Neural profiles of observing acceptance and rejection decisions in human mate choice copying

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...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:NeuroImage (Orlando, Fla.) Fla.), 2021-06, Vol.233, p.117929-117929, Article 117929
Main Authors: Zhuang, Jin-Ying, Xie, Jiajia, Li, Peng, Fan, Mingxia, Bode, Stefan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)
Brain
Brain mapping
Females
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Males
Mate choice copying
Mate selection
Motivation
Neuroimaging
Observational learning
Parietal lobe
Reinforcement
Reinforcement learning
Social interaction
Vicarious motivation
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Summary: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.
ISSN:1053-8119
1095-9572
DOI:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.117929