TY - JOUR
T1 - Neural profiles of observing acceptance and rejection decisions in human mate choice copying
AU - Zhuang, Jin Ying
AU - Xie, Jiajia
AU - Li, Peng
AU - Fan, Mingxia
AU - Bode, Stefan
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021
PY - 2021/6
Y1 - 2021/6
N2 - Mate choice copying refers to an agent copying the choice for a potential sexual/romantic partner made by a relevant model and has been observed across many species. This study investigated the neural profiles of two copying strategies in humans – acceptance and rejection copying – using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Female participants observed female models accepting, rejecting, or being undecided about (control), males as potential romantic partners before and after rating their own willingness to choose the same males. We found that observing acceptance shifted participants’ own choices towards acceptance, while observing rejection shifted participants’ choices towards rejection. A network of motivation-, conflict- and reinforcement learning related brain regions was activated for observing the models’ decisions. The rostral anterior cingulate gyrus (rACCg) and the caudate in particular were activated more strongly when observing acceptance. Activation in the inferior parietal lobe directly scaled with the magnitude of changes in choices after observing acceptance, while activation in the ACCg also scaled with changes after observing rejection. These findings point to partly dissociable neural profiles for copying strategies that might be linked to different contributions of incentive-driven and vicarious motivation, potentially reflecting the presence or absence of internalised reward experiences.
AB - Mate choice copying refers to an agent copying the choice for a potential sexual/romantic partner made by a relevant model and has been observed across many species. This study investigated the neural profiles of two copying strategies in humans – acceptance and rejection copying – using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Female participants observed female models accepting, rejecting, or being undecided about (control), males as potential romantic partners before and after rating their own willingness to choose the same males. We found that observing acceptance shifted participants’ own choices towards acceptance, while observing rejection shifted participants’ choices towards rejection. A network of motivation-, conflict- and reinforcement learning related brain regions was activated for observing the models’ decisions. The rostral anterior cingulate gyrus (rACCg) and the caudate in particular were activated more strongly when observing acceptance. Activation in the inferior parietal lobe directly scaled with the magnitude of changes in choices after observing acceptance, while activation in the ACCg also scaled with changes after observing rejection. These findings point to partly dissociable neural profiles for copying strategies that might be linked to different contributions of incentive-driven and vicarious motivation, potentially reflecting the presence or absence of internalised reward experiences.
KW - Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)
KW - Mate choice copying
KW - Motivation
KW - Observational learning
KW - Reinforcement learning
KW - Vicarious motivation
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U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.117929
DO - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.117929
M3 - Article
C2 - 33675996
AN - SCOPUS:85102354321
SN - 1053-8119
VL - 233
JO - NeuroImage
JF - NeuroImage
M1 - 117929
ER -