TY  - JOUR
A1  - Likowski, Katja U.
A1  - Mühlberger, Andreas
A1  - Gerdes, Antje B. M.
A1  - Wieser, Mattias J.
A1  - Pauli, Paul
A1  - Weyers, Peter
T1  - Facial mimicry and the mirror neuron system: simultaneous acquisition of facial electromyography and functional magnetic resonance imaging
N2  - Numerous studies have shown that humans automatically react with congruent facial reactions, i.e., facial mimicry, when seeing a vis-á-vis’ facial expressions. The current experiment is the first investigating the neuronal structures responsible for differences in the occurrence of such facial mimicry reactions by simultaneously measuring BOLD and facial EMG in an MRI scanner. Therefore, 20 female students viewed emotional facial expressions (happy, sad, and angry) of male and female avatar characters. During picture presentation, the BOLD signal as well as M. zygomaticus major and M. corrugator supercilii activity were recorded simultaneously. Results show prototypical patterns of facial mimicry after correction for MR-related artifacts: enhanced M. zygomaticus major activity in response to happy and enhanced M. corrugator supercilii activity in response to sad and angry expressions. Regression analyses show that these congruent facial reactions correlate significantly with activations in the IFG, SMA, and cerebellum. Stronger zygomaticus reactions to happy faces were further associated to increased activities in the caudate, MTG, and PCC. Corrugator reactions to angry expressions were further correlated with the hippocampus, insula, and STS. Results are discussed in relation to core and extended models of the mirror neuron system (MNS).
KW  - Psychologie
KW  - mimicry
KW  - EMG
KW  - fMRI
KW  - mirrorneuronsystem
Y1  - 2012
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-75813
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Seibt, Beate
A1  - Mühlberger, Andreas
A1  - Likowski, Katja U.
A1  - Weyers, Peter
T1  - Facial mimicry in its social setting
JF  - Frontiers in Psychology
N2  - In interpersonal encounters, individuals often exhibit changes in their own facial expressions in response to emotional expressions of another person. Such changes are often called facial mimicry. While this tendency first appeared to be an automatic tendency of the perceiver to show the same emotional expression as the sender, evidence is now accumulating that situation, person, and relationship jointly determine whether and for which emotions such congruent facial behavior is shown. We review the evidence regarding the moderating influence of such factors on facial mimicry with a focus on understanding the meaning of facial responses to emotional expressions in a particular constellation. From this, we derive recommendations for a research agenda with a stronger focus on the most common forms of encounters, actual interactions with known others, and on assessing potential mediators of facial mimicry. We conclude that facial mimicry is modulated by many factors: attention deployment and sensitivity, detection of valence, emotional feelings, and social motivations. We posit that these are the more proximal causes of changes in facial mimicry due to changes in its social setting.
KW  - cultural differences
KW  - political leaders
KW  - mimicry
KW  - cooperation
KW  - self-focused attention
KW  - emotional empathy
KW  - nonconscious mimicry
KW  - expressive displays
KW  - gender differences
KW  - speech anxiety
KW  - behavior
KW  - responses
KW  - facial expression
KW  - EMG
KW  - competition
KW  - mood
Y1  - 2015
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-151415
VL  - 6
IS  - 1122
ER  -