Is Brain Activity during Action Observation Modulated by the Perceived Fairness of the Actor?

ABSTRACT: Perceiving other people's actions triggers activity in premotor and parietal areas, brain areas also involved in executing and sensing our own actions. Paralleling this phenomenon, observing emotional states (including pain) in others is associated with activity in the same brain areas as activated when experiencing similar emotions directly. This emotion perception associated activity has been shown to be affected by the perceived fairness of the actor, and in-group membership more generally. Here, we examine whether action observation associated brain activity is also affected by the perceived social fairness of the actors. Perceived fairness was manipulated using an alternating iterated Prisoner's Dilemma game between the participant and two confederates, one of whom played fairly and t

SUBMITTER: Etzel JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4731574 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature