın size ilham vereceğini umuyoruz. Kitabın hazırlanmasında emeği geçen tüm yazarlara ve baskıya hazırlık sürecindeki titiz çalışmalarından dolayı Özgür Yayınlarına çok teşekkür ediyoruz.
... Imitation is critical for developing motor, communication, and social skills (Pfeifer et al., 2008). There are two main forms of imitative behaviors: imitative learning and social mirroring (or "chameleon effect"; Iacoboni, 2005). ...
Experts translate the latest findings on embodied cognition from neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science to inform teaching and learning pedagogy.
Embodied cognition represents a radical shift in conceptualizing cognitive processes, in which cognition develops through mind-body environmental interaction. If this supposition is correct, then the conventional style of instruction—in which students sit at desks, passively receiving information—needs rethinking. Movement Matters considers the educational implications of an embodied account of cognition, describing the latest research applications from neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science and demonstrating their relevance for teaching and learning pedagogy. The contributors cover a range of content areas, explaining how the principles of embodied cognition can be applied in classroom settings.
After a discussion of the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of embodied cognition, contributors describe its applications in language, including the areas of handwriting, vocabulary, language development, and reading comprehension; STEM areas, emphasizing finger counting and the importance of hand and body gestures in understanding physical forces; and digital learning technologies, including games and augmented reality. Finally, they explore embodied learning in the social-emotional realm, including how emotional granularity, empathy, and mindfulness benefit classroom learning.
Movement Matters introduces a new model, translational learning sciences research, for interpreting and disseminating the latest empirical findings in the burgeoning field of embodied cognition. The book provides an up-to-date, inclusive, and essential resource for those involved in educational planning, design, and pedagogical approaches.
Contributors
Dor Abrahamson, Martha W. Alibali, Petra A. Arndt, Lisa Aziz-Zadeh, Jo Boaler, Christiana Butera, Rachel S. Y. Chen, Charles P. Davis, Andrea Marquardt Donovan, Inge-Marie Eigsti, Virginia J. Flood, Jennifer M. B. Fugate, Arthur M. Glenberg, Ligia E. Gómez, Daniel D. Hutto, Karin H. James, Mina C. Johnson-Glenberg, Michael P. Kaschak, Markus Kiefer, Christina Krause, Sheila L. Macrine, Anne Mangen, Carmen Mayer, Amanda L. McGraw, Colleen Megowan-Romanowicz, Mitchell J. Nathan, Antti Pirhonen, Kelsey E. Schenck, Lawrence Shapiro, Anna Shvarts, Yue-Ting Siu, Sofia Tancredi, Chrystian Vieyra, Rebecca Vieyra, Candace Walkington, Christine Wilson-Mendenhall, Eiling Yee
... The results of Hooker et al (2010, p. 101); Nummenmaa et al (2008, p. 571) show that the main neuronal areas involved in the reflection of emotions are the ventrolateral premotor cortex and the inferior parietal cortex. These regions include the connected motor cortex, such as the precentral gyrus (BA 4, 6) and the inferior frontal gyrus (GFI) (BA 44, 45) (Carr et al., 2003, p. 5498;Pfeifer et al, 2008Pfeifer et al, , p. 2079) and the connected somatosensory cortex (CSR) in the inferior parietal lobe, such as the post-central gyrus (BA 3) and supramarginal gyrus (BA 40) (Adolphs et al., 2002, p.170;Gazzola et al., 2006Gazzola et al., , p.1825, the left superior frontal gyrus and the orbitofrontal cortex (Farrow et al., 2001(Farrow et al., , p.2433. Völlm et al (2006, p. 92) distinguish cortical areas relevant to specific actions of verbal and non-verbal types. ...
... Empathy, a component of SC, must also be considered in this context. EF has been shown to exhibit regulatory control over empathy while also serving as its developmental foundation [26,27,28].While EF ability is positively correlated with empathic capacity, this relationship is speci cally stronger with cognitive empathy (i.e., understanding what another is feeling) than affective empathy (i.e., feeling what another is feeling) [29,30,31,32,33]. Cognitive empathy recruits inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive exibility while affective empathy only recruits inhibitory control [33]. ...
This study sought to evaluate the roles of and interactions between cognitive processes that have been shown to exhibit impact from socioeconomic status (SES) and living conditions in predicting social adaptation (SA) in a population of adults living in socially vulnerable conditions. Participants included 226 people between the ages of 18 and 60 who have been living in vulnerable contexts throughout life in Santiago, Chile. Data was collected through a battery of psychological assessments. A structural equation model (SEM) was implemented to examine the interrelationships among cognitive and social variables. Results indicate a significant relationship between executive function (EF) and SA through both social cognition (SC) and intelligence. Theory of Mind (ToM), a component of SC, was shown to exhibit a significant relationship with affective empathy; interestingly, this was negatively related to SA. Moreover, fluid intelligence (FI) was found to exhibit a positive, indirect relationship with SA through vocabulary. Evaluation of these results in the context of research on the impacts of SES and vulnerable living conditions on psychological function may allow for the development of more effective clinical, political, and social interventions to support psychosocial health among socially vulnerable populations.
... Subsequently, similar mirror mechanisms (MMs) were found also in humans (Rizzolatti, Fogassi & Gallese, 2001;Gallese, Keysers & Rizzolatti, 2004;Rizzolatti & Sinigaglia, 2010;Gallese & Sinigaglia, 2011b). MMs are not confined to the motor domain but extend also to emotions (e.g., Carr et al., 2003;Wicker et al., 2003;Pfeifer et al., 2008) and sensations (e.g., Keysers et al., 2004;Blakemore et al., 2005;Ebisch et al., 2008Ebisch et al., , 2011, allowing us to pre-reflectively recognize and understand experientially "from within" the feelings and behaviors of others, establishing an intersubjective link between self and other thanks to the functional mechanism of embodied simulation (Gallese, 2003(Gallese, , 2007(Gallese, , 2014Gallese & Sinigaglia, 2011b). Thus, the discovery of MMs has introduced a novel perspective to the subjective notion of bodily self. ...
The self has been conceived as a theoretical construct (Baars, 1997; Metzinger, 2000) underlying our ability to coherently act in the world. Despite its intuitive nature, the problem of defining the self has captivated philosophers and psychologists for centuries. As a result, several models have been proposed to describe the multi- layered nature of the self (e.g., James, 1950; Neisser, 1993; Damasio, 2000). But only more recently, there has been a surge of interest in the
core level of the concept of self, relating it to its pre- reflective bodily foundations. This basic level has been often termed minimal self, the pre- reflexive and embodied sensation of being the subject of experience, or bodily self- consciousness, as outlined by other authors (Blanke, 2012; Blanke, Slater & Serino, 2015). This level of the self, the topic being addressed in this chapter, has been the target of a fair amount of research and conceptual work (e.g., Legrand, 2007; Blanke & Metzinger, 2009; Gallese & Sinigaglia, 2010, 2011) and will be hereinafter referred
to as bodily self. Concerning the putative core notion of the self, over the years the following questions have been raised: What makes us who we are? Which is the core level of self? How do we experience a coherent sense of self? How do we distinguish ourselves from others? What are the major components constituting this basic level of self? What happens if the bodily self is altered? In this chapter, we deal with all these issues by underlining the relevant social aspects of the bodily self, bringing neuroscientific evidence in support of our standpoint. In the first part, we briefly review the origin of the notion of bodily self, highlighting the most important approaches that have contributed to its definition. In the second part, we focus
on the second- person perspective of the bodily self, taking into account the discovery of mirror neurons (Gallese et al., 1996; Rizzolatti et al., 1996) and the empirical work generated by this discovery in the following three decades, which led to consideration of the intersubjective aspects of the bodily self, linking one’s own bodily self to that of others. Then, we move on discussing two of the main components defining the sense of bodily self – body ownership (BO) and the spatial self, operationalized with the construct of peripersonal space (PPS) – and their
social nature. Lastly, we highlight some psychopathological aspects of the bodily self in schizophrenia and anorexia nervosa, emphasizing the social consequences of such psychopathological alterations. We conclude by suggesting that, as we are not isolated bodily selves, but we always relate to others, our bodily self is also a social bodily self. Coherently, self and other are linked by means of the relational aspect of our human condition; indeed, the constitution of the self is intrinsically related to that of the other as a self (Gallese, 2014).
... Another study on imitation in ASD reported that IFG activity was weaker and more delayed in the Asperger syndrome group than in the TD group. 54 Furthermore, in a study of the IPL, IFG, and superior temporal sulcus (STS), i.e., brain regions commonly reported to be associated with imitation, [54][55][56] it was found that the effective connectivity between IPL and IFG was reduced in ASD individuals. The authors suggested that the aberrant organization of imitationrelated networks may be associated with impaired development of social communication in ASD. ...
Objective:
Underconnectivity in the resting brain is not consistent in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, it is known that the functional connectivity of the default mode network is mainly decreased in childhood ASD. This study investigated the brain network topology as the changes in the connection strength and network efficiency in childhood ASD, including the early developmental stages.
Methods:
In this study, 31 ASD children aged 2-11 years were compared with 31 age and sex-matched children showing typical development. We explored the functional connectivity based on graph filtration by assessing the single linkage distance and global and nodal efficiencies using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. The relationship between functional connectivity and clinical scores was also analyzed.
Results:
Underconnectivities within the posterior default mode network subregions and between the inferior parietal lobule and inferior frontal/superior temporal regions were observed in the ASD group. These areas significantly correlated with the clinical phenotypes. The global, local, and nodal network efficiencies were lower in children with ASD than in those with typical development. In the preschool-age children (2-6 years) with ASD, the anterior-posterior connectivity of the default mode network and cerebellar connectivity were reduced.
Conclusion:
The observed topological reorganization, underconnectivity, and disrupted efficiency in the default mode network subregions and social function-related regions could be significant biomarkers of childhood ASD.
... However, they do exist, including the implementation of various alignment processes at both the emotional [social/emotional resonance in Gratch et al. (2013)], verbal (Duplessis et al., 2021) and non verbal levels [mimicry in Philippot et al. (1999)]. The objective is to use such processes to improve the user's perception of the agent's competence and the user's performance on tasks, relying on previous studies of the link between alignment and both social competence (Pfeifer et al., 2008) and performance (Sinha and Cassell, 2015). For example, in Verberne et al. (2013), the authors discover links between mimicry and a user's liking of and trust towards the agent. ...
Socio-conversational systems are dialogue systems, including what are sometimes referred to as chatbots, vocal assistants, social robots, and embodied conversational agents, that are capable of interacting with humans in a way that treats both the specifically social nature of the interaction and the content of a task. The aim of this paper is twofold: 1) to uncover some places where the compartmentalized nature of research conducted around socio-conversational systems creates problems for the field as a whole, and 2) to propose a way to overcome this compartmentalization and thus strengthen the capabilities of socio-conversational systems by defining common challenges. Specifically, we examine research carried out by the signal processing, natural language processing and dialogue, machine/deep learning, social/affective computing and social sciences communities. We focus on three major challenges for the development of effective socio-conversational systems, and describe ways to tackle them.
... Children rate statements about their thoughts and feelings on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from (1) "does not describe me well" to (5) "describes me very well." A modified version with child-appropriate language was used [112]. Raw scores are added for each subscale score and higher scores indicate greater empathy. ...
Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is one of the least studied and understood developmental disorders. One area that has been minimally investigated in DCD is potential issues with sensory modulation. Further, in other neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g., autism spectrum disorder (ASD)) sensory modulation is related to many other challenges (e.g., social issues, repetitive behaviors, anxiety); however, such potential relationships in children with DCD have been largely unexplored. The purpose of this study is to explore sensory modulation differences in DCD and to understand the relationships between sensory modulation and social emotional measures, behavior, and motor skills in DCD in comparison to ASD and typically developing (TD) peers. Participants (aged 8-17) and their caregivers (DCD, N = 26; ASD, N = 57; and TD, N = 53) completed behavioral and clinical measures. The results indicated that 31% of the DCD group showed sensory modulation difficulties, with the DCD group falling between the ASD and TD groups. In the DCD group, sensory modulation was significantly associated with anxiety, empathic concern, repetitive behaviors, and motor skills. Data are compared to patterns seen in ASD and TD groups and implications for interventions are discussed.
... Empathy ability was assessed using a modified version of the self-report IRI (Davis, 1983), with child-appropriate language (Pfeifer et al., 2008). On the IRI, original estimates of Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranged from 0.71 to 0.77 (Davis, 1980) and internal consistency within this range for the four subscales: perspective taking (PT): 0.63-0.81; ...
Lay abstract:
Empathy, the ability to understand and share the emotions of others, is a necessary skill for social functioning and can be categorized into cognitive and emotional empathy. There is evidence to suggest that individuals with autism spectrum disorder have difficulties with cognitive empathy, the ability to imagine how another person is thinking or feeling. However, it is unclear if individuals with autism spectrum disorder struggle with emotional empathy, the ability to share and feel emotions others are experiencing. Self-report and interview data were collected to explore the relationships between interoception (individuals' self-reported awareness of sensation from their body such as thirst, heartbeat, etc.), alexithymia (an individual's ability to describe and distinguish between their own emotions), and emotional empathy in 35 youth with autism spectrum disorder and 40 typically developing youth. Greater personal distress to others' emotions and greater difficulty describing and recognizing self-emotions were associated with reporting fewer physical sensations in the body when experiencing emotion in the autism spectrum disorder group. The results of this study suggest that while autism spectrum disorder youth with concomitant alexithymia may experience emotional empathy differently, it should not be characterized as an absence of a capacity for emotional empathy.
... Empathy skills were assessed using the interpersonal reactivity index (IRI; Davis, 1983), a 28-item self-report measure consisting of four 7-item subscales, two cognitive empathy scales (perspective-taking and fantasy) and two emotional empathy (empathetic concern, and personal distress). A modified version with child-appropriate language was used (Pfeifer et al., 2008). The Fantasy subscale was not included, due to reliability concerns (Cox et al., 2012) and that this aspect of cognitive empathy was not a primary focus of the current study. ...
Previous research has shown that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental coordination disorder (DCD) may have overlapping social and motor skill impairments. This study compares ASD, DCD, and typically developing (TD) youth on a range of social, praxis and motor skills, and investigates the relationship between these skills in each group. Data were collected on participants aged 8–17 ( n = 33 ASD, n = 28 DCD, n = 35 TD). Overall, the clinical groups showed some similar patterns of social and motor impairments but diverged in praxis impairments, cognitive empathy, and Theory of Mind ability. When controlling for both social and motor performance impairments, the ASD group showed significantly lower accuracy on imitation of meaningful gestures and gesture to command, indicating a prominent deficit in these praxis skills in ASD.
Lay Summary
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental coordination disorder (DCD) have social and motor skill impairments to varying degrees. This study compares ASD, DCD, and typically developing (TD) youth on a range of social, praxis, and motor skills. ASD and DCD shared similar patterns of gross and fine motor skills, but differed in skills related to making gestures. Specifically, our results also suggest that ASD has a prominent deficit in gesture performance and meaningful imitation compared to TD and DCD groups.
... Coldheartedness was identified as being particularly relevant given that it has been linked to reduced empathic concern (Oliver et al., 2016) and an increased risk for antisocial behaviors (Frick & Morris, 2004;McMahon et al., 2013). Evidence also exists that simulation-related activity correlates with trait measures of empathy (Kaplan & Iacoboni, 2006;Pfeifer et al., 2008), and shows anatomical overlap with areas implicated in emotional empathy (Oliver et al., 2018). Given the fact that action stimulation has been previously associated with emotional empathy and evidence that coldheartedness is inversely related to emotional empathy (Fecteau et al., 2008;Oliver et al., 2016;Sandoval et al., 2000), we predicted that coldhearted traits would interact with VGE to impact simulation-related activity. ...
There is an ongoing debate as to whether violent video game exposure (VGE) has a negative impact on social functioning. This debate continues in part because of methodological concerns and the paucity of identifiable neurocognitive mechanisms. Also, little attention has been given to how specific personality characteristics may influence susceptibility to the purported effects. Using a combined experimental and cross-sectional approach, we examined the impact of VGE on action simulation as a function of trait coldheartedness in a sample of university students. Healthy adults played a violent or nonviolent version of Grand Theft Auto V before completing an fMRI measure of action simulation circuit (ASC) activity. Simulation-related activity was not significantly different between groups; however, greater overall activation was observed in left inferior frontal gyrus for those in the violent condition. Contrary to predictions, no evidence was observed that trait coldheartedness significantly interacts with violent gaming to influence ASC activation. However, prior cumulative VGE was negatively correlated with simulation-related activity in a subsection of the ASC. This study highlights a potential dissociation between the effects of acute versus cumulative violent gaming and may challenge assumptions that the directionality of effects for cross-sectional associations always mirror those of acute exposure.
... For example,Lewkowicz et al. (2015) found that the ability to predict whether a "reach and grasp" movement aimed at grasping an object to take it for oneself or give it to someone else was positively correlated to the ability to identify the mental states of others. In the same vein, Pfeifer, Iacoboni, Mazziotta andDapretto (2008) found positive correlations between the activity of the frontoparietal network during action recognition and social abilities in children (see also DiGirolamo, Simon, Hubley, Kopulsky, & Gutsell, 2019 for similar results in adults). Moreover, the activity of the frontoparietal network during action recognition was negatively correlated with impairment of social abilities in children with autism spectrum disorders (Dapretto et al., 2006). ...
Actions are complex, goal-directed, movements, and, despite being hidden in the actor’s mind, observers successfully identify and anticipate actor’s goal. In this thesis, we identified two main approaches to explain how observers recognise others’ actions. Sensorimotor approaches consider action recognition as bottom-up propagation from the perception of visual kinematics to the recognition of action goals. Visual kinematics are viewed here as the primary source of visual information from which goal-related information is extracted. In contrast, predictive approaches assume that observers cannot make sense of visual kinematics without a prediction about the actor’s goal. Observers would extract goal-related information from non-motor sources of information to guide the processing of the visual kinematics. Information about the temporal dynamics of activation of visual kinematics and goal-related information during action visual processing is critical to disentangle the two approaches and to provide a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying action recognition, but empirical data in this direction are clearly lacking. In order to fill this gap, we investigated the relative priority given to visual kinematics versus non-motor goal-related information during the recognition of others’ actions. The contribution of visual kinematics and non-motor goal-related information was independently evaluated by introducing violations of grip and/or visual goal in photographs of object-directed actions. Using behavioural methods (priming and visual-search paradigms), we demonstrated that non-motor goal-related information was prioritised over visual kinematics during the first steps of visual action processing, whereas visual kinematics were prioritised over goal-related information later during visual action processing. Using neurophysiological methods (event-related potential and transcranial magnetic stimulation priming paradigms), we found that both visual kinematics and non-motor goal-related information are already processed during the perceptual stages of action processing, but that action semantic processing is guided by goal-related information rather than visual kinematics. We further provide evidence supporting the critical involvement of the frontoparietal network in the later integration of visual kinematics and non-motor goal-related information. We finally showed that the priority given to non-motor goal-related information over visual kinematics during action visual processing depends on individual social characteristics. Together, the findings reported are consistent with predictive approaches of action recognition. Results are discussed in the light of converging evidence suggesting that visual kinematics are used to update goal predictions that have been previously derived from non-motor goal-related information. Yet findings further orient towards a pluralist view of action understanding, in which the strategies used to process others’ actions may vary depending on situations and individuals.
... Significant voxels were identified at the height threshold of p < 0.001 (uncorrected), and then a family-wise error (FWE) correction for multiple comparisons (p < 0.05) was applied to the extent threshold in the whole brain. ASD, autism spectrum disorder; BA, Brodmann's area; L, left; TD, typically developing individuals previous studies demonstrated that a facial response congruent with an observed facial expression enhances emotion recognition (Hyniewska & Sato, 2015;Niedenthal, 2007;Sato et al., 2013), and the IFG is activated in TD individuals who observe and imitate another's facial expressions (Carr et al., 2003;Hennenlotter et al., 2005;Pfeifer et al., 2008). The increase in GM volume in the right IFG in TD individuals might be related to the effectiveness of facial mimicry and/or activation of shared representation of observed and own facial motion contributing to accurate emotion recognition. ...
Previous studies have demonstrated that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are worse at recognizing facial expressions than are typically developing (TD) individuals. The present study investigated the differences in structural neural correlates of emotion recognition between individuals with and without ASD using voxel-based morphometry (VBM). We acquired structural MRI data from 27 high-functioning adults with ASD and 27 age- and sex-matched TD individuals. The ability to recognize facial expressions was measured using a label-matching paradigm featuring six basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise). The behavioural task did not find deficits of emotion recognition in ASD after controlling for intellectual ability. However, the VBM analysis for the region of interest showed a positive correlation between the averaged percent accuracy across six basic emotions and the grey matter volume of the right inferior frontal gyrus in TD individuals, but not in individuals with ASD. The VBM for the whole brain region under each emotion condition revealed a positive correlation between the percent accuracy for disgusted faces and the grey matter volume of the left dorsomedial prefrontal cortex in individuals with ASD, but not in TD individuals. The different pattern of correlations suggests that individuals with and without ASD use different processing mechanisms for recognizing others’ facial expressions.
... Children imitate their siblings, peers, and parents at every moment to learn new abilities [2,3]. Imitation is an essential lever for learning of new motor skills [4] and cognitive skills [5][6][7]. Besides the role in learning, imitation has an important social function ( [8], as cited in [9]). ...
Background
Imitation skills play a crucial role in social cognitive development from early childhood. Many studies have shown a deficit in imitation skills in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Little is known about the development of imitation behaviors in children with ASD. This study aims to measure the trajectories of early imitation skills in preschoolers with ASD and how these skills impact other areas of early development.
Methods
For this purpose, we assessed imitation, language, and cognition skills in 177 children with ASD and 43 typically developing children (TD) aged 2 to 5 years old, 126 of which were followed longitudinally, yielding a total of 396 time points.
Results
Our results confirmed the presence of an early imitation deficit in toddlers with ASD compared to TD children. The study of the trajectories showed that these difficulties were marked at the age of 2 years and gradually decreased until the age of 5 years old. Imitation skills were strongly linked with cognitive and language skills and level of symptoms in our ASD group at baseline. Moreover, the imitation skills at baseline were predictive of the language gains a year later in our ASD group. Using a data-driven clustering method, we delineated different developmental trajectories of imitation skills within the ASD group.
Conclusions
The clinical implications of the findings are discussed, particularly the impact of an early imitation deficit on other areas of competence of the young child.
... Imitation is critical for developing motor, communication, and social skills (Pfeifer et al., 2008). There are two main forms of imitative behaviors: imitative learning and social mirroring (or "chameleon effect"; Iacoboni, 2005). ...
Experts translate the latest findings on embodied cognition from neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science to inform teaching and learning pedagogy.. Embodied cognition represents a radical shift in conceptualizing cognitive processes, in which cognition develops through mind-body environmental interaction. If this supposition is correct, then the conventional style of instruction—in which students sit at desks, passively receiving information—needs rethinking. Movement Matters considers the educational implications of an embodied account of cognition, describing the latest research applications from neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science and demonstrating their relevance for teaching and learning pedagogy. The contributors cover a range of content areas, explaining how the principles of embodied cognition can be applied in classroom settings.
... Empathy includes motor mimicry and emotional contagion associated with autonomically activated neural mechanisms of the other's feelings [26][27][28][29]. It also includes mirroring responses between people, in which explicit and implicit physiology become synchronized [30][31][32]. ...
Tracking consumer empathy is one of the biggest challenges for advertisers. Although numerous studies have shown that consumers' empathy affects purchasing, there are few quantitative and unobtrusive methods for assessing whether the viewer is sharing congruent emotions with the advertisement. This study suggested a non-contact method for measuring empathy by evaluating the synchronization of micro-movements between consumers and people within the media. Thirty participants viewed 24 advertisements classified as either empathy or non-empathy advertisements. For each viewing, we recorded the facial data and subjective empathy scores. We recorded the facial micro-movements, which reflect the ballistocardiography (BCG) motion, through the carotid artery remotely using a camera without any sensory attachment to the participant. Synchronization in cardiovascular measures (e.g., heart rate) is known to indicate higher levels of empathy. We found that through cross-entropy analysis, the more similar the micro-movements between the participant and the person in the advertisement, the higher the participant's empathy scores for the advertisement. The study suggests that non-contact BCG methods can be utilized in cases where sensor attachment is ineffective (e.g., measuring empathy between the viewer and the media content) and can be a complementary method to subjective empathy scales.
... First, while emotion regulation was assessed using a combination of self-report trait measures and more objective performancebased metrics, in both studies, empathy was assessed using a self-report questionnaire. While helpful in understanding respondents' self-perceptions of their own abilities (Dziobek et al., 2008), given that many of the processes associated with empathy are thought to occur on an implicit level (e.g., Decety & Jackson, 2004;Pfeifer et al., 2008;Singer & Lamm, 2009), one could argue that certain features of this construct may be difficult to assess accurately via introspection (Kagan, 1988). Further, self-report empathy measures rely upon retrospective self-reporting, which may leave them susceptible to inaccuracies and/or response biases (Moskowitz, 1986) such as socially desirable responding (Gerdes et al., 2010;Paulhus, 1991). ...
The constructs of empathy (i.e., understanding and/or sharing another's emotion) and emotion regulation (i.e., the processes by which one manages emotions) have largely been studied in relative isolation of one another. To better understand the interrelationships between their various component processes, this manuscript reports two studies that examined the relationship between empathy and emotion regulation using a combination of self-report and task measures. In study 1 (N = 137), trait cognitive empathy and affective empathy were found to share divergent relationships with self-reported emotion dysregulation. Trait emotion dysregulation was negatively related to cognitive empathy but did not show a significant relationship with affective empathy. In the second study (N = 92), the magnitude of emotion interference effects (i.e., the extent to which inhibitory control was impacted by emotional relative to neutral stimuli) in variants of a Go/NoGo and Stroop task were used as proxy measures of implicit emotion regulation abilities. Trait cognitive and affective empathy were differentially related to both task metrics. Higher affective empathy was associated with increased emotional interference in the Emotional Go/NoGo task; no such relationship was observed for trait cognitive empathy. In the Emotional Stroop task, higher cognitive empathy was associated with reduced emotional interference; no such relationship was observed for affective empathy. Together, these studies demonstrate that greater cognitive empathy was broadly associated with improved emotion regulation abilities, while greater affective empathy was typically associated with increased difficulties with emotion regulation. These findings point to the need for assessing the different components of empathy in psychopathological conditions marked by difficulties in emotion regulation.
Supplementary information:
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-021-00062-w.
Empathy seems to rely on our ability to faithfully simulate multiple aspects of others’ inferred experiences, often using brain structures we would use during a similar experience. Much neuroimaging work in this vein has related empathic tendencies to univariate correlates of simulation strength or salience. However, novel evidence suggests that empathy may rely on the multivariate distinctiveness of these simulations. Someone whose representations of painful and non-painful stimulation are more distinct from each other may more accurately simulate that experience upon seeing somebody else experience it. We sought to predict empathic tendencies from the dissimilarity between neural activity patterns evoked by observing other people experience pain and touch and compared those findings to traditional univariate analyses. In support of a simulationist perspective, diverse observed somatosensory experiences were best classified by activation patterns in contralateral somatosensory and insular cortices, the same areas that would be active were the subject experiencing the stimuli themselves. In support of our specific hypothesis, the degree of dissimilarity between patterns for pain and touch in distinct areas was each associated with different aspects of trait empathy. Furthermore, the pattern dissimilarity analysis proved more informative regarding individual differences than analogous univariate analyses. These results suggest that multiple facets of empathy are associated with an ability to robustly distinguish between the simulated states of others at corresponding levels of the processing hierarchy, observable via the distinguishability of neural patterns arising with those states. Activation pattern dissimilarity may be a useful tool for parsing the neuroimaging correlates of complex cognitive functions like empathy.
Educators are the key source for transforming knowledge; it involves a great lot of interpersonal communications & relations with peer groups & student friends. During the journey of teaching educators often mirror the emotions with their colleagues & students in their work station. If the educators are getting glossed over the emotions and get mirrored without realizing its repercussion, it certainly takes them to emotional rollercoaster ride and lands them in directionless situations. Hence researcher's paper addresses the issues educators encounter by mirroring emotions and this can be tackled & overcome by one of the soft skill called emotional intelligence & its practices. Emotional intelligence helps the educators to be resilient and act as one of the biggest strategy to recover during uncertain situations. Thus the research paper highlights the emotional mirroring of educators during turbulence/uncertainties and how it can be handled through emotional intelligence at work place & emotional intelligence importance in overcoming emotional mirroring for better problem free workplace and personal. Introduction Emotional mirroring is the behavior by which educators unconsciously mirror the gestures, attitudes, and speech pattern of other individuals. It often occurs in social situations, especially in the workplace, with students while teaching, with close friends and family. Hence by how far emotional mirroring can build positive attitude among the educators is the big question. Though emotional mirroring is a part of self awareness and empathy, help to understand others feeling and thoughts in that particular situations. Emotional intelligence is an important soft skill; it has a direct influence on educator's behavior working in an institution and it is important for educator's career growth. Educators are considered as the main support system in the education system as well as they build the educated nation. They are the main channel through which the knowledge can be reached to the students who are the foundation of society. Educators cannot be effectively successful without possessing proper competency in their profession. The concept of emotional intelligence among educators has been taken attention for decades due to its great importance. Emotional intelligence has two competencies: personal and social competencies, these include five major factors like self awareness, self control, self motivation, empathy and social skills. By considering these two factors like self awareness from personal competency and empathy from social competency we can determine the emotional mirroring of the educators.
While technology has dramatically changed medical practice, various aspects of mental health practice and diagnosis remain almost unchanged across decades. Here we argue that artificial intelligence — with its capacity to learn and infer from data the workings of the human mind — may rapidly change this scenario. However, this process will not happen without friction and will promote an explicit reflection of the overarching goals and foundational aspects of mental health. We suggest that the converse relation is also very likely to happen. The application of artificial intelligence to a field that relates to the foundations of what makes us human — our volition, our thoughts, our pains and pleasures — may shift artificial intelligence back to its earliest days, when it was mostly conceived of as a laboratory to explore the limits and possibilities of human intelligence.
The human adult hippocampus can be subdivided into the head, or anterior hippocampus and its body and tail, or posterior hippocampus, and a wealth of functional differences along the longitudinal axis have been reported. One line of literature emphasizes specialization for different aspects of cognition, whereas another emphasizes the unique role of the anterior hippocampus in emotional processing. While some research suggests that functional differences in memory between the anterior and posterior hippocampus appear early in development, it remains unclear whether this is also the case for functional differences in emotion processing. The goal of this meta-analysis was to determine whether the long-axis functional specialization observed in adults is present earlier in development. Using a quantitative meta-analysis, long-axis functional specialization was assessed using the data from 26 functional magnetic resonance imaging studies, which included 39 contrasts and 804 participants ranging in age from 4 to 21 years. Results indicated that emotion was more strongly localized to the anterior hippocampus, with memory being more strongly localized to the posterior hippocampus, demonstrating long-axis specialization with regard to memory and emotion in children similar to that seen in adults. An additional analysis of laterality indicated that while memory was left dominant, emotion was processed bilaterally.
Both morality and empathy are crucial in the construction of human society. The influence of morality on empathy also deserves researchers' attention. This study used event-related potential techniques to control the degree of moral identity of participants through writing tasks and deeply explored the psychological processes and neural mechanisms of moral identity affecting pain empathy. Behavioral results for picture type showed that the response time to the pain pictures was longer than the nonpain pictures, the accuracy of pain pictures was lower than that of nonpain pictures and ratings of pain pictures were rated higher than non-pain picture. Behavioral results for moral identity showed that there were no significant differences in response time, accuracy, and rating. The interaction between picture type and moral identity was not significant. The ERP results showed that people with high moral identity had higher levels of empathy than those with low moral identity, and pain pictures induced smaller N2 amplitudes and larger Late Positive Component (LPC) amplitudes than nonpain pictures. For people with low moral identity, the pain picture amplitudes were not significantly different from the N2 and LPC amplitudes induced by the nonpain pictures. These results suggest that moral identity affects and moderates the early processing of emotional empathy in the N2 representation and the late processing of cognitive empathy in the LPC representation. Individuals with high moral identity are more likely to induce early automated processing of pain to others when stimulated by pain pictures, automatically sharing the negative emotions of others, which is manifested as having more emotional empathy. Individuals with high moral identity exhibit a more refined analytical evaluation of pain pictures and a conscious, top-down control of processing when stimulated by pain pictures, which is manifested as having more cognitive empathy. Whether in the emotional empathy stage or in the cognitive empathy stage, moral identity has an important impact on pain empathy, and higher moral identity is the premise of empathy for the pain of others.
Arguments about the associations between child maltreatment and empathy remain controversial. This systematic review and meta-analysis aim to estimate the direction and magnitude of the relationships between child abuse and neglect and empathy. Four English databases (Web of Science, PsycInfo, PubMed, and Cochrane Library), three Chinese databases (China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang, and Weipu), and grey literature were systematically searched. We extracted data related to the associations between child maltreatment and empathy and pooled them using random effects models. A total of 24 eligible studies involving 22,580 participants and 176 estimates were included in the analyses. Overall, child maltreatment was significantly related to reduced empathy (r_ = -0.15, 95% CI [-0.17, -0.13]). Specifically, the rank-order mean effect size of subtypes of maltreatment on empathy is: emotional neglect (r_ = -0.18, 95% CI [-0.25, -0.12]) > physical neglect (r_ = -0.16, 95% CI [-0.23, -0.09]) > emotional abuse (r_ = -0.15, 95% CI [-0.21, -0.10]) > physical abuse (r_ = -0.12, 95% CI [-0.17, -0.07]) > sexual abuse (r_ = -0.07, 95% CI [-0.14, -0.01]). Furthermore, the meta-regression results suggested that the aggregated associations between child maltreatment and empathy were not inflated by publication bias, but they were moderated by the age of respondents, sample size, publication language, empathy measurement, and maltreatment type. The results indicate that general maltreatment and its subtypes are associated with reduced empathy. Parent training and empathy enhancement programs should be designed to help children with a history of childhood maltreatment, respectively, from an early stage.
In this article we advocate for extending our concept and practice of empathy to include both physical and psychological symptoms, and the personal presenting meanings encoded in them. We make the case that when clients present medical symptoms in therapy, these should be explored and empathized with. First we explore the meaning and function of physical symptoms and potential therapeutic benefits of attending to them. We discuss the mirroring of these symptoms in the therapist’s body, via a process of embodied empathy that we refer to as physical empathy, understood as an automatic intuitive process in the body, one of three types of empathy evidenced by neuroscience research. We argue for a wider paradigm of therapy that would encompass physical symptoms as expressions of self. We accept human nature is embodied and physical symptoms are better understood as a kind of unverbalized body memory. We propose that PCE therapists practicing in medical settings adopt a phenomenological model when working with physical symptoms, by engaging in a process of physical empathy. Within this framework, person-centered experiential therapies may be particularly useful in preventing physical symptoms developing into complex, difficult to treat physical syndromes. We call for training therapists in physical empathy.
The human adult hippocampus can be subdivided into the head, or anterior hippocampus and its body and tail, or posterior hippocampus, and a wealth of functional differences along the longitudinal axis have been reported. One line of literature emphasizes specialization for different aspects of cognition, whereas another emphasizes the unique role of the anterior hippocampus in emotional processing. While some research suggests that functional differences in memory between the anterior and posterior hippocampus appear early in development, it remains unclear whether this is also the case for functional differences in emotion processing. The goal of this meta-analysis was to determine whether the long-axis functional specialization observed in adults is present earlier in development. Using a quantitative meta-analysis, long-axis functional specialization was assessed using the data from 26 fMRI studies, which included 39 contrasts and 804 participants ranging in age from 4-21 years. Results indicated that overall emotion was localized to the anterior hippocampus, with memory being localized to the posterior hippocampus, demonstrating long-axis specialization with regard to memory and emotion in children similar to that seen in adults.
This study sought to evaluate the roles of and interactions between cognitive processes that have been shown to exhibit impact from socioeconomic status (SES) and living conditions in predicting social adaptation (SA) in a population of adults living in socially vulnerable conditions. Participants included 226 people between the ages of 18 and 60 who have been living in vulnerable contexts throughout life in Santiago, Chile. Data was collected through a battery of psychological assessments. A structural equation model (SEM) was implemented to examine the interrelationships among cognitive and social variables. Results indicate a significant relationship between executive function (EF) and SA through both social cognition (SC) and intelligence. Theory of Mind (ToM), a component of SC, was shown to exhibit a significant relationship with affective empathy; interestingly, this was negatively related to SA. Moreover, fluid intelligence (FI) was found to exhibit a positive, indirect relationship with SA through crystallized intelligence (CI). Evaluation of these results in the context of research on the impacts of SES and vulnerable living conditions on psychological function may allow for the development of more effective clinical, political, and social interventions to support psychosocial health among socially vulnerable populations.
In everyday life we actively react to the emotion expressions of others, responding by showing matching, or sometimes contrasting, expressions. Emotional mimicry has important social functions such as signalling affiliative intent and fostering rapport and is considered one of the cornerstones of successful interactions. This book provides a multidisciplinary overview of research into emotional mimicry and empathy and explores when, how and why emotional mimicry occurs. Focusing on recent developments in the field, the chapters cover a variety of approaches and research questions, such as the role of literature in empathy and emotional mimicry, the most important brain areas involved in the mimicry of emotions, the effects of specific psychopathologies on mimicry, why smiling may be a special case in mimicry, whether we can also mimic vocal emotional expressions, individual differences in mimicry and the role of social contexts in mimicry.
ÖZET
Koronavirüs salgını gibi kriz süreçlerinde insanların sosyal medyada olumsuz duygusal
içerik paylaşma motivasyonu artmaktadır. Pandemi döneminde kısıtlamalarla birlikte
çevrimiçi geçirilen sürenin artması, bu paylaşımlarda önemli bir artışa neden olmuştur.
Sosyal medya üzerinden ‘duygusal bulaşma’ yaratan olumsuz duygu paylaşımları,
toplumun duygusal iklimini şekillendirecek güçtedir. Salgın sürecinde duygusal bulaşma
ile ortaya çıkan ‘olumsuz duygusal iklim’ ise uzun süreli de olsa toplumun değer yargısında
değişim yaratabilecek büyük bir potansiyeli ortaya koymaktadır. Bu noktadan hareketle
araştırmanın amacı, sosyal medyada paylaşılan olumsuz duyguların kendi arasındaki
önem düzeyini ortaya koyarak, oluşacak olumsuz duygusal iklim aracılığı ile yaşanması
muhtemel değer değişiminde en etkili duygunun hangi(leri)si olduğunu belirlemek
ve ilgili çevrelerde farkındalık yaratarak toplumun bu süreçten en az duygusal zararla
çıkabilmesine yardımcı olabilecek öneriler sunmaktır. Çalışmada sosyal medyada en çok
paylaşılan “korku, öfke, üzüntü, iğrenme ve güvensizlik” duyguları, Analitik Hiyerarşi
Prosesi (AHP) ile analiz edilmiş, olumsuz iklim yaratmada ve toplumsal değerleri
etkilemede en önemli iki duygunun korku (% 0,40) ve güvensizlik (% 0,22) olduğunu
belirlenmiştir.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Koronavirüs (Covid-19), Duygular, Değer Değişimi, Duygusal
Bulaşma, Duygusal İklim, Sosyal Medya
ABSTRACT
The coronavirus pandemic is a harmful health crisis. In such a crisis, people are motivated
to share negative emotional content on social media. During the pandemic period,
restrictions caused a significant increase in the time spent online and sharing posts.
Negative emotion sharing that creates emotional contagion on social media has the power
to shape the emotional climate of society. The negative emotional climate that emerges
with emotional contagion during the epidemic process reveals a great potential that can
change the value structure of the society, albeit for a long time.
From this point of view, the purpose of the study is to reveal the practical level of negative
emotions shared on social media to determine which emotion(s) is the most effective in
the possible value change via creating a negative emotional climate. Thus, to provide
suggestions that can help society get out of this process with the least emotional damage
by creating awareness in the relevant circles. Therefore, the study analyzed the most shared
feelings of fear, anger, sadness, disgust, and insecurity on social media with the Analytical
Hierarchy Process (AHP). As a result, The two most basic emotions affecting creating a
negative emotional climate and social values were fear (0.40%) and insecurity (0.22%).
Keywords: Coronavirus (Covid-19), Emotions, Value Change, Emotional Contagion,
Emotional Climate, Social Media
Da intersubjetividade à empatia: em busca das raízes da cooperação RESUMO Com base nas evidências e reflexões encontradas na Psicologia do Desenvolvimento Humano, na Neurociência, na Psicologia Comparada e na Etologia, argumentamos que a cooperação é entendida como tão fundamental no processo de evolução das espécies que, para facilitá-la, a natureza nos equipou com o mecanismo da empatia para promover a ajuda entre os organismos. Procuramos mostrar como o entendi-mento da empatia foi ampliado com o desvendamento da intersubjetividade primá-ria, com a descoberta dos neurônios-espelho e a partir da melhor compreensão das bases neurais da emoção. Essas descobertas possibilitam entender a empatia como uma forma de comunicação pré-linguística de base emocional, cujos principais ins-trumentos são o mimetismo, a sincronia biocomportamental e o compartilhamento emocional, com origem no cuidado parental. Palavras-chave: Empatia; Cooperação; Intersubjetividade; Imitação; Neurônios-espelho. From intersubjectivity to empathy: searching for the roots of cooperation ABSTRACT Based on the evidences and reflections found in Human Developmental Psychology, Neuroscience, Comparative Psychology and Ethology, we argue that cooperation is understood as so fundamental in the process of evolution of species that to facilitate it, nature has equipped us with the mechanism of empathy to promote aid among organisms. We sought to show how the understanding of empathy was amplified with the uncovering of primary intersubjectivity, with the discovery of mirror neurons, and from the better understanding of the neural basis of emotion. These discoveries make it possible to understand empathy as a form of emotional-based pre-linguistic communication , whose main tools are mimicry, bio-behavioral synchrony, and emotional sharing, originated in parental care.
Introduction: According to the extensive use of virtual networks among students, coping styles and personality factors can affect in how to use such tools.
Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between narcissism with Empathy and Coping styles in Facebook members and non-members.
Materials and Methods:The research design is correlational type, the statistical population included all students of Guilan university of whom 300 students were selected by randomized multistage cluster sampling method and they responded Narcissism (Raskin& Terry, 1988), Empathy (Spreng et al, 2009) and Coping styles (Endler and Parker, 1990) scales.
Results: The findings of independent T showed no significant difference between the average of the two groups of girls and boys in scale of empathy (p=0.584) and emotion-focused coping styles (p=0.513). But there was a significant difference in the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (p=0.004) and problem-focused coping styles (p=0.002) between boys and girls (P<0/01). Correlation Analysis showed that the highest correlation among variables, include problem-oriented and empathy variables (r=0.31), followed by Narcissism and join Facebook (r=0.29), Narcissism and gender (r=0.17), Problem-focused coping and gender (r=0.17), and empathy and Narcissism (r= -0.14). Regression analysis also showed that with 5 Predictive (P<0/01) can predict 15% of changes.
Conclusion: The results showed that there were no significant differences in measures of empathy and coping styles between the two groups. But a significant difference was observed in the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, so that people join Facebook reported to be more narcissistic than non-members.
The authors investigated children's automatic imitation in the context of observed shyness by adapting the widely used automatic imitation task (AIT). AIT performance in 6‐year‐old children (N = 38; 22 female; 71% White) and young adults (17–22 years; N = 122; 99 female; 32% White) was first examined as a proof of concept and to assess age‐related differences in responses to the task (Experiment 1). Although error rate measures of automatic imitation were comparable between children and adults, children displayed less reaction time interference than adults. Children's shyness coded from direct behavioral observations was then examined in relation to AIT scores (Experiment 2). Observed shyness at 5 years old predicted higher automatic imitation one year later. We discuss the latter findings in the context of an adaptive strategy. We argue that shy children may possess a heightened sensitivity to others’ motor cues and therefore are more likely to implicitly imitate social partners’ actions. This tendency may serve as a strategy to signal appeasement and affiliation, allowing for shy children to blend in and feel less inhibited in a social environment.
As a result of social, environmental, and economic crises, demand for public donations has increased drastically, putting charitable organizations in tough competition with each other. In these uncertain times, when every penny counts, researchers and practitioners have identified several antecedents, drivers, and mechanisms of individual donations. Nevertheless, social norms remain one of the most important influencers of individuals’ attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. Despite their importance, norms as drivers of charitable intentions and behavior have not been thoroughly studied. This dissertation addresses the gaps in the literature and explores the influence of injunctive (what others approve of) and descriptive (what others do) norms on individuals’ charitable intentions and behavior. Across four studies reported in three articles, my coauthors and I address not only whether social norms matter but also how and when.
Surveying 288 respondents, in the first article, we not only identified that descriptive norms influence donation intentions but also determined two mediators: perceived impact and personal involvement. Although intentions often predict behavior, the relationship between the two does not always exist. The second article examines whether aligned (both injunctive and descriptive norms being either supportive or unsupportive of the action) and unaligned (one of the types being supportive and the other unsupportive) social norms moderate the intentionbehavior link. An experiment involving 428 participants demonstrated a positive relationship between intentions and behavior. Surprisingly, both aligned (both types of norms being supportive) and unaligned (unsupportive injunctive and supportive descriptive) social norms moderate the intention-behavior relationship. The third article reports on two experiments involving 347 participants. The findings suggest that (a) both supportive and unsupportive norms affect giving intentions, (b) injunctive norms are more powerful than descriptive ones, and (c) unaligned social norms decrease donation intentions by negatively influencing collective efficacy.
The dissertation contributes to the scientific literature by furthering several theories, including social norms theory, social expectation theory, focus theory, collective action theory, theory of planned behavior, and attitude-behavior theory. The findings also have practical implications for content creation and persuasion techniques that charitable organizations can use to increase individual donations.
Background
Underconnectivity in the resting brain is not consistent in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, it is known that the default mode network is mainly decreased in childhood ASD. This study investigated the brain network topology as the changes in the connection strength and network efficiency in childhood ASD, including the early developmental stages.Methods
In this study, 31 ASD children aged 2–11 years were compared with 31 age and sex-matched children showing typical development. We explored the functional connectivity based on graph filtration by assessing the single linkage distance and global and nodal efficiencies using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. The relationship between functional connectivity and clinical scores was also analyzed.ResultsUnderconnectivities within the posterior default mode network subregions and between the inferior parietal lobule and inferior frontal/superior temporal regions were observed in the ASD group. These areas significantly correlated with the clinical phenotypes. The global, local, and nodal network efficiencies were lower in children with ASD than in those with typical development. In the preschool-age children (2–6 years) with ASD, the anterior-posterior connectivity of the default mode network and cerebellar connectivity were reduced.Conclusions
The observed topological reorganization, underconnectivity, and disrupted efficiency in the default mode network subregions and social function-related regions could be significant biomarkers of childhood ASD.
This study examined the relation between involvement in school-based extracurricular activities and early school dropout. Longitudinal assessments were completed for 392 adolescents (206 girls, 186 boys) who were initially interviewed during 7th grade and followed up annually to 12th grade. A person-oriented cluster analysis based on Interpersonal Competence Scale ratings from teachers in middle schools (i.e., 7th-8th grades) identified configurations of boys and girls who differed in social-academic competence. Early school dropout was defined as failure to complete the 11th grade. Findings indicate that the school dropout rate among at-risk students was markedly lower for students who had earlier participated in extracurricular activities compared with those who did not participate (p < .001). However, extracurricular involvement was only modestly related to early school dropout among students who had been judged to be competent or highly competent during middle school.
Recent neuroimaging and neuropsychological work has begun to shed light on how the brain responds to the viewing of facial expressions of emotion. However, one important category of facial expression that has not been studied on this level is the facial expression of pain. We investigated the neural response to pain expressions by performing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as subjects viewed short video sequences showing faces expressing either moderate pain or, for comparison, no pain. In alternate blocks, the same subjects received both painful and non-painful thermal stimulation. Facial expressions of pain were found to engage cortical areas also engaged by the first-hand experience of pain, including anterior cingulate cortex and insula. The reported findings corroborate other work in which the neural response to witnessed pain has been examined from other perspectives. In addition, they lend support to the idea that common neural substrates are involved in representing one's own and others' affective states.
Elementary motor mimicry (e.g., wincing when another is injured) has been previously considered in social psychology as the overt manifestation of some intrapersonal process such as vicarious emotion. A 2-part experiment with 50 university students tested the hypothesis that motor mimicry is instead an interpersonal event, a nonverbal communication intended to be seen by the other. Part 1 examined the effect of a receiver on the observer's motor mimicry. The victim of an apparently painful injury was either increasingly or decreasingly available for eye contact with the observer. Microanalysis showed that the pattern and timing of the observer's motor mimicry were significantly affected by the visual availability of the victim. In Part 2, naive decoders viewed and rated the reactions of these observers. Their ratings confirmed that motor mimicry was consistently decoded as "knowing" and "caring" and that these interpretations were significantly related to the experimental condition under which the reactions were elicited. Results cannot be explained by any alternative intrapersonal theory, so a parallel process model is proposed in which the eliciting stimulus may set off both internal reactions and communicative responses, and it is the communicative situation that determines the visable behavior. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Describes the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and its relationships with measures of social functioning, self-esteem, emotionality, and sensitivity to others. 677 male and 667 female undergraduates served as Ss. Each of the 4 IRI subscales displayed a distinctive and predictable pattern of relationships with these measures, as well as with previous unidimensional empathy measures. Findings provide evidence for a multidimensional approach to empathy. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).
Facial expressions contain both motor and emotional components. The inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and posterior parietal cortex have been considered to compose a mirror neuron system (MNS) for the motor components of facial expressions, while the amygdala and insula may represent an "additional" MNS for emotional states. Together, these systems may contribute to our understanding of facial expressions. Here we further examine this possibility. In three separate event-related fMRI experiment, subjects had to (1) observe (2) discriminate and (3) imitate facial expressions. Stimuli were dynamic neutral, happy, fearful and disgusted facial expressions, and in Experiments 1 and 2, an additional pattern motion condition. Importantly, during each experiment, subjects were unaware of the nature of the next experiments. Results demonstrate that even passive viewing of facial expressions activates a wide network of brain regions that were also involved in the execution of similar expressions, including the IFG/insula and the posterior parietal cortex. Only a subset of these regions responded more during the observation of facial than pattern motion (bilateral ventral IFG, bilateral STS/MTG, bilateral amygdala, SMA). While the viewing of facial expressions recruited similar brain regions in all three experiments, adding an active task (discrimination, imitation) augmented the magnitude of these activations. Brain activations reflected differences in observed facial expressions, with emotional expressions activating relatively more the insula/frontal operculum, and neutral ones (blowing up the cheeks) the somatosensory cortices (SII). Using movies, fear activated the amygdala and disgust the insula, but other emotions activated these structures to a similar degree.
With a sample of 1,630 sixth-grade students from 77 classrooms, the authors used hierarchical linear modeling to examine how ethnicity within context and classroom social disorder influenced the association between peer victimization and social-psychological adjustment (loneliness and social anxiety). Victimized students in classrooms where many classmates shared their ethnicity reported feeling the most loneliness and social anxiety. Additionally, classroom-level social disorder served as a moderator such that the association between victimization and anxiety was stronger in classrooms with low social disorder. Both findings were interpreted as evidence that problem behavior deviating from what is perceived as normative in a particular context heightens maladjustment. The authors discuss implications for studying ethnicity and classroom behavioral norms as context variables in peer relations.
Recent neuroimaging studies have suggested that the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) is important for action observation and imitation. In order to further explore the role of IFG in action observation and imitation, we pooled data from seven functional magnetic resonance imaging studies involving observation and imitation of simple finger movements performed in our laboratory. For imitation we found two peaks of activation in the pars opercularis, one in its dorsal sector and the other in its ventral sector. The dorsal sector of the pars opercularis was also activated during action observation, whereas the ventral sector was not. In addition, the pars triangularis was activated during action observation but not during imitation. This large dataset suggests a functional parcellation of the IFG that we discuss in terms of human mirror areas and the computational motor control architecture of internal models.
The progress made in understanding the insula in the decade following an earlier review (Augustine, Neurol. Res., 7 (1985) 2-10) is examined in this review. In these ten years, connections have been described between the insula and the orbital cortex, frontal operculum, lateral premotor cortex, ventral granular cortex, and medial area 6 in the frontal lobe. Insular connections between the second somatosensory area and retroinsular area of the parietal lobe have been documented. The insula was found to connect with the temporal pole and the superior temporal sulcus of the temporal lobe. It has an abundance of local intrainsular connections and projections to subdivisions of the cingulate gyrus. The insula has connections with the lateral, lateral basal, central, cortical and medial amygdaloid nuclei. It also connects with nonamygdaloid areas such as the perirhinal cortex, entorhinal, and periamygdaloid cortex. The thalamic taste area, the parvicellular part of the ventral posteromedial nucleus, projects fibers to the ipsilateral insular-opercular cortex. In the past decade, confirmation has been given to the insula as a visceral sensory area, visceral motor area, motor association area, vestibular area, and language area. Recent studies have expanded the role of the insula as a somatosensory area, emphasizing its multifaceted, sensory role. The idea of the insula as limbic integration cortex has been affirmed and its role in Alzheimer's disease suggested.
This study examined the relation between involvement in school-based extracurricular activities and early school dropout. Longitudinal assessments were completed for 392 adolescents (206 girls, 186 boys) who were initially interviewed during 7th grade and followed up annually to 12th grade. A person-oriented cluster analysis based on Interpersonal Competence Scale ratings from teachers in middle schools (i.e., 7th-8th grades) identified configurations of boys and girls who differed in social-academic competence. Early school dropout was defined as failure to complete the 11th grade. Findings indicate that the school dropout rate among at-risk students was markedly lower for students who had earlier participated in extracurricular activities compared with those who did not participate (p < .001). However, extracurricular involvement was only modestly related to early school dropout among students who had been judged to be competent or highly competent during middle school.
The chameleon effect refers to nonconscious mimicry of the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of one's interaction partners, such that one's behavior passively and unintentionally changes to match that of others in one's current social environment. The authors suggest that the mechanism involved is the perception-behavior link, the recently documented finding (e.g., J. A. Bargh, M. Chen, & L. Burrows, 1996) that the mere perception of another's behavior automatically increases the likelihood of engaging in that behavior oneself. Experiment 1 showed that the motor behavior of participants unintentionally matched that of strangers with whom they worked on a task. Experiment 2 had confederates mimic the posture and movements of participants and showed that mimicry facilitates the smoothness of interactions and increases liking between interaction partners. Experiment 3 showed that dispositionally empathic individuals exhibit the chameleon effect to a greater extent than do other people.
This study examined subtypes of popular 4th-6th grade boys (N = 452). Popular-prosocial (model) and popular-antisocial (tough) configurations were identified by means of teacher ratings and compared with peer and self-assessments and social centrality measures. Peers perceived model boys as cool, athletic, leaders, cooperative, studious, not shy, and nonaggressive. Peers perceived tough boys as cool, athletic, and antisocial. Model boys saw themselves as nonaggressive and academically competent. Tough boys saw themselves as popular, aggressive, and physically competent. Tough boys were disproportionately African American, particularly when African Americans were a minority in their classrooms. Model and tough boys were overrepresented at nuclear social centrality levels. These findings suggest that highly aggressive boys can be among the most popular and socially connected children in elementary classrooms.
Humans share with animals a primitive neural system for processing emotions such as fear and anger. Unlike other animals, humans have the unique ability to control and modulate instinctive emotional reactions through intellectual processes such as reasoning, rationalizing, and labeling our experiences. This study used functional MRI to identify the neural networks underlying this ability. Subjects either matched the affect of one of two faces to that of a simultaneously presented target face (a perceptual task) or identified the affect of a target face by choosing one of two simultaneously presented linguistic labels (an intellectual task). Matching angry or frightened expressions was associated with increased regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in the left and right amygdala, the brain's primary fear centers. Labeling these same expressions was associated with a diminished rCBF response in the amygdalae. This decrease correlated with a simultaneous increase in rCBF in the right prefrontal cortex, a neocortical region implicated in regulating emotional responses. These results provide evidence for a network in which higher regions attenuate emotional responses at the most fundamental levels in the brain and suggest a neural basis for modulating emotional experience through interpretation and labeling.
Research and theory on the role of emotion and regulation in morality have received considerable attention in the last decade. Much relevant work has concerned the role of moral emotions in moral behavior. Research on differences between embarrassment, guilt, and shame and their relations to moral behavior is reviewed, as is research on the association of these emotions with negative emotionality and regulation.
Recent issues concerning the role of such empathy-related responses as sympathy and personal distress to prosocial and antisocial behavior are discussed, as is the relation of empathy-related responding to situational and dispositional emotionality and regulation. The development and socialization of guilt, shame, and empathy also are discussed briefly. In addition, the role of nonmoral emotions (e.g. anger and sadness), including moods and dispositional differences in negative emotionality and its regulation, in morally relevant behavior, is reviewed.
Behavioral studies reveal that imitation performance and the motor system are strongly influenced by the goal of the action to be performed. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess the effect of explicit action goals on neural activity during imitation. Subjects imitated index finger movements in the absence and presence of visible goals (red dots that were reached for by the finger movement). Finger movements were either ipsilateral or contralateral. The pars opercularis of the inferior frontal gyrus showed increased blood oxygen level-dependent fMRI signal bilaterally for imitation of goal-oriented actions, compared with imitation of actions with no explicit goal. In addition, bilateral dorsal premotor areas demonstrated greater activity for goal-oriented actions, for contralateral movements and an interaction effect such that goal-oriented contralateral movements yielded the greatest activity. These results support the hypothesis that areas relevant to motor preparation and motor execution are tuned to coding goal-oriented actions and are in keeping with single-cell recordings revealing that neurons in area F5 of the monkey brain represent goal-directed aspects of actions.
Many object-related actions can be recognized by their sound. We found neurons in monkey premotor cortex that discharge when
the animal performs a specific action and when it hears the related sound. Most of the neurons also discharge when the monkey
observes the same action. These audiovisual mirror neurons code actions independently of whether these actions are performed,
heard, or seen. This discovery in the monkey homolog of Broca's area might shed light on the origin of language: audiovisual
mirror neurons code abstract contents—the meaning of actions—and have the auditory access typical of human language to these
contents.
How do we empathize with others? A mechanism according to which action representation modulates emotional activity may provide an essential functional architecture for empathy. The superior temporal and inferior frontal cortices are critical areas for action representation and are connected to the limbic system via the insula. Thus, the insula may be a critical relay from action representation to emotion. We used functional MRI while subjects were either imitating or simply observing emotional facial expressions. Imitation and observation of emotions activated a largely similar network of brain areas. Within this network, there was greater activity during imitation, compared with observation of emotions, in premotor areas including the inferior frontal cortex, as well as in the superior temporal cortex, insula, and amygdala. We understand what others feel by a mechanism of action representation that allows empathy and modulates our emotional content. The insula plays a fundamental role in this mechanism.
Many object-related actions can be recognized both by their sound and by their vision. Here we describe a population of neurons in the ventral premotor cortex of the monkey that discharge both when the animal performs a specific action and when it hears or sees the same action performed by another individual. These 'audiovisual mirror neurons' therefore represent actions independently of whether these actions are performed, heard or seen. The magnitude of auditory and visual responses did not differ significantly in half the neurons. A neurometric analysis revealed that based on the response of these neurons, two actions could be discriminated with 97% accuracy.
Influential theories of human emotion argue that subjective feeling states involve representation of bodily responses elicited by emotional events. Within this framework, individual differences in intensity of emotional experience reflect variation in sensitivity to internal bodily responses. We measured regional brain activity by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during an interoceptive task wherein subjects judged the timing of their own heartbeats. We observed enhanced activity in insula, somatomotor and cingulate cortices. In right anterior insular/opercular cortex, neural activity predicted subjects' accuracy in the heartbeat detection task. Furthermore, local gray matter volume in the same region correlated with both interoceptive accuracy and subjective ratings of visceral awareness. Indices of negative emotional experience correlated with interoceptive accuracy across subjects. These findings indicate that right anterior insula supports a representation of visceral responses accessible to awareness, providing a substrate for subjective feeling states.
Our ability to have an experience of another's pain is characteristic of empathy. Using functional imaging, we assessed brain
activity while volunteers experienced a painful stimulus and compared it to that elicited when they observed a signal indicating
that their loved one—present in the same room—was receiving a similar pain stimulus. Bilateral anterior insula (AI), rostral
anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), brainstem, and cerebellum were activated when subjects received pain and also by a signal
that a loved one experienced pain. AIand ACC activation correlated with individual empathy scores. Activity in the posterior
insula/secondary somatosensory cortex, the sensorimotor cortex (SI/MI), and the caudal ACC was specific to receiving pain.
Thus, a neural response in AIand rostral ACC, activated in common for “self” and “other” conditions, suggests that the neural
substrate for empathic experience does not involve the entire “pain matrix.” We conclude that only that part of the pain network
associated with its affective qualities, but not its sensory qualities, mediates empathy.
Social interaction requires social cognition—the ability to perceive, interpret, and explain the actions of others. This ability fundamentally relies on the concepts of intention and intentionality. For example, people distinguish sharply between intentional and unintentional behavior; identify the intentions underlying others' behavior; explain completed actions with reference to intentions, beliefs, and desires; and evaluate the social worth of actions using the concepts of intentionality and responsibility.
Intentions and Intentionality highlights the roles these concepts play in social cognition. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, it offers cutting-edge work from researchers in cognitive, developmental, and social psychology and in philosophy, primatology, and law. It includes both conceptual and empirical contributions.
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Infants between 12 and 21 days of age can imitate both facial and manual gestures; this behavior cannot be explained in terms of either conditioning or innate releasing mechanisms. Such imitation implies that human neonates can equate their own unseen behaviors with gestures they see others perform.
We recorded electrical activity from 532 neurons in the rostral part of inferior area 6 (area F5) of two macaque monkeys. Previous data had shown that neurons of this area discharge during goal-directed hand and mouth movements. We describe here the properties of a newly discovered set of F5 neurons ("mirror neurons', n = 92) all of which became active both when the monkey performed a given action and when it observed a similar action performed by the experimenter. Mirror neurons, in order to be visually triggered, required an interaction between the agent of the action and the object of it. The sight of the agent alone or of the object alone (three-dimensional objects, food) were ineffective. Hand and the mouth were by far the most effective agents. The actions most represented among those activating mirror neurons were grasping, manipulating and placing. In most mirror neurons (92%) there was a clear relation between the visual action they responded to and the motor response they coded. In approximately 30% of mirror neurons the congruence was very strict and the effective observed and executed actions corresponded both in terms of general action (e.g. grasping) and in terms of the way in which that action was executed (e.g. precision grip). We conclude by proposing that mirror neurons form a system for matching observation and execution of motor actions. We discuss the possible role of this system in action recognition and, given the proposed homology between F5 and human Brocca's region, we posit that a matching system, similar to that of mirror neurons exists in humans and could be involved in recognition of actions as well as phonetic gestures.
The chameleon effect refers to nonconscious mimicry of the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of one's interaction partners, such that one's behavior passively rind unintentionally changes to match that of others in one's current social environment. The authors suggest that the mechanism involved is the perception-behavior link, the recently documented finding (e.g., J. A. Bargh, M. Chen, & L. Burrows, 1996) that the mere perception of another' s behavior automatically increases the likelihood of engaging in that behavior oneself Experiment 1 showed that the motor behavior of participants unintentionally matched that of strangers with whom they worked on a task. Experiment 2 had confederates mimic the posture and movements of participants and showed that mimicry facilitates the smoothness of interactions and increases liking between interaction partners. Experiment 3 showed that dispositionally empathic individuals exhibit the chameleon effect to a greater extent than do other people.
There is a great deal of research documenting the relationship of peers to academic achievement in late childhood and adolescence, but little work documenting the extent to which this holds for younger children. The current research examined the classroom social structure and academic achievement of inner-city African-American early elementary schoolchildren. Ninety-two (53 boys, 39 girls) first-graders from two inner-city schools were followed for 2 years. Teacher ratings of popularity and academic ability were positively related, and distinct peer groups marked by similar levels of achievement of constituent members were identified. Longitudinal analyses found support for selective affiliation based on academic achievement.
Although often confused, imagining how another feels and imagining how you would feel are two distinct forms of perspective taking with different emotional consequences. The former evokes empathy; the latter, both empathy and distress. To test this claim, undergraduates listened to a (bogus) pilot radio interview with a young woman in serious need. One third were instructed to remain objective while listening; one third, to imagine how the young woman felt; and one third, to imagine how they would feel in her situation. The two imagine perspectives produced the predicted distinct pattern of emotions, suggesting different motivational consequences: Imagining how the other feels produced empathy, which has been found to evoke altruistic motivation; imagining how you would feel produced empathy, but it also produced personal distress, which has been found to evoke egoistic motivation.
resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to localize brain areas that were active during the observation of actions made by another individual. Object- and non-object-relat ed actions made with different effectors (mouth, hand and foot) were presented. Observation of both object- and non-object-relat ed actions determined a somatotopically organized activation of premotor cortex. The somatotopic pattern was similar to that of the classical motor cortex homunculus. During the observation of object-related actions, an activation, also somatotopically organized,
Human adults and children effortlessly learn new behaviors from watching others. Parents provide their young with an apprenticeship in how to act as a member of their particular culture long before verbal instruction is possible. A wide range of behaviors—from tool use to social customs—are passed from one generation to another through imitative learning. In western cultures, toddlers hold telephones to their ears and babble into the receivers. The children of Australian aborigines would not do this, one sus- pects. There is no innate proclivity to treat pieces of plastic in this manner, nor is it due to Skinnerian learning. Imitation is chiefly responsible. Imitation evolved through Darwinian means but achieves Lamarckian ends. It provides a mechanism for the "inheritance" of acquired character- istics. Imitation is powerful and can lead to rapid learning; it is essentially no-trial learning.
We have previously shown that a right inferior frontal mirror neuron area for grasping responds differently to observed grasping actions embedded in contexts that suggest different intentions, such as drinking and cleaning (Iacoboni, Molnar-Szakacs, Gallese, Buccino, Mazziotta, & Rizzolatti, 2005). Information about intentions, however, may be conveyed also by the grasping action itself: for instance, people typically drink by grasping the handle of a cup with a precision grip. In this fMRI experiment, subjects watched precision grips and whole-hand prehensions embedded in a drinking or an eating context. Indeed, in the right inferior frontal mirror neuron area there was higher activity for observed precision grips in the drinking context. Signal changes in the right inferior frontal mirror neuron area were also significantly correlated with scores on Empathic Concern subscale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, a measure of emotional empathy. These data suggest that human mirror neuron areas use both contextual and grasping type information to predict the intentions of others. They also suggest that mirror neuron activity is strongly linked to social competence.
How does imitation occur? How can the motor plans necessary for imitating an action derive from the observation of that action?
Imitation may be based on a mechanism directly matching the observed action onto an internal motor representation of that
action (“direct matching hypothesis”). To test this hypothesis, normal human participants were asked to observe and imitate
a finger movement and to perform the same movement after spatial or symbolic cues. Brain activity was measured with functional
magnetic resonance imaging. If the direct matching hypothesis is correct, there should be areas that become active during
finger movement, regardless of how it is evoked, and their activation should increase when the same movement is elicited by
the observation of an identical movement made by another individual. Two areas with these properties were found in the left
inferior frontal cortex (opercular region) and the rostral-most region of the right superior parietal lobule.
A new class of visuomotor neuron has been recently discovered in the monkey's premotor cortex: mirror neurons. These neurons respond both when a particular action is performed by the recorded monkey and when the same action, performed by another individual, is observed. Mirror neurons appear to form a cortical system matching observation and execution of goal-related motor actions. Experimental evidence suggests that a similar matching system also exists in humans. What might be the functional role of this matching system? One possible function is to enable an organism to detect certain mental states of observed conspecifics. This function might be part of, or a precursor to, a more general mind-reading ability. Two different accounts of mind-reading have been suggested. According to `theory theory', mental states are represented as inferred posits of a naive theory. According to `simulation theory', other people's mental states are represented by adopting their perspective: by tracking or matching their states with resonant states of one's own. The activity of mirror neurons, and the fact that observers undergo motor facilitation in the same muscular groups as those utilized by target agents, are findings that accord well with simulation theory but would not be predicted by theory theory.
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Los Angeles, 2001. Typescript (photocopy). Vita. Includes bibliographical references.
Infants between 12 and 21 days of age can imitate both facial and manual gestures; this behavior cannot be explained in terms
of either conditioning or innate releasing mechanisms. Such imitation implies that human neonates can equate their own unseen
behaviors with gestures they see others perform.
The Interpersonal Competence Scale (ICS-T) is a set of brief rating scales for teachers and parents. It consists of 18 items that assess social and behavioural characteristics of children and youths. The ICS-T yields three primary factors: AGG (argues, trouble at school, fights), POP (popular with boys, popular with girls, lots of friends), and ACA (spelling, math). Subsidiary factors include AFF (smile, friendly), OLY (appearance, sports, wins), and INT (shyness, sad, worry). The psychometric properties of the scale (internal structure, reliability, long-term stability) are presented and evaluated over successive ages. The scale factors have been linked to contemporaneous observations of behavior and social network membership. Developmental validity of the ICS-T includes the significant prediction of later school dropout and teenage parenthood. The ICS-T scale is described, along with instructions for use and scoring.
We recorded electrical activity from 532 neurons in the rostral part of inferior area 6 (area F5) of two macaque monkeys. Previous data had shown that neurons of this area discharge during goal-directed hand and mouth movements. We describe here the properties of a newly discovered set of F5 neurons ("mirror neurons', n = 92) all of which became active both when the monkey performed a given action and when it observed a similar action performed by the experimenter. Mirror neurons, in order to be visually triggered, required an interaction between the agent of the action and the object of it. The sight of the agent alone or of the object alone (three-dimensional objects, food) were ineffective. Hand and the mouth were by far the most effective agents. The actions most represented among those activating mirror neurons were grasping, manipulating and placing. In most mirror neurons (92%) there was a clear relation between the visual action they responded to and the motor response they coded. In approximately 30% of mirror neurons the congruence was very strict and the effective observed and executed actions corresponded both in terms of general action (e.g. grasping) and in terms of the way in which that action was executed (e.g. precision grip). We conclude by proposing that mirror neurons form a system for matching observation and execution of motor actions. We discuss the possible role of this system in action recognition and, given the proposed homology between F5 and human Brocca's region, we posit that a matching system, similar to that of mirror neurons exists in humans and could be involved in recognition of actions as well as phonetic gestures.
This study was an investigation of the structure and development of dispositional empathy during middle childhood and its relationship to altruism. A sample of 478 students from 2nd, 4th, and 6th grades completed an altruism questionnaire and a social desirability scale, both created for this study, and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1980), adapted for this study. Teachers also rated the students on prosocial behaviors, such as sharing. In addition, as an experimental part of the study, the children could make monetary donations and volunteer time to raise funds. Results of a confirmatory factor analysis on the Interpersonal Reactivity Index supported Davis's (1980) findings that empathy comprises four components: perspective taking, fantasy, empathic concern, and personal distress. Factor intercorrelations, however, were not the same as those reported by Davis. MANOVAs were used to examine gender and age effects on empathy. Girls were more empathic in general than boys, and older children showed more empathic concern than younger children. Only empathic concern and perspective taking were significant predictors of prosocial behavior.
Our goal was to validate linear and nonlinear intersubject image registration using an automated method (AIR 3.0) based on voxel intensity.
PET and MRI data from 22 normal subjects were registered to corresponding averaged PET or MRI brain atlases using several specific linear and nonlinear spatial transformation models with an automated algorithm. Validation was based on anatomically defined landmarks.
Automated registration produced results that were superior to a manual nine parameter variant of the Talairach registration method. Increasing the degrees of freedom in the spatial transformation model improved the accuracy of automated intersubject registration.
Linear or nonlinear automated intersubject registration based on voxel intensities is computationally practical and produces more accurate alignment of homologous landmarks than manual nine parameter Talairach registration. Nonlinear models provide better registration than linear models but are slower.
We sought to describe and validate an automated image registration method (AIR 3.0) based on matching of voxel intensities.
Different cost functions, different minimization methods, and various sampling, smoothing, and editing strategies were compared. Internal consistency measures were used to place limits on registration accuracy for MRI data, and absolute accuracy was measured using a brain phantom for PET data.
All strategies were consistent with subvoxel accuracy for intrasubject, intramodality registration. Estimated accuracy of registration of structural MRI images was in the 75 to 150 microns range. Sparse data sampling strategies reduced registration times to minutes with only modest loss of accuracy.
The registration algorithm described is a robust and flexible tool that can be used to address a variety of image registration problems. Registration strategies can be tailored to meet different needs by optimizing tradeoffs between speed and accuracy.
Spatial normalization in functional imaging can encompass various processes, including nonlinear warping to correct for intersubject differences, linear transformations to correct for identifiable head movements, and data detrending to remove residual motion correlated artifacts. We describe the use of AIR to create a custom, site-specific, normal averaged brain atlas that can be used to map T2 weighted echo-planar images and coplanar functional images directly into a Talairach-compatible space. We also discuss extraction of characteristic descriptors from sets of linear transformation matrices describing head movements in a functional imaging series. Scores for these descriptors, derived using principal components analysis with singular value decomposition, can be treated as confounds associated with each individual image in the series and systematically removed prior to voxel-by-voxel statistical analysis.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to localize brain areas that were active during the observation of actions made by another individual. Object- and non-object-related actions made with different effectors (mouth, hand and foot) were presented. Observation of both object- and non-object-related actions determined a somatotopically organized activation of premotor cortex. The somatotopic pattern was similar to that of the classical motor cortex homunculus. During the observation of object-related actions, an activation, also somatotopically organized, was additionally found in the posterior parietal lobe. Thus, when individuals observe an action, an internal replica of that action is automatically generated in their premotor cortex. In the case of object-related actions, a further object-related analysis is performed in the parietal lobe, as if the subjects were indeed using those objects. These results bring the previous concept of an action observation/execution matching system (mirror system) into a broader perspective: this system is not restricted to the ventral premotor cortex, but involves several somatotopically organized motor circuits.
In the ventral premotor cortex of the macaque monkey, there are neurons that discharge both during the execution of hand actions and during the observation of the same actions made by others (mirror neurons). In the present study, we show that a subset of mirror neurons becomes active during action presentation and also when the final part of the action, crucial in triggering the response in full vision, is hidden and can therefore only be inferred. This implies that the motor representation of an action performed by others can be internally generated in the observer's premotor cortex, even when a visual description of the action is lacking. The present findings support the hypothesis that mirror neuron activation could be at the basis of action recognition.
As humans, we perceive feelings from our bodies that relate our state of well-being, our energy and stress levels, our mood and disposition. How do we have these feelings? What neural processes do they represent? Recent functional anatomical work has detailed an afferent neural system in primates and in humans that represents all aspects of the physiological condition of the physical body. This system constitutes a representation of 'the material me', and might provide a foundation for subjective feelings, emotion and self-awareness.
This article describes a method for selecting design parameters and a particular sequence of events in fMRI so as to maximize statistical power and psychological validity. Our approach uses a genetic algorithm (GA), a class of flexible search algorithms that optimize designs with respect to single or multiple measures of fitness. Two strengths of the GA framework are that (1) it operates with any sort of model, allowing for very specific parameterization of experimental conditions, including nonstandard trial types and experimentally observed scanner autocorrelation, and (2) it is flexible with respect to fitness criteria, allowing optimization over known or novel fitness measures. We describe how genetic algorithms may be applied to experimental design for fMRI, and we use the framework to explore the space of possible fMRI design parameters, with the goal of providing information about optimal design choices for several types of designs. In our simulations, we considered three fitness measures: contrast estimation efficiency, hemodynamic response estimation efficiency, and design counterbalancing. Although there are inherent trade-offs between these three fitness measures, GA optimization can produce designs that outperform random designs on all three criteria simultaneously.
In the ventral premotor cortex (area F5) of the monkey there are neurons that discharge both when the monkey performs specific motor actions and when it observes another individual performing a similar action (mirror neurons). Previous studies on mirror neurons concerned hand actions. Here, we describe the mirror responses of F5 neurons that motorically code mouth actions. The results showed that about one-third of mouth motor neurons also discharge when the monkey observes another individual performing mouth actions. The majority of these 'mouth mirror neurons' become active during the execution and observation of mouth actions related to ingestive functions such as grasping, sucking or breaking food. Another population of mouth mirror neurons also discharges during the execution of ingestive actions, but the most effective visual stimuli in triggering them are communicative mouth gestures (e.g. lip smacking). Some also fire when the monkey makes communicative gestures. These findings extend the notion of mirror system from hand to mouth action and suggest that area F5, the area considered to be the homologue of human Broca's area, is also involved in communicative functions.
There is at present limited understanding of the neurobiological basis of the different processes underlying emotion perception. We have aimed to identify potential neural correlates of three processes suggested by appraisalist theories as important for emotion perception: 1) the identification of the emotional significance of a stimulus; 2) the production of an affective state in response to 1; and 3) the regulation of the affective state. In a critical review, we have examined findings from recent animal, human lesion, and functional neuroimaging studies. Findings from these studies indicate that these processes may be dependent upon the functioning of two neural systems: a ventral system, including the amygdala, insula, ventral striatum, and ventral regions of the anterior cingulate gyrus and prefrontal cortex, predominantly important for processes 1 and 2 and automatic regulation of emotional responses; and a dorsal system, including the hippocampus and dorsal regions of anterior cingulate gyrus and prefrontal cortex, predominantly important for process 3. We suggest that the extent to which a stimulus is identified as emotive and is associated with the production of an affective state may be dependent upon levels of activity within these two neural systems.
Converging evidence indicates that primates have a distinct cortical image of homeostatic afferent activity that reflects all aspects of the physiological condition of all tissues of the body. This interoceptive system, associated with autonomic motor control, is distinct from the exteroceptive system (cutaneous mechanoreception and proprioception) that guides somatic motor activity. The primary interoceptive representation in the dorsal posterior insula engenders distinct highly resolved feelings from the body that include pain, temperature, itch, sensual touch, muscular and visceral sensations, vasomotor activity, hunger, thirst, and 'air hunger'. In humans, a meta-representation of the primary interoceptive activity is engendered in the right anterior insula, which seems to provide the basis for the subjective image of the material self as a feeling (sentient) entity, that is, emotional awareness.
Cells in macaque ventral premotor cortex (area F5c) respond to observation or production of specific hand-object interactions. Studies in humans associate the left inferior frontal gyrus, including putative F5 homolog pars opercularis, with observing hand actions. Are these responses related to the realized goal of a prehensile action or to the observation of dynamic hand movements? Rapid, event-related fMRI was used to address this question. Subjects watched static pictures of the same objects being grasped or touched while performing a 1-back orienting task. In all 17 subjects, bilateral inferior frontal cortex was differentially activated in response to realized goals of observed prehensile actions. Bilaterally, precentral gyrus was most frequently activated (82%) followed by pars triangularis (73%) and pars opercularis (65%).
Empathy requires the ability to map the feelings of others onto our own nervous system. Until recently, there was no plausible mechanism to explain how such a mapping might occur. The discovery of mirror neurons, however, suggests that the nervous system is capable of mapping the observed actions of others onto the premotor cortex of the self, at least for reaching and grasping movements. Is there a mirroring system for emotive actions, such as facial expression? Subjects (N = 15; all right-handed; eight men, seven women) watched movies of facial expressions (smile or frown) and hand movements (move index or middle finger) while brain activity was imaged using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Subjects watched the movies under three different conditions: passive viewing, active imitation, and an active motor control. Subjects also performed a verb generation task to functionally identify language-processing areas. We found evidence for a common cortical imitation circuit for both face and hand imitation, consisting of Broca's area, bilateral dorsal and ventral premotor areas, right superior temporal gyrus (STG), supplementary motor area, posterior temporo-occipital cortex, and cerebellar areas. For faces, passive viewing led to significant activation in the right ventral premotor area, whereas imitation produced bilateral activation. This result is consistent with evidence for right hemisphere (RH) dominance for emotional processing, and suggests that there may be a right hemisphere mirroring system that could provide a neural substrate for empathy.
Subjects with Asperger's syndrome (AS) are impaired in social interaction and imitation, but the underlying brain mechanisms are poorly understood. Because the mirror-neuron system (MNS) that matches observed and executed actions has been suggested to play an important role in imitation and in reading of other people's intentions, we assessed MNS functions in 8 adult AS subjects and in 10 healthy control subjects during imitation of still pictures of lip forms. In the control subjects, cortical activation progressed in 30 to 80-millisecond steps from the occipital cortex to the superior temporal sulcus, to the inferior parietal lobe, and to the inferior frontal lobe, and finally, 75 to 90 milliseconds later, to the primary motor cortex of both hemispheres. Similar activation sites were found in AS subjects but with slightly larger scatter. Activation of the inferior frontal lobe was delayed by 45 to 60 milliseconds and activations in the inferior frontal lobe and in the primary motor cortex were weaker than in control subjects. The observed abnormal premotor and motor processing could account for a part of imitation and social impairments in subjects with AS.