The Neural Mechanisms of Group Membership Effect on Emotional Mimicry: A Multimodal Study Combining Electromyography and Electroencephalography
Emotional mimicry plays a vital role in understanding others’ emotions and has been found to be modulated by social contexts, especially group membership. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this modulation remain unclear. We explored whether and how group membership modulated emotional mimicr...
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MDPI AG
2023-12-01
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| Series: | Brain Sciences |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/14/1/25 |
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| author | Beibei Kuang Shenli Peng Yuhang Wu Ying Chen Ping Hu |
| author_facet | Beibei Kuang Shenli Peng Yuhang Wu Ying Chen Ping Hu |
| author_sort | Beibei Kuang |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Emotional mimicry plays a vital role in understanding others’ emotions and has been found to be modulated by social contexts, especially group membership. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this modulation remain unclear. We explored whether and how group membership modulated emotional mimicry using a multimodal method combining facial electromyography (fEMG) and electroencephalography (EEG). We instructed participants to passively view dynamic emotional faces (happy vs. angry) of others (in-group vs. out-group) and simultaneously recorded their fEMG and EEG responses. Then, we conducted combined analyses of fEMG-EEG by splitting the EEG trials into two mimicry intensity categories (high-intensity mimicry vs. low-intensity mimicry) according to fEMG activity. The fEMG results confirmed the occurrence of emotional mimicry in the present study but failed to find a group membership effect. However, the EEG results showed that participants mimicked in-group happiness and anger more than out-group. Importantly, this in-group preference involved different neural mechanisms in happiness and anger mimicry. In-group preference for happiness mimicry occurred at multiple neural mechanisms such as N1 (at P7, Pz, and P8), P2 (at Pz and P8), N2 (at P8), and P3 (at P7, Pz, and P8); in-group preference for anger mimicry occurred at P1 (at P7) and P2 (at Pz). Our findings provide new neural evidence for the effect of group membership on emotional mimicry by uncovering the temporal dynamics of this effect. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T11:03:50Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-fcf79a91dee141009b2023d259bfa7af |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2076-3425 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T11:03:50Z |
| publishDate | 2023-12-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Brain Sciences |
| spelling | doaj.art-fcf79a91dee141009b2023d259bfa7af2024-01-26T15:23:34ZengMDPI AGBrain Sciences2076-34252023-12-011412510.3390/brainsci14010025The Neural Mechanisms of Group Membership Effect on Emotional Mimicry: A Multimodal Study Combining Electromyography and ElectroencephalographyBeibei Kuang0Shenli Peng1Yuhang Wu2Ying Chen3Ping Hu4College of International Relations, National University of Defense Technology, Nanjing 210039, ChinaCollege of Education, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha 410128, ChinaDepartment of Psychology, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, ChinaDepartment of Psychology, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, ChinaDepartment of Psychology, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, ChinaEmotional mimicry plays a vital role in understanding others’ emotions and has been found to be modulated by social contexts, especially group membership. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this modulation remain unclear. We explored whether and how group membership modulated emotional mimicry using a multimodal method combining facial electromyography (fEMG) and electroencephalography (EEG). We instructed participants to passively view dynamic emotional faces (happy vs. angry) of others (in-group vs. out-group) and simultaneously recorded their fEMG and EEG responses. Then, we conducted combined analyses of fEMG-EEG by splitting the EEG trials into two mimicry intensity categories (high-intensity mimicry vs. low-intensity mimicry) according to fEMG activity. The fEMG results confirmed the occurrence of emotional mimicry in the present study but failed to find a group membership effect. However, the EEG results showed that participants mimicked in-group happiness and anger more than out-group. Importantly, this in-group preference involved different neural mechanisms in happiness and anger mimicry. In-group preference for happiness mimicry occurred at multiple neural mechanisms such as N1 (at P7, Pz, and P8), P2 (at Pz and P8), N2 (at P8), and P3 (at P7, Pz, and P8); in-group preference for anger mimicry occurred at P1 (at P7) and P2 (at Pz). Our findings provide new neural evidence for the effect of group membership on emotional mimicry by uncovering the temporal dynamics of this effect.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/14/1/25emotional mimicrygroup membershipin-group preferenceneural mechanismERP difference |
| spellingShingle | Beibei Kuang Shenli Peng Yuhang Wu Ying Chen Ping Hu The Neural Mechanisms of Group Membership Effect on Emotional Mimicry: A Multimodal Study Combining Electromyography and Electroencephalography Brain Sciences emotional mimicry group membership in-group preference neural mechanism ERP difference |
| title | The Neural Mechanisms of Group Membership Effect on Emotional Mimicry: A Multimodal Study Combining Electromyography and Electroencephalography |
| title_full | The Neural Mechanisms of Group Membership Effect on Emotional Mimicry: A Multimodal Study Combining Electromyography and Electroencephalography |
| title_fullStr | The Neural Mechanisms of Group Membership Effect on Emotional Mimicry: A Multimodal Study Combining Electromyography and Electroencephalography |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Neural Mechanisms of Group Membership Effect on Emotional Mimicry: A Multimodal Study Combining Electromyography and Electroencephalography |
| title_short | The Neural Mechanisms of Group Membership Effect on Emotional Mimicry: A Multimodal Study Combining Electromyography and Electroencephalography |
| title_sort | neural mechanisms of group membership effect on emotional mimicry a multimodal study combining electromyography and electroencephalography |
| topic | emotional mimicry group membership in-group preference neural mechanism ERP difference |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/14/1/25 |
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