Why do I like you when you behave like me? Neural mechanisms mediating positive consequences of observing someone being imitated
- PMID: 20229392
- DOI: 10.1080/17470911003633750
Why do I like you when you behave like me? Neural mechanisms mediating positive consequences of observing someone being imitated
Abstract
Social psychological and developmental research revealed that imitation serves a fundamental social function. It has been shown that human beings have the tendency to automatically mirror the behavior of others-the so-called chameleon effect. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that being imitated leads to positive feelings toward the imitator. But why do we feel more positive about someone who imitates us? In the current fMRI study we aimed at exploring the neural correlates of the positive consequences of being imitated by means of an observation paradigm. Our results indicate that being imitated compared to not being imitated activates brain areas that have been associated with emotion and reward processing, namely medial orbitofrontal cortex/ventromedial prefrontal cortex (mOFC/vmPFC, GLM whole-brain contrast). Moreover mOFC/vmPFC shows higher effective connectivity with striatum and mid-posterior insula during being imitated compared to not being imitated.
Similar articles
-
Reciprocal imitation: toward a neural basis of social interaction.Cereb Cortex. 2012 Apr;22(4):971-8. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhr177. Epub 2011 Jul 9. Cereb Cortex. 2012. PMID: 21743098
-
Neural activation during imitation of movements presented from four different perspectives: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study.Neurosci Lett. 2011 Oct 3;503(2):100-4. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2011.08.016. Epub 2011 Aug 17. Neurosci Lett. 2011. PMID: 21871533
-
Neural correlates of social and nonsocial emotions: An fMRI study.Neuroimage. 2006 May 15;31(1):397-409. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.11.027. Epub 2006 Jan 18. Neuroimage. 2006. PMID: 16414281
-
The plasticity of social emotions.Soc Neurosci. 2015;10(5):466-73. doi: 10.1080/17470919.2015.1087427. Epub 2015 Sep 15. Soc Neurosci. 2015. PMID: 26369728 Review.
-
The Social Effect of "Being Imitated" in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.Front Psychol. 2016 May 13;7:726. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00726. eCollection 2016. Front Psychol. 2016. PMID: 27242632 Free PMC article. Review.
Cited by
-
The Reward-Related Shift of Emotional Contagion from the Observer's Perspective Correlates to Their Intimacy with the Expresser.Behav Sci (Basel). 2023 Nov 15;13(11):934. doi: 10.3390/bs13110934. Behav Sci (Basel). 2023. PMID: 37998681 Free PMC article.
-
Keep your opponents close: social context affects EEG and fEMG linkage in a turn-based computer game.PLoS One. 2013 Nov 20;8(11):e78795. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0078795. eCollection 2013. PLoS One. 2013. PMID: 24278112 Free PMC article. Clinical Trial.
-
Positive facial affect - an fMRI study on the involvement of insula and amygdala.PLoS One. 2013 Aug 21;8(8):e69886. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0069886. eCollection 2013. PLoS One. 2013. PMID: 23990890 Free PMC article.
-
Convergence and divergence in gesture repertoires as an adaptive mechanism for social bonding in primates.R Soc Open Sci. 2017 Nov 29;4(11):170181. doi: 10.1098/rsos.170181. eCollection 2017 Nov. R Soc Open Sci. 2017. PMID: 29291049 Free PMC article.
-
I suffer more from your pain when you act like me: being imitated enhances affective responses to seeing someone else in pain.Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2013 Sep;13(3):519-32. doi: 10.3758/s13415-013-0168-4. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2013. PMID: 23625720