Date of Award

2010

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Bauer, Gordon

Keywords

Empathy, The Mu Rhythm, 8-13 Hz, Emotional Empathy, Motor Empathy, Cognitive Empathy, Shared Representation

Area of Concentration

Psychology

Abstract

Brain research in primates and humans suggests evidence for a neurological system, a mirror neuron system, responsible for providing representations not only of an individual�s motor, emotional, and cognitive states, but also those states of another. These overlapping, or shared, representations provide a neurological link between self and other. Further evidence suggests a positive association between the attenuation of a specific electroencephalography signal, the Mu rhythm, and the activation of this mirror neuron system. The current study sought to elicit the attenuation of the Mu rhythm across tasks tapping into motor, emotional, and cognitive components of empathy, so as to verify the Mu rhythm as a signature of the mirror neuron system, and demonstrate mirror neuron involvement during empathic tasks. Results indicated that the emotional empathy task produced Mu rhythm attenuation, while the motor and cognitive tasks did not. A significant difference between Mu rhythm attenuation during the emotional and cognitive tasks existed, but not between the motor task and emotional and cognitive tasks. Analysis indicated the origin of the Mu rhythm over the sensorimotor cortex. This suggests that shared sensorimotor representations are utilized during emotional empathy, while it is unclear whether they are used during motor and cognitive empathy.

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