Increased medial prefrontal cortex and decreased zygomaticus activation in response to disliked smiles suggest top-down inhibition of facial mimicry

Autor(en)

Sebastian Korb, Robin Goldman, Richard Davidson, Paula Niedenthal

Abstrakt

Spontaneous facial mimicry is modulated by many factors, and often needs to be suppressed to comply with social norms. The neural basis for the inhibition of facial mimicry was investigated in a combined functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electromyography (EMG) study in 39 healthy participants. In an operant conditioning paradigm, face identities were associated with reward or punishment and were later shown expressing dynamic smiles and anger expressions. Face identities previously associated with punishment, compared to reward, were disliked by participants overall, and their smiles generated less mimicry. Consistent with previous research on the inhibition of finger/hand movements, the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) was activated when previous conditioning was incongruent with the valence of the expression. On such trials there was also greater functional connectivity of the mPFC with insula and premotor cortex as tested with psychophysiological interaction (PPI), suggesting inhibition of areas associated with the production of facial mimicry and the processing of facial feedback. The findings suggest that the mPFC supports the inhibition of facial mimicry, and support the claim of theories of embodied cognition that facial mimicry constitutes a spontaneous low-level motor imitation.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Psychologie der Kognition, Emotion und Methoden, Institut für Klinische und Gesundheitspsychologie

Externe Organisation(en)

University of Wisconsin, Madison

Journal

Frontiers in Psychology

Band

10

Anzahl der Seiten

11

ISSN

1664-1078

DOI

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01715

Publikationsdatum

07-2019

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

501006 Experimentalpsychologie

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Psychology(all)

Link zum Portal

https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/increased-medial-prefrontal-cortex-and-decreased-zygomaticus-activation-in-response-to-disliked-smiles-suggest-topdown-inhibition-of-facial-mimicry(68583055-3550-4a22-bfec-aa7f27594a4c).html