The Well-Tempered Social Brain
Abstract
taking scores for women were significantly higher than those for men (p < .01), the scores were divided based on gender. We defined low and high perspective taking as more than 1.5 standard deviations lower or higher than the average score, respectively. A total of 42 participants, 14 each (7 female, 7 male) with low, av- erage, and high perspective-taking scores, participated in the experiment. During the fMRI experiment, participants viewed, imitated, and produced social facial expressions or nonsocial facial movements. Social facial expressions are expressions used during social interactions (e.g., happiness, anger, surprise), whereas nonsocial facial movements are typically overlooked in social interactions (e.g., blinking, chewing, sneezing). For each partic- ipant, we obtained five time series for social facial expressions and nonsocial facial movements. During each time series, there were three conditions. In the viewing condition, participants passively viewed the video clips. During the imitation condition, participants imitated the expressions or facial movements that they saw in the video clip. Finally, during the production condi- tion, participants saw a word or phrase describing the expressions or facial movements and produced the action described. Partic- ipants practiced the task outside the scanner to ensure accurate performance.
- DOI
- 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02428.x
- Sources
- openalex