How mimicry influences the neural correlates of reward: an fMRI study.

Neuropsychologia. 2017 Aug 17;:

Authors: Hsu CT, Sims T, Chakrabarti B

Abstract
Mimicry has been suggested to function as a "social glue", a key mechanism that helps to build social rapport. It leads to increased feeling of closeness toward the mimicker as well as greater liking, suggesting close bidirectional links with reward. In recent work using eye-gaze tracking, we have demonstrated that the reward value of being mimicked, measured using a preferential looking paradigm, is directly proportional to trait empathy (Neufeld & Chakrabarti, 2016). In the current manuscript, we investigated the reward value of the act of mimicking, using a simple task manipulation that involved allowing or inhibiting spontaneous facial mimicry in response to dynamic expressions of positive emotion. We found greater reward-related neural activity in response to the condition where mimicry was allowed compared to that where mimicry was inhibited. The magnitude of this mimicry to reward response link was positively correlated to trait empathy.

PMID: 28823750 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]