Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

We review the evidence that an ability to achieve a precise balance between representing the self and representing other people is crucial in social interaction. This ability is required for imitation, perspective-taking, theory of mind and empathy; and disruption to this ability may contribute to the symptoms of clinical and sub-clinical conditions, including autism spectrum disorder and mirror-touch synaesthesia. Moving beyond correlational approaches, a recent intervention study demonstrated that training participants to control representations of the self and others improves their ability to control imitative behaviour, and to take another's visual perspective. However, it is unclear whether these effects apply to other areas of social interaction, such as the ability to empathize with others. We report original data showing that participants trained to increase self-other control in the motor domain demonstrated increased empathic corticospinal responses (Experiment 1) and self-reported empathy (Experiment 2), as well as an increased ability to control imitation. These results suggest that the ability to control self and other representations contributes to empathy as well as to other types of social interaction.

Original publication

DOI

10.1098/rstb.2015.0079

Type

Journal article

Journal

Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci

Publication Date

19/01/2016

Volume

371

Keywords

empathy, imitation–inhibition, motor-evoked potentials, self–other control, social interaction, transcranial magnetic stimulation, Adolescent, Adult, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Cognition, Empathy, Female, Humans, Imitative Behavior, Interpersonal Relations, Male, Perceptual Disorders, Social Behavior, Young Adult