The control of neurological networks supporting social cognition is crucially important for social interaction. In particular, the control of imitation is directly linked to interaction quality, with impairments associated with disorders characterized by social difficulties. Previous work suggests inferior frontal cortex (IFC) and the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) are involved in controlling imitation, but the functional roles of these areas remain unclear. Here, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) was used to enhance cortical excitability at IFC and the TPJ prior to the completion of three tasks: (i) a naturalistic social interaction during which increased imitation is known to improve rapport, (ii) a choice reaction time task in which imitation needs to be inhibited for successful performance and (iii) a non-imitative control task. Relative to sham stimulation, stimulating IFC improved the context-dependent control of imitation-participants imitated more during the social interaction and less during the imitation inhibition task. In contrast, stimulating the TPJ reduced imitation in the inhibition task without affecting imitation during social interaction. Neither stimulation site affected the non-imitative control task. These data support a model in which IFC modulates imitation directly according to task demands, whereas TPJ controls task-appropriate shifts in attention toward representation of the self or the other, indirectly impacting upon imitation.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 03 July 2015.
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#9,554,198
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Outputs from Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience
#957
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Outputs of similar age
#103,388
of 420,163 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience
#21
of 40 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,359,530 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 72nd percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,979 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 27.8. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 51% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 420,163 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 75% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 40 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 47th percentile – i.e., 47% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
