其他摘要 | People tend to imitate others' actions and behaviors automatically in social interaction, while they also need to control this tendency for automatic imitation, namely imitation inhibition. The process of imitation inhibition requires an individual to distinguish their own actions from mental representations of others', and avoid excessive influence of others' action on their own. Imitation inhibition is not limited to actions, but also happens in emotion processing. Empathy refers to understanding and sharing emotion experiences of other people. Similar to imitation inhibition, proper empathy requires an individual to distinguish one's own emotions from others. Existing evidence from behaviour, brain imaging and intervention studies suggests that processes of imitation inhibition and empathy are closely related.
Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder and deficits of empathy have been found in patients with schizophrenia, showing difficulties in understanding and/or sharing others' emotions, which seriously affects their social function and interpersonal relationship. Individuals with high level negative schizotypy is considered to be at-risk population for schizophrenia, who show similar but milder empathy deficits as patients. However, the psychological mechanism of empathy deficits in schizophrenia patients and at-risk individuals are still unclear. Systematic investigations from the perspective of imitation inhibition will be helpful to a better understanding of empathy deficits in schizophrenia. Three studies were conducted to systematically investigate the relationships between imitation inhibition and empathy in schizophrenia patients, individuals with high level of negative schizotypy and healthy controls separately.
In Study 1 the relationships between motor imitation inhibition and empathy were examined in healthy participants through two experiments. Sixty-eight participants were recruited for Experiment 1,motor imitation-inhibition task was adopted to measure the congruency effect, facilitation effect and inhibition effect, while the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE) was used to capture empathy. The typical motor imitation-inhibition effect was observed in the group level, and congruency effect was significantly and positively correlated with scores of affective empathy dimension on the QCAE. In Experiment 2, 47 participants were recruited to complete scanning for brain structural images, motor imitation-inhibition task and the QCAE were also measured. The CAT12 software was used for preprocessing of brain structural images and regression analysis. Results showed that gray matter volumes of the anterior cingulate gyros, cingulate gyros, superior frontal gyros and medial frontal gyros were significantly and negatively correlated with imitation-inhibition effect; meanwhile, further analysis showed that affective empathy of the QCAE was negatively correlated with the extracted gray matter volume of the significant cluster in anterior cingulate gyros.
In Study 2, motor imitation-inhibition effect and its relationships with empathy were investigated in schizophrenia and negative schizotypy respectively through two experiments. Thirty-five patients with schizophrenia and 35 healthy controls were recruited to participate in Experiment 1,and complete motor imitation-inhibition task as well as the QCAE. Compared to healthy controls, patients with schizophrenia showed relatively intact imitation-inhibition, with no significant correlations were found with scores on empathy. In Experiment 2, 60 individuals with high level negative schizotypy and 60 healthy controls were recruited to complete motor imitation-inhibition tasks with and without facial expressions and the QCAE. Compared to control group, negative schizotypy group showed reduced motor imitation-inhibition effect. Correlation analysis showed that in control group, motor imitation-inhibition effect was positively correlated with affective empathy regardless of the presence of facial expressions, while in negative schizotypy group, motor imitation-inhibition effect was negatively correlated with affective empathy only when neutral facial expressions present.
Study 3 explores the inhibition effect of facial mimicry and its relationship with empathy in negative schizotypy. Twenty-five participants with high level of negative schizotypy and 25 controls were recruited to finish a facial expression imitation-inhibition task. The response intensity of zygomatic major muscle and corrugator supercilii was recorded during the task and inhibition effect of facial mimicry was calculated. The Empathy Accuracy Task (EAT) and the QCAE were used to measure empathy. Results showed a larger inhibition effect of facial mimicry in negative schizotypy group compared to control group; in addition, and the facial imitation-inhibition effect was positively correlated with affective empathy and negatively associated with empathic accuracy in individuals with negative schizotypy.
In conclusion, this thesis systematically explores imitation inhibition and its relationships with cognitive and affective components of empathy in schizophrenia patients and its risk populations. The results suggested a relative intact imitation inhibition in schizophrenia patients but an abnormal imitation inhibition in at-risk individuals with high level negative schizotypy, evidenced a robust positive correlation between imitation-inhibition effect and affective empathy, and revealed an important role of the anterior cingulate gyros as common neural basis of both imitation inhibition and empathy. These main findings may provide novel perspectives for a better understanding of empathy deficits and the improvement of clinical treatment for social cognition deficits in schizophrenia. |
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