Empathy and ability modulate neural activation during facial imitation

Abstract

We would like to thank Rebecca Dyas, the radiographers and our other colleagues. Thanks also go to the Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces Lab for allowing us to use their stimuli for manipulation, and of course to the participants. Project is part of a PhD funded by SINAPSE and Northwood Trust. Baron-Cohen, S. & Wheelwright, S. (2004). The empathy quotient: An investigation of adults with Asperger syndrome or high functioning autism, and normal sex differences. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 34(2):163-175. Decety, J. (2011). Dissecting the neural mechanisms mediating empathy. Emotion Review 3(1):92-108. Williams, J.H.G., Nicolson, A.T.A., Clephan, K.J., de Grauw, H. & Perrett, D.I. (2013). A novel method testing the ability to imitate composite emotional expressions reveals an association with empathy. PLoS ONE 8(4): e61941, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0061941  Social communication depends upon learning culturally appropriate facial expressions of emotion.  This requires imitation and high levels of control as subtle differences may be meaningful.  The ability to imitate accurately correlated with a self-reported empathy measure (Williams et al., 2013), suggesting that both require a simulation theory of mind (Decety, 2011). Our aim was to identify the neural substrates mediating the relationship between Imitation Accuracy and Empathy.