Brain and psychological mediators of imitation: sociocultural versus physical traits

The acquisition of cultural beliefs and practices is fundamental to human societies. The psychological and neural mechanisms underlying cultural acquisition, however, are not well understood. Here we used brain imaging to investigate how others’ physical and sociocultural attributes may influence imitative learning, a critical component of cultural acquisition. While undergoing fMRI, 17 European American young adults imitated models from three different racial groups performing novel hand gestures. Participants learned that half the models shared Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s40167-015-0029-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. & Elizabeth A. Reynolds Losin [email protected] Choong-Wan Woo [email protected] Anjali Krishnan [email protected] Tor D. Wager [email protected] Marco Iacoboni [email protected] Mirella Dapretto [email protected] 1 Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA 2 FPR-UCLA Center for Culture, Brain and Development, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA 3 Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA 123 Cult. Brain (2015) 3:93–111 DOI 10.1007/s40167-015-0029-9