Peng Shenli, Kuang Beibei, Zhang Ling, Hu Ping
College of Education, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, China.
School of International Relations, National University of Defense Technology, Nanjing, China.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2021 Feb 10;15:606292. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2021.606292. eCollection 2021.
Our prior research demonstrated that the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) exerted a modulatory role in ingroup bias in emotional mimicry. In this study, two experiments were conducted to further explore whether the rTPJ is a neural region for emotional mimicry or for the modulation of emotional mimicry by group membership in a sham-controlled, double-blinded, between-subject design. Both experiments employed non-invasive transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to temporarily change the cortical excitability over the rTPJ and facial electromyography (fEMG) to measure facial muscle activations as an index of emotional mimicry. After the anodal or sham stimulation, participants in Experiment 1 passively viewed a series of happy clips, while participants in Experiment 2 viewed happy clips performed by ethnic ingroup and outgroup models. fEMG analyses revealed that participants in Experiment 1 showed the same degree of happy mimicry for both tDCS conditions (anodal vs. sham) and participants in Experiment 2 showed an ingroup bias in happy mimicry in the sham condition, which disappeared in the anodal condition. Taken together, the present study demonstrated that rTPJ plays a role in the modulation of emotional mimicry by group membership.
我们之前的研究表明，右侧颞顶联合区（rTPJ）在情绪模仿中的内群体偏见中发挥调节作用。在本研究中，进行了两项实验，以在假对照、双盲、被试间设计中进一步探究rTPJ是情绪模仿的神经区域，还是通过群体成员身份对情绪模仿进行调节的神经区域。两项实验均采用无创经颅直流电刺激（tDCS）来暂时改变rTPJ上方的皮质兴奋性，并使用面部肌电图（fEMG）来测量面部肌肉激活，作为情绪模仿的指标。在阳极刺激或假刺激后，实验1中的参与者被动观看一系列快乐的视频片段，而实验2中的参与者观看由种族内群体和外群体模型表演的快乐视频片段。fEMG分析显示，实验1中的参与者在两种tDCS条件下（阳极刺激与假刺激）表现出相同程度的快乐模仿，实验2中的参与者在假刺激条件下的快乐模仿中表现出内群体偏见，而在阳极刺激条件下这种偏见消失。综上所述，本研究表明rTPJ在通过群体成员身份对情绪模仿的调节中发挥作用。
