Self-other discrimination and empathic abilities

Brett Velez, Jonathan Gordils, Chad Woodruff

Department of Psychology, Northern Arizona University Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut

NAU Social & Cognitive EEG Lab

INTRODUCTION
Previous Research Mirror Neurons (MN) in premotor and supplementary motor areas fire both during action execution and observation.

METHOD
Participants: Preliminary results from 12 right-handed participants (7 female) No self-reported history of neurological or mental disorders. Stimuli and Apparati: Black-and-white videos Samsung Galaxy Tablet 2 with webcam was set to left of laptop stimulus computer and was used as a Mirror 3 Hand-task conditions: 1. video of a hand at rest (Rest) 2. video of a hand tapping the thumb and index finger together (Observation) 3.participant executing finger tapping himself (Execution) Procedure: Participants performed each of the hand-tasks under two different Awareness conditions -mirror -no mirror And two different attentional conditions; -attend actions -attend distractors The participants were told to either focus the attention on the screen or attend to the tablet while keeping their eyes on the screen. Each condition lasted 80 s and was shown once. Following the conclusion of all conditions, participants completed all four subscales of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI, Davis, 1983) as well as the Empathy Quotient (EQ, Baron-Cohen and Wheelright, 2004). Design and Analysis: -suppression computed as the log-transform of action (observation or execution) divided by rest
S-O discrimination in -suppression was computed by subtracting observation -suppression (other-related) from execution -suppression (self-related) A 2 2 3 RM Measures design was used with: -Awareness (mirror, no mirror) -Attention (attend primary task, attend distractor -Electrode (C3, Cz & C4)
C3difference scores

RESULTS
The significant interaction between electrode and attention can be seen in the graph where -suppression differences in C3 all trend negative, indicating greater -suppression for self (execution) than for other(observation). By contrast, suppression in Cz and C4 trends positive overall, trending toward greater suppression for self than for other .

EEG rhythms (8-13Hz) are suppressed both when executing and observing actions
-suppression therefore stands as a possible measure of MN activity Previous work in our lab demonstrated that suppression is correlated with empathy and perspective-taking (PT) According to Batson and others, PT involves not only putting yourself in someone elses shoes, but also recognizing they are not your shoes (self-other discrimination (S-O)) Consistent with Batsons Empathy-Altruism hypothesis, Woodruff et al. (2011; see companion poster) demonstrated that -suppression differences between execution and observation were positively related to PT Hypotheses: 1.S-O discrimination will be greater when attending to ones facial image than when attending to a non-facial distractor 2.S-O discrimination will be greater when attending to the execution and observations of actions than when attending to distractor stimuli 3.Empathic PT will be positively associated with SO discrimination

Cz difference scores

C4difference scores

Fig. 1. suppression difference scores (execute observe).

DISCUSSION
Hypothesis 1: Preliminary results actually suggest that the opposite is true in electrode C3 --suppression differences were greater when focusing on asterisks then on their own facial image Hypothesis 2: The opposite patterns seems to have obtained relative to this hypothesis as well -Focusing on distractors was associated with larger S-O differences than focusing on actions Hypothesis 3: No significant correlations between suppression difference scores and empathy measures obtained
Results are preliminary Final data set will approach N=50 Funding provided by the National Science Foundation as part of a Research Experience for Undergraduates grant.

PURPOSE
In order to further test the relationship between suppression and S-O discrimination, we attempted to manipulate selfawareness to determine whether it would change the amount of S-O discrimination evident in suppression. Preliminary results are shown here.