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.

An investigation of auditory contagious yawning

“…Indeed, a Pearson correlation analysis of each participants' yawn susceptibility measure (see the Method section) and empathy measure (i.e., their score on the Empathy Quotient scale) confirmed this hypothesis, revealing a modest, but significant, positive correlation (Pearson correlation, r .57; p .05, one-tailed; n 10). Similar findings have been reported with respect to more empathic people producing greater activation in putative MN areas Kaplan & Iacoboni, 2006;Pfeifer et al, 2008). Accordingly, we also carried out correlation analyses between empathy scores and the peak activity in the right pIFG (i.e., 10 sec after sound onset; see Figure 2) as it pertained to Y3, B3, and X3.…”

“…Our findings show a positive correlation between a person's susceptibility to contagious yawning and how empathic they are. Furthermore, individuals who were more empathic showed greater right pIFG activations to contagious yawn sounds, consistent with the idea that the MN system is central to social cognition Kaplan & Iacoboni, 2006;Pfeifer et al, 2008). Lastly, akin to the fact that MNs are suspected only in certain populations (e.g., primates; Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004), it is interesting that contagious yawning has been documented in only humans, primes representing actions are presented to an observer (Galati et al, 2008).…”

“…Finally, given reports of links between empathy and contagious yawning (Platek et al, 2003;Platek et al, 2005), as well as more empathic individuals showing greater hemodynamic activity in putative MN areas Kaplan & Iacoboni, 2006;Pfeifer, Iacoboni, Mazziotta, & Dapretto, 2008), one-tailed Pearson correlation analyses were carried out. Correlations between empathy level and susceptibility to contagious yawning were conducted by using each participant's empathy level (determined by using the Empathy Quotient scale; Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004) and yawn susceptibility (determined by calculating, for each participant, the difference between their mean urge-to-yawn rating of all yawn sounds and their mean urge-to-yawn rating of all control sounds).…”

Self–other relations in social development and autism: multiple roles for mirror neurons and other brain bases

“…Thus, they suggest that this area could be hypermasculinized in autism. Most recently, Pfeifer, Iacoboni, Mazziotta, & Dapretto [2008] have also shown a close relationship between activity in Broca's area during observation and imitation of emotional expression, and measures of empathic ability in children.…”

Enhanced corticospinal response to observed pain in pain synesthetes

“…Support for mirror system involvement in empathy has come from several studies demonstrating a relationship between mirror system activation and self-reported empathy (Gazzola, Aziz-Zadeh, & Keysers, 2006;Kaplan & Iacoboni, 2006;Lepage et al, 2010;Pfeifer, Iacoboni, Mazziotta, & Dapretto, 2008). In one study, participants who scored higher on a measure of empathy showed greater activation in a left-hemispheric temporo-parieto-premotor circuit active during both the execution of an action and when listening to the sound of the same action (Gazzola et al, 2006).…”