Article

Face to Face: The Neural Basis of Social Mirroring and Empathy

April 2007
Psychiatric Annals 37(4):236-241

DOI:10.3928/00485713-20070401-05

Authors:

University of California, Los Angeles

p>Empathy is a building block of social behavior and interpersonal competence. The neural mechanisms of empathy have been largely unknown until recently. The discovery of a special class of cells in the monkey brain has inspired a series of recent imaging studies that have revealed a large-scale neural network for empathy in the human brain. This neural system seems a robust biomarker of the human capacity to empathize with others. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Marco Iacoboni, MD, PhD, is Director, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Lab, Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Brain Research Institute, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Address correspondence to: Marco Iacoboni, MD, PhD, iacoboni@ucla.edu . The author disclosed no relevant financial relationships. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES Discuss the mirror neuron system in monkeys. Describe the human mirror neuron system. Explain neural networks for empathy and social behavior in humans. </ol

Ensuring Empathy: The Impact of Fatigue, Positive Affect and Negative Affect on Medical Professionals’ Ability to Empathise.

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2021

Grace Caitlin Solomon

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in increased challenges to medical professionals. At this time, it is of high importance that their ability to empathise with patients is maintained. Research has shown that professionals' fatigue and affect have been impacted by the pandemic. It was hypothesised that fatigue, positive affect and negative affect would predict empathy reported in medical professionals. The sample included 62 medical professionals (M = 55.68, SD = 11.09). The cross-sectional, online survey was conducted via Qualtrics, incorporating the Empathy Quotient Scale, Positive and Negative Affect Scale and the Chalder Fatigue Scale. In combination, fatigue, positive affect and negative affect accounted for a significant 14% of the variability in Empathy reported (F (3,58) = 3.14, p < .05). Unexpectedly, the interaction between fatigue and empathy was significant (ß = .30, p < .05), indicating that greater levels of fatigue related to increased empathy. The interaction between positive affect and empathy was significant (ß = .27, p < .05), indicating that greater positive affect related to greater empathy. There was no relationship found between negative affect and empathy (ß = -.22, p > .05). As expected, gender did affect the empathy reported by participants (F (1,60) = 8.46, p = .05), indicating females reported higher empathy than males. This study found that empathy is generally maintained by medical professionals even when faced with hardships to their personal wellbeing. These findings have potential implications for improving both workplace practises and health outcomes of professionals during this challenging time.

Neurobiological Core Content in the Research-Supported Transforming Impossible into Possible (TIP) Program Model

Article

Sep 2019

This article explores neurobiological components in the Transforming Impossible into Possible (TIP) program; a research-supported social work group model developed from the theory of psychological self-sufficiency (PSS). The PSS theory emerges from a participatory action research in workforce development, defining PSS as the force within someone that activates a process of transforming perceived barriers into hope driven actions. TIP program is a bottom-up, participant-centered, multi-systematic approach which empowers individuals to begin the PSS process by developing self-awareness, confidence, hope, goal-orientation, leadership, accountability, conscientiousness, and grit. Applying the core concepts of neurobiological content derived from both cognitive neuroscience and interpersonal neurobiology, the authors explore six critical neurobiological categories in the core version of the TIP program manual. Incorporation of these core neurobiological concepts provides a strong foundation for TIP to be considered a neuroscientific preventive group model, with an emphasis on strengthening brain’s neuroplasticity, executive functioning, and emotional regulation in the neural integration process.

Programas De Prevención De La Depresión En Adolescentes En El Sistema Escolar: Una Revisión De La Literatura

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2008

Hunger and Longing: A developmental regulation model for exploring core relational needs

Chapter

Jan 2013

Mitchel Adler

BrainWise Leadership

Book

Full-text available

Oct 2013

Introducing BrainWise Leadership The complexity and speed of change inherent in the health care sector today has magnified the importance of great leadership. Practical application of neuroscience affords leaders the ability to be more influential in their organisations as well as contribute to the overall wellbeing of the workplace. BrainWise Leadership: Practical neuroscience to survive and thrive at work by Connie Henson and Pieter Rossouw, articulates a framework for effective leadership underpinned by neuroscience. Comprising three elements: individual brain fitness, cultivating healthy relationships and creating a high performance culture, BrainWise leadership provides a foundation that enables leaders to evaluate and enhance their own approach to leading. Elements of BrainWise Leadership Individual brain fitness is necessary for enhancing thinking capability and ensuring strong individual output. Like physical health, brain fitness can be improved at any age when leaders have a sense for how their own brain operates and what is needed to optimise functioning. This book begins by linking basic neuroanatomy and functioning with normal work behaviour and typical challenges and then describes a path for building brain fitness for self and others within the workplace. Building on individual fitness, BrainWise leaders focus their efforts on cultivating the right kind of relationships. They understand that organisations that leverage the synergy of their people are more effective. BrainWise Leadership dissects the building blocks of relationships, highlights common mis-steps that lead to disengagement and explores methods for ‘thinking together’. Emphasising the significance of long-term positive results, BrainWise Leadership highlights how leaders can optimise organisational performance by creating conditions and organisational culture that is informed by neuroscience. This third element of BrainWise Leadership illuminates the importance for individuals to have a sense of safety, control in their working environment as a foundation for effective performance. Moreover this book highlights the importance of creating an enriched environment to encourage innovation, maintain individual fitness, support healthy relationships and ultimately achieve sustainable results for the business. Bridging science and real-world challenges Complex problem solving and strategic planning are among the most essential competencies for leaders. Recent neuroscience provides important guidance as to how leaders can harness the brainpower within their organisations to address these issues without getting derailed by groupthink, distractions or common thinking errors. The second part of this book details a field-tested model and toolset to equip leaders to be more effective when working in ambiguous, uncertain and rapidly changing circumstances. Deep science balanced with real-life case studies and practical techniques enables the reader to gain insights not only about what to do to be a more influential leader but also understand why a particular method or process works. The application of science to everyday challenges faced by managers provides guidance to leaders as to how to modify behaviour to be consistent with the principles of neuroscience rather than wasting time trying to work against human nature.

Exploring how first- and third-person narrative modulates neural activation during a social cognition task. An event-related potentials (ERPs) study

Article

Dec 2024
SOC NEUROSCI-UK

Several studies showed a positive effect of stories on Theory of Mind (ToM) performance. The aim of the present exploratory study was to investigate whether and how a specific aspect of narrative, i.e., character perspective, modulates the brain activation in response to a ToM task and improve the accuracy. Fifty participants were divided in three groups based on the text assigned: first-person perspective group (1 G; n = 16), third-person perspective group (3 G; n = 18) and a scientific essay group (EG; n = 16). The electroencephalographic and behavioral responses to eyes expressions, taken from the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” test, were recorded pre-(T0) and post-(T1) reading task. The main results showed a greater N100 on left fronto-central electrodes and a greater P220–400 on right temporo-parietal electrodes in response to eye expressions at T1 compared to T0 in 3 G. A lower N220–400 was found on right fronto-central in response to eye expressions at T1 compared to T0 in 1 G and 3 G. The results suggest that, although reading first- and third-person stories modulates self-processes in a similar way, third-person stories involve an early stage of processing and a more extended neural network including anterior-posterior brain sites.

Introspective self-narrative modulates the neuronal response during the empathic process: an event-related potentials (ERPs) study

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2022
EXP BRAIN RES

Empathy is the ability to perceive and understand others' emotional states generating a similar mental state in the self. Previous behavioural studies have shown that self-reflection can enhance the empathic process. The present event-related poten-tials' study aims to investigate whether self-reflection, elicited by an introspective self-narrative task, modulates the neuronal response to eye expressions and improves the accuracy of empathic process. The 29 participants included in the final sample were divided into two groups: an introspection group (IG) (n = 15), who received an introspective writing task, and a control group (CG) (n = 14), who completed a not-introspective writing task. For both groups, the electroencephalographic and behavioural responses to images depicting eye expressions taken from the "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" Theory of Mind test were recorded pre-(T0) and post-(T1) 7 days of writing. The main result showed that only the IG presented a different P300 amplitude in response to eye expressions at T1 compared to T0 on the left centre-frontal montage. No significant results on accuracy at T1 compared to T0 were found. These findings seem to suggest that the introspective writing task modulates attention and implicit evaluation of the socio-emotional stimuli. Results are discussed with reference to the hypothesis that such neuronal modulation is linked to an increase in the embodied simulation process underlying affective empathy.

Comparison of Spatio-Temporal Models for Human Motion and Pose Forecasting in Face-to-Face Interaction Scenarios

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2022

Human behavior forecasting during human-human interactions is of utmost importance to provide robotic or virtual agents with social intelligence. This problem is especially challenging for scenarios that are highly driven by interpersonal dynamics. In this work, we present the first systematic comparison of state-of-the-art approaches for behavior forecasting. To do so, we leverage whole-body annotations (face, body, and hands) from the very recently released UDIVA v0.5, which features face-to-face dyadic interactions. Our best attention-based approaches achieve state-of-the-art performance in UDIVA v0.5. We show that by autoregressively predicting the future with methods trained for the short-term future (<400ms), we outperform the baselines even for a considerably longer-term future (up to 2s). We also show that this finding holds when highly noisy annotations are used, which opens new horizons towards the use of weakly-supervised learning. Combined with large-scale datasets, this may help boost the advances in this field.

Comparison of Spatio-Temporal Models for Human Motion and Pose Forecasting in Face-to-Face Interaction Scenarios

Preprint

Full-text available

Mar 2022

Mimetic Self-Reflexivity and Intersubjectivity in Complementary and Alternative Medicine Practices: The Mirror Neuron System in Breast Cancer Survivorship

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2021

Vinita Agarwal

This study examines complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) providers’ practices in the treatment of their breast cancer survivor (BCS) clients and interprets these practices within the context of existing neuroscientific research on the mirror neuron system (MNS). Purposive and snowball sampling was conducted to recruit CAM providers (N = 15) treating BCSs from integrative medicine centers, educational institutions, private practices, and professional medical associations across the United States. In-depth semi-structured interviewing (N = 252 single-spaced pages) and inductive qualitative content analysis reveal CAM therapeutic practices emphasize a diachronic form of mimetic self-reflexivity and a serendipitous form of mimetic intersubjectivity in BCS pain management to allow the providers to tune-in to their clients’ internal states over time and experience themselves as an embodied subject in an imaginative, shared space. By employing imagination and an intentional vulnerability in their embodied simulation of the others’ internal states, CAM providers co-create experiences of pain while recognizing what about the other remains an unknown. Although MNs provide the mechanism for imitation and simulation underlying empathy through a neuronally wired grasp of the other’s intentionality, the study suggests that examining mimetic self-reflexivity and intersubjectivity in the therapeutic space may allow for a shared simulation of participants’ subjective experiences of pain and potentially inform research on self-recognition and self-other discrimination as an index of self-awareness which implicates the MNS in embodied social cognition in imaginative ways.

On coordination in non-cooperative game theory : Explaining how and why an equilibrium occurs and prevails

Thesis

May 2021

Lauren Larrouy

Our thesis proposes to change the ontology and methodology of game theory, appraising games as the understanding of the players’ strategic reasoning process. Our contribution is based on an interdisciplinary approach for a reassessment of the kind of intersubjectivity involved in strategic reasoning. We claim that the analysis of games should involve the study and the determination of the reasoning process that lead the players to a specific outcome, i.e. to a specific solution. A game should not be understood, like in standard game theory, as a mathematical representation of an individual choice at the equilibrium. This requires investigating the players’ capacity of coordination. We assert that understanding the process of coordination allows understanding strategic reasoning and ultimately to provide new answers to the indeterminacy problem of game theory which is one of the stalemates that game theory faces and which underscores its positive and normative difficulties. The thesis is grounded on the argument that understanding the players’ reasoning process in games necessitates first and foremost to explain how the players form their beliefs regarding each other’s choices, but also each other‘s perceptions and beliefs and reasoning processes in a strategic context. One of the purposes of the thesis is to show that a psychological theory explaining the formation of players’ beliefs is required to account for coordination, and that the Theory of Mind (ToM) offers such adequate psychological framework. We suggest building an alternative theory of games based on the simulation theory as such theory of mind. We then specify an axiomatic characterization of rational choices in games in the presence of players able to simulate the reasoning of others.

Empathy Instruction Through the Propagation Paradigm: A Synthesis of Developer and Adopter Accounts

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2021

Prior research indicates that empathy can help engineers achieve better outcomes in team-based, design, entrepreneurial, and humanitarian environments. We describe an educational innovation designed to teach engineering students empathic communication skills. Written in the spirit of a propagation (versus dissemination) paradigm, we focus on how the original innovation was adapted to fit into two instructional settings that differed from the first implementation context. We use first-person instructor accounts to describe these adaptation processes, including interactions between the developers and the adopters of the innovation, what modifications were necessary to "fit" the innovation into the new settings, and adopter experiences. We conclude with a brief discussion of particularly salient propagation considerations that emerged for the two adopters including, for example, the amount of instructional time available for implementing the empathic communication exercises, and how to achieve student buy-in in different course settings. The two main contributions of this paper are, first, the rich descriptions of how features of the original educational innovation had to be modified to meet the two other settings' pedagogical goals and, second, an example of how to advance scholarship that supports the propagation of engineering education teaching and learning innovations.

Personality Neuroscience

Chapter

Full-text available

Oct 2020

Ukapi Journal Volume 14

Research

Full-text available

Jun 2018

Tree Staunton

British Journal for Integrative Psychotherapy

Towards a naturalistic science of transpersonal experience: Fractal evolution and nonlocal neurodynamics

Chapter

Full-text available

Oct 2019

Yakov Shapiro

As the sphere of knowledge expands, we face an ever increasing frontier between what is known and what is “as yet unknown” or unknowable; the more answers we get – the more questions they entail. The outer boundary of knowledge that focuses on the world around us is complemented by the elusive inner boundary of understanding the conscious mind itself. What is consciousness as distinct from physiological processes in the brain? How does our sense of “self” come to be and what happens to it after we die? Do we possess “free will” that can impact the world around us or are our choices predetermined by our biology and physical laws? The inner boundary of knowledge brings to the forefront perhaps the most fundamental question in all of science: What is it that enables the process of knowledge itself?

Aesthetically (dis)pleasing visuals: A dual pathway to empathy and prosocial behavior

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2018
INT J RES MARK

This research investigates how the combination of aesthetically appealing and unappealing visual elements in marketing communications can motivate prosocial behavior. Prior literature has investigated the effectiveness of aesthetically pleasing or displeasing visuals separately and has reported mixed results. Based on the notion that empathy is a key driver of prosocial behavior, the current work first makes a theoretical distinction between two antecedents of empathy—identification and perceived need—and then illustrates how these antecedents are evoked by pleasing and displeasing visual elements, respectively. The authors show that the combination of a pleasing individual (human or object) and a displeasing group is particularly effective in evoking identification and perceived need, and therefore empathy. The elevated empathy, in turn, motivates prosocial behavior. Five main experiments in the field, lab, and online, as well as a pre-study and two post-studies, provide supportive empirical evidence. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Weather, Climate, and Narrative: A Relational Model for Democratizing Risk Communication

Article

Jun 2018

There is growing evidence that the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events may be increasing in conjunction with climate change. This means that many communities will encounter phenomena, such as extreme storm surge events, never before experienced by local residents. The tragic effects of Typhoon Haiyan on the city of Tacloban, Philippines, in November 2013 were attributed, in part, to the inability of routine technical bulletins to communicate the unprecedented nature of the predicted storm surge. In response, the authors construct a relational model of risk communication that suggests that narrative messages that simulate direct face-to-face communication may be more effective in spurring action. Conducting a postevent target audience study in the city of Tacloban, the authors tested the relative effectiveness of narrative-based versus technical message designs on residents who chose not to evacuate during the typhoon. Results show increased effectiveness of the narrative design vis-à-vis intent to evacuate, self-relevance and vividness of the message, and perceived authority of the message source. The study also explored factors behind noncompliance with evacuation advisories. The research supports the relational model, which captures insights from recent research on evacuation and emergency preparedness for extreme hazard events. It supports a broader effort to democratize risk communication and, in so doing, increase people’s sense of agency in preparing for these events.

The Interpersonal Functions of Empathy: A Relational Perspective

Article

May 2017

Empathy is an extensively studied construct, but operationalization of effective empathy is routinely debated in popular culture, theory, and empirical research. This article offers a process-focused approach emphasizing the relational functions of empathy in interpersonal contexts. We argue that this perspective offers advantages over more traditional conceptualizations that focus on primarily intrapsychic features (i.e., within the individual). Our aim is to enrich current conceptualizations and empirical approaches to the study of empathy by drawing on psychological, philosophical, medical, linguistic, and anthropological perspectives. In doing so, we highlight the various functions of empathy in social interaction, underscore some underemphasized components in empirical studies of empathy, and make recommendations for future research on this important area in the study of emotion.

Interpersonal adaptation

Chapter

Dec 2014

Interpersonal adaptation is a fundamental and pervasive human behavior. Adaptation forms the basis of social and biological development; it enables relationship development, facilitates social influence, marks personality and cultural differences, and is critical to establishing and maintaining social organization. The term “adaptation” encompasses a variety of behaviors including mirroring, interactional synchrony, behavioral matching, convergence or divergence, accommodation, reciprocity, and compensation, all of which are distinguished and discussed in this chapter. A variety of theories and models of interpersonal adaptation are explored including biological and evolutionary models, cognitive neuroscience models, psychologically-based models, socially-based models, and three different communicative-based models including communication accommodation theory, expectancy violations theory, and interaction adaptation theory. The chapter’s goal is to illustrate the importance of interpersonal adaptation in interaction, to clarify the definitions employed to describe the various forms of adaptation, and to overview theories used to study adaptation from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The chapter highlights the importance of examining the communicative nature of adaptation in interaction.

How Social Networks Enable Adaptation to System Complexity and Extreme Weather Events

Chapter

Jan 2008

There are growing accounts of innovative, often collaborative institutional approaches to water management that seem to respond better to new challenges in supply and water quality management. While some describe these new institutional designs as a “third way”, as opposed to traditional state-centered or market-based modes, we find that the most salient features of it to characterize even those effective state or market designs. The fundamental ingredient, which is patterned relationships, is one that arises when social networks are built around the formal (state or market) institutions. The necessary plane of description is not on the dimension of structure (state, market, or otherwise) but in the nature and workings of these relational networks. We describe necessary features of these networks. We illustrate these points with a case study: the Environmental Water Account (EWA), a novel market-based program for negotiating water allocations around the San Francisco Bay-Delta (California, U.S.A.). We point out how this institution worked precisely because it was not merely a market-based program but, rather, built in features of an effective social network. In this way, we found a capacity of the EWA to adapt to the dynamic nature of water resources and needs, along with the uncertainties inherent in a complex social-ecological system.

Impact of Therapist Authentic Expression on Emotional Tolerance in Synergetic Play Therapy

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2014

To date, there is little research on therapist authentic expression with children. The closest explorations of this topic are studies conducted regarding therapist self-disclosure (Capobianco & Farber, 2005; Ginsberg, 2011). No published research has directly addressed the impact of expressing present thoughts, feelings, and body sensations in response to the child client’s stories and play. With new research on neurobiology, this article explores how therapist authentic expression in play therapy might be a helpful component in expanding the clients’ emotional windows of tolerance. Literature on pertinent aspects of self-disclosure, authenticity, and windows of tolerance is reviewed. This article introduces a study exploring the impact of therapist authentic expression on expanding a child’s emotional window of tolerance in Synergetic Play Therapy. Results indicated that there was a statistically significant increase in the percentage of emotionally tolerant behaviors in response to authentic therapist expressions from the first to third play therapy sessions. Also, the entire sample displayed full integration of emotions (100% emotionally tolerant behaviors) by their fifth session. Implications of these findings and for future research are outlined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)

Embodiment und Sense of Agency

Chapter

Oct 2024

Empathic pain: Exploring the multidimensional impacts of biological and social aspects in pain

Article

Jul 2024

A New Frame for Intersubjectivity in Game Theory: The Insights of the Theories of Mind and Simulation

Chapter

Aug 2023

Lauren Larrouy

Chapter 5 adopts a philosophy of economics approach to show the contribution of the theory of mind (ToM) to renew the intersubjective dimension in game theory assumed with common knowledge rationality. With ToM, we show in this chapter that empathy is not confined to an ethical dimension (involved in other-regarding feelings and behaviors) but is essentially linked to cognitive and epistemic dimensions of particular interest for game theory. In ToM, empathy is a mechanism of mental state attribution. ToM provides an explanation of the way players may tacitly understand each other, which explains how they form beliefs toward each other’s beliefs and actions. The type of intersubjectivity supposed in game theory through CKR, while highly problematic (see Chap. 2), is unanimously assumed. Thus, this chapter will present the type of intersubjectivity that can be offered by the epistemic side of empathy, which is called mindreading in cognitive sciences and ToM. We show that the type of intersubjectivity assumed in mindreading is compatible with a strategic form of reasoning embedded in methodological individualism (understood in a broad sense). We suggest the simulation theory within ToM as an alternative to common knowledge of Bayesian rationality.KeywordsIntersubjectivityTheory of mindSimulation theoryMindreadingMindshaping

Mimicking Tracing Actions Enhances Young Children's Mathematical Learning

Article

Nov 2022

Learning mathematical concepts and procedures typically requires extended cognitive effort, presenting a challenge for many children. People can make tracing actions with the index finger, as well as mimic another's movements, with little or no conscious effort. From the perspective of cognitive load theory, such biologically primary actions may facilitate learning biologically secondary concepts and skills requiring extensive cognitive effort, such as mathematics. The present study investigated effects on learning processes and outcomes of students mimicking a teacher's tracing actions from the perspective of an evolutionarily informed cognitive load theory. One hundred and thirteen Grade Two children learned about number lines, either observing a teacher tracing out elements of worked examples with her index finger, or mimicking the teacher's tracing actions with their own index finger. In accord with hypotheses, results indicated enhanced performance due to mimicking on cognitive load, motivation, and post‐test performance. Directions for future research are discussed. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Sharing Meanings About Embodied Meaning

Article

Jan 2008

JESSICA WAHMAN

A Controlled Adaptive Network Model for Joint Attention

Chapter

Jan 2022

Joint or shared attention is a fundamental cognitive ability, which manifests itself in shared-attention episodes where two individuals attend to the same object in the environment. Network-oriented modeling provides an explicit framework for laying out this attentional process from the perspective of the individual initiating the episode. To this end, we describe an adaptive network with two reification levels and clearly explain the role of its states. We conclude with some suggestions for extending this modeling work and thinking about the potential use-cases of more developed models.KeywordsJoint attentionNetwork modelAdaptiveSecond-order

Sharing Meanings About Embodied Meaning

Article

Jan 2008

JESSICA WAHMAN

Diminishing the Distance: Imagining Empathic Bodies in Henry James's The Beast in the Jungle

Chapter

Full-text available

Dec 2021

Andrea Talmann

A Controlled Adaptive Network Model for Joint Attention

Conference Paper

Full-text available

Nov 2021

The experience of children with a parent suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis during the COVID-19 pandemic

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2021

Children that have a parent with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) suffer from the progressive loss of their beloved ones. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the difficulties faced by these children have increased. The study aimed to detect whether there were differences between the minors experiencing a relative’s ALS and the minors with no experience of ALS and it aimed also to detect the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on these minors. The study involved Italian participants, in particular: the target group consisted of 38 children (7–18 years) (T0/T1); the control group consisted of 38 children (9–14 years) (T0 only). The following variables were measured: attachment with the Security Scale (SS), affects with the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule for Children (PANAS-C), behavioural problems with Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), death representation with Testoni Death Representation Scale for Children (TDRS-C), self-concept with the Multidimensional Self Concept Scale (MSCS), resilience and socio-emotional skills with the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA). The results showed higher negative affectivity ( p < .001), externalising behaviours ( p < .05), uncertainty in reflective function ( p < .05) in the target group compared to the control one; after the COVID-19 pandemic minors in the target group showed reduced certainty of mental states ( p < .05) and interpersonal and scholastic self-esteem ( p < .05). The impact of ALS on these minors is significant and produces negative affect, externalizing behaviours and uncertainty of mental states. The lockdown situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic has further aggravated minors in their school and interpersonal self-esteem.

Diminishing the Distance: Imagining Empathic Bodies in Henry James's The Beast in the Jungle

Chapter

Full-text available

Jun 2021

Andrea Talmann

Körper, Technik und Imagination stehen in einem konstruktiven Zusammenspiel. Besonders deutlich wird dieses komplexe Geflecht beim Erfinden neuer Techniken, die Praktiken ermöglichen, die zuvor nur imaginiert oder geträumt wurden. Die Beiträger*innen des Bandes untersuchen sowohl rekursive Prozesse zwischen Körper- und Imaginationstechniken als auch die Rolle von körperlichen und imaginativen Tätigkeiten beim Erfinden, Schöpfen und Machen. Die interdisziplinären Perspektiven aus Philosophie, Medien-, Kultur- und Literaturwissenschaft tragen dazu bei, den Begriff der Imaginationstechniken im Verhältnis zu Marcel Mauss' Konzept der Körpertechniken fassbar zu machen.

The Psychoanalysis of the Absurd: Existentialism and Phenomenology in Contemporary Psychoanalysis

Book

Aug 2020

Mark Leffert

Happiness, Well-being and Sustainability: A Course in Systems Change

Book

Full-text available

May 2020

I Remember How We All Felt: Perceived Emotional Synchrony through Tourist Memory Sharing

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2019
J Trav Res

Emma H. Wood

Durkheim’s theory of collective emotion and the concept of perceived emotional synchrony are used to explore tourism memories and to create a conceptual model explaining how and why we come to agree on how we felt when reliving past tourism experiences. This process is dependent on the malleability of memory, which allows emotional synchrony to happen in retrospect, regardless of actual feelings at the time. I argue that the innate motivations behind this post-consumption merging are a stronger sense of community and of belonging to a social group. For tourism practitioners, this highlights where the true value lies for the consumer, the belief in a shared emotional experience. This value develops through the synchronization of memories creating the basis for a shared memory economy. The implications for tourism marketers are discussed, and suggestions for further research into memory and travel experience are identified.

Neuropsychological Assessment and Intervention for Childhood and Adolescent Disorders

Article

Jan 2012

Embodiment und Sense of Agency

Chapter

Oct 2017

Embodiment (embodied cognition) zufolge werden körperliche Signale, innere Zustände und Handlungen als bedeutsame Bestandteile kognitiver Prozesse betrachtet. Im vorliegenden Kapitel werden vier Bereiche der Handlungsforschung dargestellt, die mit Embodiment in Verbindung gebracht werden: Handlungsvorstellungen, Handlungsbeobachtung, Sense of Agency und handlungsbezogene Sprache. Insgesamt sprechen die Befunde eher für eine schwache Form von Embodiment (der Körper und Handlungen informieren kognitive Prozesse und schränken diese ein) als für eine radikale Form von Embodiment (der Körper und Handlungen sind obligatorisch für kognitive Prozesse). Schlüsselwörter: Embodiment; Handlungsvorstellung; Handlungsbeobachtung; Sense of Agency; Handlungsbezogene Sprache

Light Perfume: Designing a Wearable Lighting and Olfactory Accessory for Empathic Interactions

Chapter

Jan 2012
Lect Notes Comput Sci

In this paper we present Light Perfume, a wearable system that helps the users and their communication partner to mirror their nonverbal communication cues together using factors such as speed of blinking and color in lights and subtle perfume emission from a wearable accessory during a face-to-face conversation. This is based on the concept of mirroring, whereby each user is stimulated with the same visual and olfactory outputs to strengthen a user’s psychological bond with the partner using the accessory. We initially explain the motivation and design of the prototype for the Light Perfume system. We evaluate the system using a semantic differential method and show how the system can be used to affect the impression formed of the user by others and explore the potential usage of the entertainment accessory.

Multisensory fashion communication media towards impression management

Article

Jan 2015

This paper shows the design of two fashion accessories, sound perfume and light perfume that we created to see whether multisensory stimulations can manage users impressions formed about themselves by their partner during face-to-face conversations. Each system targets a different function of impression management. Sound perfume uses auditory and olfactory stimulations along with the eye contact interaction technique to focus on the presentational aspect of impression management. Light perfume uses visual and olfactory stimulations along with the mirroring interaction technique for the affect function of impression management. We also show the results of a preliminary study to test whether the systems worked as designed.

The Therapeutic Situation in the 21st Century

Article

Nov 2012

Mark Leffert

Extending the themes of Contemporary Psychoanalytic Foundations, The Therapeutic Situation in the 21st Century is a systematic reformulation of fundamental psychoanalytic concepts, such as transference, therapeutic action, and the uses of psychotropic drugs, in the light of recent developments in postmodernism, complexity theory, and neuroscience. Leffert offers formulations of areas not previously considered in any depth by psychoanalysts, such as power relations in the analytic couple, social matrix theory, and narrative theory informed by considerations of archaeology, genealogy, complexity, memory, and recall. He also considers new areas, such as the role of uncertainty and love in the therapeutic situation. This book is part of an ongoing effort to place psychoanalysis in the current century, and looks to outside as well as inside areas of thought to inform how we work and how we think about our work.

The Self Under Siege: A Therapeutic Model for Differentiation

Article

Sep 2012

An important addition to the area of personality development theory, The Self under Siege offers a new perspective on differentiation and the battle to separate ourselves from the chains of the past. It provides psychotherapists and other mental health professionals with the tools needed to help clients differentiate from the dysfunctional attitudes and toxic personality traits of their parents, other family members, and harmful societal influences that have unconsciously dominated their lives. This book will have a special appeal to clients and, in fact, to any person interested in his/her own personal development.

Neuropsychological Assessment and Intervention for Childhood and Adolescent Disorders

Article

Jan 2012

A compelling and compassionate case study approach to a broad range of neuropsychological disorders. Neuropsychological Assessment and Intervention for Childhood and Adolescent Disorders focuses on the neuropsychological assessment and evidence-based practices available for assessing and treating children living with the etiological and neurological components of various disorders. Each chapter provides one or more case studies along with helpful background information, assessment results, and recommendations based on assessment data. Bridging science and practice, the book reviews the scientific literature, research on clinical implications, and evidence-based treatment of such disorders as: Dyslexia and Dyscalculia. Specific Language Impairment/Dysphasia. Autism Spectrum Disorders. Attention- Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Tourette Syndrome. Traumatic Brain Injury. Childhood Cancer. Epilepsy. Cerebrovascular Disease. Low Birth Weight. Environmental Toxin Exposure. Neurotoxins, Pregnancy, and Subsequent Disorders. Chromosomal Anomalies. Neurocutaneous Disorders. Metabolic Disorders. Each case study complements the content of each chapter by illustrating how the assessment process can inform intervention efforts for children. In addition, the cases humanize the effects of various disorders and demonstrate the usefulness of neuropsychological information in treatment and intervention planning, especially within children's educational and social contexts.

The Nature of Early Memory: An Adaptive Theory of the Genesis and Development of Memory

Article

Apr 2011

Mark L. Howe

This book presents an exegesis of research and theory concerning the emergence and development of declarative, long-term memory from birth through early adolescence. The book also contains a presentation of a theory that memory is an adaptive mechanism that is used to guide the development and survival of the organism in an initially novel, yet changing environment. The book is divided into four parts. The first part discusses why memory development is important; the second discusses infantile amnesia and autobiographical memory; the third explores a series of key factors that have an impact on early memory development-distinctiveness, emotion, stress, and early memory; and finally, the fourth part gives a detailed presentation of the theory of memory as an adaptation, and applies results to real-world problems. In addition to reviewing the basic-science research on both humans and nonhuman animals, the book is devotes a large portion to clinical and forensic topics, including examining the roles of stress and trauma in memory development, the development of false recollection, memory for traumatic experiences, the effects of depression, PTSD, and dissociation on early memory development, and nonhuman animal research on the nature of infantile amnesia.

The creative psychosocial genomics of human resilience and resourcefulness

Chapter

Dec 2011

This chapter introduces a new psychosocial genomics perspective for facilitating human resilience and resourcefulness on all levels from mind to gene. We view human resilience and resourcefulness as a Darwinian evolutionary adaptive response to novel environmental challenges that heighten consciousness and creativity for coping with transformative life situations. When acute trauma (physical accidents, war, etc.) or chronic stress (overwork, illness etc) disrupt communication between mind, body, gene, and environment, however, we fall into physical and emotional crisis (post-traumatic stress disorders). We document how our new Creative Psychosocial Genomic Healing Experience reduces (1) dysfunctional inflammation (associated with chronic pain and delayed healing) and (2) oxidative stress (associated with many chronic medical conditions and the ageing process) as well as (3) increasing a "molecular-genomic signature of stem cells" (activation of stem cells associated with healing and the rehabilitation and in many tissues of the body) as the deep psychobiological source of human resilience and resourcefulness. We propose that art, beauty, and truth activate experience-dependent gene expression and brain plasticity in a new theory of aesthetics, dialectics, empathy, and meaning. We illustrate how to facilitate experience-dependent gene expression and brain plasticity to optimize resilience and resourcefulness in the here and now creative moments of our creative psychosocial genomic approach to mind-body therapy.

Light Perfume: A Fashion Accessory for Synchronization of Nonverbal Communication

Article

Oct 2013
Leonardo

People mirror each other's body language as a way of bonding, seeking acceptance and creating rapport. Light Perfume is an interactive wearable system designed in the shape of a bangle that helps the wearer mirror their partner through lighting and olfactory cues. During a conversation, the Light Perfume system on each person's wrist uses multiple inputs from the surrounding environment to generate a synchronized output expression. This consists of a color and blinking frequency of light along with a perfume fragrance that is stimulated simultaneously from each system. The Light Perfume system was designed to foster social interactions and make people feel more empathy towards each other.

PROSOZIALE EMOTIONEN UND INTERKULTURELLES HELFEN

Article

Dissertation

Embodied Simulation, Mirror Neurons, and the Reenactment of Trauma in Early Childhood

Article

Jan 2014

Theodore J Gaensbauer

The question of why children would repeatedly replicate painful, frightening events in their behavior or play, often in very destructive ways, has long challenged clinicians and researchers alike. The recent identification of “mirror neurons” in the premotor cortex of macaque monkeys and the ongoing elucidation of their role in facilitating empathic resonance with, and imitation of, the observed actions of others in both monkeys and humans have opened up new perspectives on this question. Initially, an overview of posttraumatic reenactment behaviors as they are manifested in young children is presented, highlighting important developmental and therapeutic issues that such behavior raises. Next, recent research on embodiment, early imitation, and mirror neuron functioning is reviewed, with an emphasis on those aspects most relevant to the clinical manifestations of early trauma. The significance of this recent research for furthering our understanding of the mechanisms underlying posttraumatic reenactment is outlined. In addition, some of the implications of this research for our understanding of the nature of early traumatic memories, the availability of such memories for conscious processing, and the role of such memories in the reenactment of preverbal trauma are described. Finally, the clinical implications of this work for the fashioning of effective therapeutic interventions is discussed.

The Clinician as Neuroarchitect: The Importance of Mindfulness and Presence in Clinical Practice

Article

Sep 2014

Interpersonal neurobiology provides a framework from which to examine the incorporation of mindsight and mindfulness into clinical practice, employing the brain's capacity for neuroplasticity to move oneself and one's clients toward greater well-being. Through the lens of interpersonal neurobiology, this article will examine the benefits of mindfulness for clinicians, clients, and the therapeutic relationship. Lasting changes associated with mindfulness practices, including the hypothesized potential to alter one's previously insecure attachment patterns, will also be discussed. An explanation of how to cultivate mindfulness by starting with presence and sustaining the practice with compassion will then be presented. Finally, practices that cultivate growth within the therapist-client relationship will be explained, along with clinical applications and recent research demonstrating the neural correlates of these practices and how they are effective at the level of the brain itself.

Practical Applications of Mind-Body Phenomena: The Modulation of Motor Performance by Action Visualization

Article

Aug 2010

PSICOTERAPIA, LA HIPNOSIS TERAPÉUTICA Y LA REHABILITACIÓN: UN DIÁLOGO CREATIVO CON NUESTROS GENES

Article

Full-text available

Ernest Rossi

Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach

Article

Full-text available

Jan 1983

Mark H. Davis

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).

Imitation, mirror neurons and autism

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2001
NEUROSCI BIOBEHAV R

Various deficits in the cognitive functioning of people with autism have been documented in recent years but these provide only partial explanations for the condition. We focus instead on an imitative disturbance involving difficulties both in copying actions and in inhibiting more stereotyped mimicking, such as echolalia. A candidate for the neural basis of this disturbance may be found in a recently discovered class of neurons in frontal cortex, 'mirror neurons' (MNs). These neurons show activity in relation both to specific actions performed by self and matching actions performed by others, providing a potential bridge between minds. MN systems exist in primates without imitative and ‘theory of mind’ abilities and we suggest that in order for them to have become utilized to perform social cognitive functions, sophisticated cortical neuronal systems have evolved in which MNs function as key elements. Early developmental failures of MN systems are likely to result in a consequent cascade of developmental impairments characterised by the clinical syndrome of autism.

Circuitry and functional aspects of the insular lobe in primates including humans

Article

Full-text available

Nov 1996

James R Augustine

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.

The chameleon effect: The perception-behavior link and social interaction. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 76(6): 893-910

Article

Full-text available

Jun 1999

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.

Neurophysiological Investigation of the Basis of the fMRI Signal

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2001

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is widely used to study the operational organization of the human brain, but the exact relationship between the measured fMRI signal and the underlying neural activity is unclear. Here we present simultaneous intracortical recordings of neural signals and fMRI responses. We compared local field potentials (LFPs), single- and multi-unit spiking activity with highly spatio-temporally resolved blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI responses from the visual cortex of monkeys. The largest magnitude changes were observed in LFPs, which at recording sites characterized by transient responses were the only signal that significantly correlated with the haemodynamic response. Linear systems analysis on a trial-by-trial basis showed that the impulse response of the neurovascular system is both animal- and site-specific, and that LFPs yield a better estimate of BOLD responses than the multi-unit responses. These findings suggest that the BOLD contrast mechanism reflects the input and intracortical processing of a given area rather than its spiking output.

Hearing Sounds, Understanding Actions: Action Representation in Mirror Neurons

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2002
SCIENCE

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.

Neural Mechanisms of Empathy in Humans: A Relay from Neural Systems for Imitation to Limbic Areas

Article

Full-text available

May 2003

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.

Grasping the Intentions of Others with One's Own Mirror Neuron System

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2005
PLOS BIOL

Understanding the intentions of others while watching their actions is a fundamental building block of social behavior. The neural and functional mechanisms underlying this ability are still poorly understood. To investigate these mechanisms we used functional magnetic resonance imaging. Twenty-three subjects watched three kinds of stimuli: grasping hand actions without a context, context only (scenes containing objects), and grasping hand actions performed in two different contexts. In the latter condition the context suggested the intention associated with the grasping action (either drinking or cleaning). Actions embedded in contexts, compared with the other two conditions, yielded a significant signal increase in the posterior part of the inferior frontal gyrus and the adjacent sector of the ventral premotor cortex where hand actions are represented. Thus, premotor mirror neuron areas-areas active during the execution and the observation of an action-previously thought to be involved only in action recognition are actually also involved in understanding the intentions of others. To ascribe an intention is to infer a forthcoming new goal, and this is an operation that the motor system does automatically.

Parietal Lobe: From Action Organization to Intention Understanding

Article

Full-text available

May 2005
SCIENCE

Inferior parietal lobule (IPL) neurons were studied when monkeys performed motor acts embedded in different actions and when they observed similar acts done by an experimenter. Most motor IPL neurons coding a specific act (e.g., grasping) showed markedly different activations when this act was part of different actions (e.g., for eating or for placing). Many motor IPL neurons also discharged during the observation of acts done by others. Most responded differentially when the same observed act was embedded in a specific action. These neurons fired during the observation of an act, before the beginning of the subsequent acts specifying the action. Thus, these neurons not only code the observed motor act but also allow the observer to understand the agent's intentions.

EEG Evidence for Mirror Neuron Dysfunction in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2005
Cognit Brain Res

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are largely characterized by deficits in imitation, pragmatic language, theory of mind, and empathy. Previous research has suggested that a dysfunctional mirror neuron system may explain the pathology observed in ASD. Because EEG oscillations in the mu frequency (8-13 Hz) over sensorimotor cortex are thought to reflect mirror neuron activity, one method for testing the integrity of this system is to measure mu responsiveness to actual and observed movement. It has been established that mu power is reduced (mu suppression) in typically developing individuals both when they perform actions and when they observe others performing actions, reflecting an observation/execution system which may play a critical role in the ability to understand and imitate others' behaviors. This study investigated whether individuals with ASD show a dysfunction in this system, given their behavioral impairments in understanding and responding appropriately to others' behaviors. Mu wave suppression was measured in ten high-functioning individuals with ASD and ten age- and gender-matched control subjects while watching videos of (1) a moving hand, (2) a bouncing ball, and (3) visual noise, or (4) moving their own hand. Control subjects showed significant mu suppression to both self and observed hand movement. The ASD group showed significant mu suppression to self-performed hand movements but not to observed hand movements. These results support the hypothesis of a dysfunctional mirror neuron system in high-functioning individuals with ASD.

Anatomical Differences in the Mirror Neuron System and Social Cognition Network in Autism

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2006

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder associated with impaired social and emotional skills, the anatomical substrate of which is still unknown. In this study, we compared a group of 14 high-functioning ASD adults with a group of controls matched for sex, age, intelligence quotient, and handedness. We used an automated technique of analysis that accurately measures the thickness of the cerebral cortex and generates cross-subject statistics in a coordinate system based on cortical anatomy. We found local decreases of gray matter in the ASD group in areas belonging to the mirror neuron system (MNS), argued to be the basis of empathic behavior. Cortical thinning of the MNS was correlated with ASD symptom severity. Cortical thinning was also observed in areas involved in emotion recognition and social cognition. These findings suggest that the social and emotional deficits characteristic of autism may reflect abnormal thinning of the MNS and the broader network of cortical areas subserving social cognition.

Understanding Emotions in Others: Mirror Neuron Dysfunction in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2006

To examine mirror neuron abnormalities in autism, high-functioning children with autism and matched controls underwent fMRI while imitating and observing emotional expressions. Although both groups performed the tasks equally well, children with autism showed no mirror neuron activity in the inferior frontal gyrus (pars opercularis). Notably, activity in this area was inversely related to symptom severity in the social domain, suggesting that a dysfunctional 'mirror neuron system' may underlie the social deficits observed in autism.

Empathy and the Somatotopic Auditory Mirror System in Humans

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2006
CURR BIOL

How do we understand the actions of other individuals if we can only hear them? Auditory mirror neurons respond both while monkeys perform hand or mouth actions and while they listen to sounds of similar actions . This system might be critical for auditory action understanding and language evolution . Preliminary evidence suggests that a similar system may exist in humans . Using fMRI, we searched for brain areas that respond both during motor execution and when individuals listened to the sound of an action made by the same effector. We show that a left hemispheric temporo-parieto-premotor circuit is activated in both cases, providing evidence for a human auditory mirror system. In the left premotor cortex, a somatotopic pattern of activation was also observed: A dorsal cluster was more involved during listening and execution of hand actions, and a ventral cluster was more involved during listening and execution of mouth actions. Most of this system appears to be multimodal because it also responds to the sight of similar actions. Finally, individuals who scored higher on an empathy scale activated this system more strongly, adding evidence for a possible link between the motor mirror system and empathy.

Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for multidimensional approach.

Article

Jan 1983

Mark H. Davis

To facilitate a multidimensional approach to empathy the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) includes 4 subscales: Perspective-Taking (PT) Fantasy (FS) Empathic Concern (EC) and Personal Distress (PD). The aim of the present study was to establish the convergent and discriminant validity of these 4 subscales. Hypothesized relationships among the IRI subscales between the subscales and measures of other psychological constructs (social functioning self-esteem emotionality and sensitivity to others) and between the subscales and extant empathy measures were examined. Study subjects included 677 male and 667 female students enrolled in undergraduate psychology classes at the University of Texas. The IRI scales not only exhibited the predicted relationships among themselves but also were related in the expected manner to other measures. Higher PT scores were consistently associated with better social functioning and higher self-esteem; in contrast Fantasy scores were unrelated to these 2 characteristics. High EC scores were positively associated with shyness and anxiety but negatively linked to egotism. The most substantial relationships in the study involved the PD scale. PD scores were strongly linked with low self-esteem and poor interpersonal functioning as well as a constellation of vulnerability uncertainty and fearfulness. These findings support a multidimensional approach to empathy by providing evidence that the 4 qualities tapped by the IRI are indeed separate constructs each related in specific ways to other psychological measures.

Action recognition in the premotor cortex

Article

Apr 1996

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: The Perception-Behavior Link and Social Interaction

Article

Jun 1999

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.

The Primacy of Perception: And Other Essays on Phenomenological Psychology, the Philosophy of Art, History and Politics.

Article

Jan 1967

The Primacy of Perception brings together a number of important studies by Maurice Merleau-Ponty that appeared in various publications from 1947 to 1961. The title essay, which is in essence a presentation of the underlying thesis of his Phenomenology of Perception, is followed by two courses given by Merleau-Ponty at the Sorbonne on phenomenological psychology. "Eye and Mind" and the concluding chapters present applications of Merleau-Ponty's ideas to the realms of art, philosophy of history, and politics. Taken together, the studies in this volume provide a systematic introduction to the major themes of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy.

Impaired recognition and experience of disgust following brain injury

Article

Nov 2000

Huntington's disease can particularly affect people's recognition of disgust from facial expressions1, 2, and functional neuroimaging research has demonstrated that facial expressions of disgust consistently engage different brain areas (insula and putamen) than other facial expressions3, 4, 5. However, it is not known whether these particular brain areas process only facial signals of disgust or disgust signals from multiple modalities. Here we describe evidence, from a patient with insula and putamen damage, for a neural system for recognizing social signals of disgust from multiple modalities.

Getting a grip on other minds: Mirror neurons, intention understanding, and cognitive empathy

Article

Sep 2006
SOC NEUROSCI-UK

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.

Cortical Mechanisms of Human Imitation

Article

Dec 1999

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.

The Imitative Mind: Development, Evolution, and Brain Bases

Article

Apr 2002

Part I. Introduction and Overview: 1. An interdisciplinary introduction to the imitative mind and brain Wolfgang Prinz and Andrew N. Meltzoff Part II. Developmental and Evolutionary Approaches to Imitation: 2. Building blocks for a developmental theory of imitation Andrew N. Meltzoff 3. Imitation and imitation recognition: functional use in preverbal infants and nonverbal children with autism Jacqueline Nadel 4. Self-awareness, other-awareness, and secondary representation Jens B. Asendorpf 5. Notes on individual differences and the assumed elusiveness of neonatal imitation Mikael Heimann 6. Ego function of early imitation Philippe Rochat 7. The imitator's representation of the imitated: ape and child A. Whiten 8. Seeing actions as hierarchically organised structures: great ape manual skills Richard W. Byrne Part III. Cognitive Approaches to Imitation, Body Scheme, and Perception-action Coding: 9. Experimental approaches to imitation Wolfgang Prinz 10. Imitation: common mechanisms in the observation and execution of finger and mouth movements Harold Bekkering 11. Goal-directed imitation Merideth Gattis, Harold Bekkering and Andreas Wolschlager 12. Visuomotor couplings in object-orientated and imitative actions Stefan Vogt 13. On bodies and events Barbara Tversky, Julie Bauer Morrison and Jeff Zacks 14. What is the body schema? Catherine L. Reed Part IV. Neuroscience Underpinnings of Imitation and Apraxia: 15. From mirror neurons to imitation: facts and speculations Giacomo Rizzolatti, Luciano Fadiga, Leonardo Fogassi and Vittorio Gallese 16. Cell populations in the banks of the superior temporal sulcus of the macaque and imitation T. Jellema, C. I. Baker, M. W. Oram and D. I. Perrett 17. Is there such a thing as a functional equivalence between imagined, observed, and executed action? Jean Decety 18. The role of imitation in body ownership and mental growth Marcel Kinsbourne 19. Imitation, apraxia, and hemisphere dominance Georg Goldenberg and Joachim Hermsdorfer.

Functional organization of inferior area 6 in the macaque monkey. II. Area F5 and the control of distal movements

Article

Feb 1988

The functional properties of neurons located in the rostral part of inferior area 6 were studied in awake, partially restrained macaque monkeys. The most interesting property of these neurons was that their firing correlated with specific goal-related motor acts rather than with single movements made by the animal. Using the motor acts as the classification criterion we subdivided the neurons into six classes, four related to distal motor acts and two related to proximal motor acts. The distal classes are: "Grasping-with-the-hand-and-the-mouth neurons", "Grasping-with-the-hand neurons", "Holding neurons" and "Tearing neurons". The proximal classes are: "Reaching neurons" and "Bringing-to-the-mouth-or-to-the-body neurons". The vast majority of the cells belonged to the distal classes. A particularly interesting aspect of distal class neurons was that the discharge of many of them depended on the way in which the hand was shaped during the motor act. Three main groups of neurons were distinguished: "Precision grip neurons", "Finger prehension neurons", "Whole hand prehension neurons". Almost the totality of neurons fired during motor acts performed with either hand. About 50% of the recorded neurons responded to somatosensory stimuli and about 20% to visual stimuli. Visual neurons were more difficult to trigger than the corresponding neurons located in the caudal part of inferior area 6 (area F4). They required motivationally meaningful stimuli and for some of them the size of the stimulus was also critical. In the case of distal neurons there was a relationship between the type of prehension coded by the cells and the size of the stimulus effective in triggering the neurons. It is proposed that the different classes of neurons form a vocabulary of motor acts and that this vocabulary can be assessed by somatosensory and visual stimuli.

Gallese, V., Fadiga, L., Fogassi, L. & Rizzolatti, G. Action recognition in the premotor cortex. Brain 119, 593-609

Article

May 1996

Language Within Our Grasp

Article

Jun 1998
TRENDS NEUROSCI

In monkeys, the rostral part of ventral premotor cortex (area F5) contains neurons that discharge, both when the monkey grasps or manipulates objects and when it observes the experimenter making similar actions. These neurons (mirror neurons) appear to represent a system that matches observed events to similar, internally generated actions, and in this way forms a link between the observer and the actor. Transcranial magnetic stimulation and positron emission tomography (PET) experiments suggest that a mirror system for gesture recognition also exists in humans and includes Broca's area. We propose here that such an observation/execution matching system provides a necessary bridge from'doing' to'communicating',as the link between actor and observer becomes a link between the sender and the receiver of each message.

The Cortical Motor System

Article

Oct 2001
NEURON

The cortical motor system of primates is formed by a mosaic of anatomically and functionally distinct areas. These areas are not only involved in motor functions, but also play a role in functions formerly attributed to higher order associative cortical areas. In the present review, we discuss three types of higher functions carried out by the motor cortical areas: sensory-motor transformations, action understanding, and decision processing regarding action execution. We submit that generating internal representations of actions is central to cortical motor function. External contingencies and motivational factors determine then whether these action representations are transformed into actual actions.

The essential role of Broca's area in imitation

Article

Apr 2003

The posterior sector of Broca's area (Brodmann area 44), a brain region critical for language, may have evolved from neurons active during observation and execution of manual movements. Imaging studies showing increased Broca's activity during execution, imagination, imitation and observation of hand movements support this hypothesis. Increased Broca's activity in motor task, however, may simply be due to inner speech. To test whether Broca's area is essential to imitation, we used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), which is known to transiently disrupt functions in stimulated areas. Subjects imitated finger key presses (imitation) or executed finger key presses in response to spatial cues (control task). While performing the tasks, subjects received rTMS over the left and right pars opercularis of the inferior frontal gyrus (where Brodmann area 44 is probabilistically located) and over the occipital cortex. There was significant impairment in imitation, but not in the control task, during rTMS over left and right pars opercularis compared to rTMS over the occipital cortex. This suggests that Broca's area is a premotor region essential to finger movement imitation.

Abnormal Imitation-Related Cortical Activation Sequences in Asperger's Syndrome

Article

Apr 2004

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.

Impaired motor facilitation during action observation in individuals with autism spectrum disorder

Article

Mar 2005
CURR BIOL

It has been suggested that social impairments observed in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be partly explained by an abnormal mirror neuron system (MNS) [1,2]. Studies on monkeys have shown that mirror neurons are cells in premotor area F5 that discharge when a monkey executes or sees a specific action or when it hears the corresponding action-related sound [3–5]. Evidence for the presence of a MNS in humans comes in part from studies using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), where a change in the amplitude of the TMS-induced motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) during action observation has been demonstrated [6–9]. These data suggest that actions are understood when the representation of that action is mapped onto the observer's own motor structures [10]. To determine if the neural mechanism matching action observation and execution is anomalous in individuals with ASD, TMS was applied over the primary motor cortex (M1) during observation of intransitive, meaningless finger movements. We show that overall modulation of M1 excitability during action observation is significantly lower in individuals with ASD compared with matched controls. In addition, we find that basic motor cortex abnormalities do not underlie this impairment.

Neural mechanisms of imitation and ‘mirror neuron’ functioning in autistic spectrum disorder

Article

Feb 2006
NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA

An association between autistic spectrum disorder and imitative impairment might result from dysfunction in mirror neurons (MNs) that serve to relate observed actions to motor codings. To explore this hypothesis, we employed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) protocol previously used to identify the neural substrate of imitation, and human MN function, to compare 16 adolescent males of normal intelligence with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) and age, sex and IQ matched controls. In the control group, in accord with previous findings, we identified activity attributable to MNs in areas of the right parietal lobe. Activity in this area was less extensive in the ASD group and was absent during non-imitative action execution. Broca's area was minimally active during imitation in controls. Differential patterns of activity during imitation and action observation in ASD and controls were most evident in an area at the right temporo-parietal junction also associated with a 'theory of mind' (ToM) function. ASD participants also failed to show modulation of left amygdala activity during imitation that was evident in the controls. This may have implications for understanding the imitation of emotional stimuli in ASD. Overall, we suggest that ASD is associated with altered patterns of brain activity during imitation, which could stem from poor integration between areas serving visual, motor, proprioceptive and emotional functions. Such poor integration is likely to adversely affect the development of ToM through imitation as well as other aspects of social cognitive function in ASD.

Perspective on Imitation: From Neuroscience to Social Science