The Neural Mechanism Of Human Mate Choice Copying

The process of choosing a spouse is often influenced by the social environment and the mate choice copying is a form of the social environment affecting the spouse process.More and more observations and experimental studies have shown that there are mate copying in fish and birds and other animal groups,and the same effect has been seen in the study of human beings.Mate copying specifically means during the process of mate choice,the choice preferences of individual will be influenced by the same sex individual preferences,it is a non-independent strategy.Most of the studies on mate copying are behavioral research and exist controversial in gender variables.This study mainly used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging(fMRI)technique to explore the mechanism of mate copying and the reason of gender difference.On the basis of the previous research,three kinds of interest conditions(interested/not-interested/not expressed)are selected as the subjects' within variables,which is the condition of interested as a positive condition in the mate copying,not interested as a negative condition,not expressed as a baseline level;male subjects and female subjects are selected as the between variables,and the gender roles are included in the existing research.The Experiment 1 aimed at a female mate choice copying effects a nd verify whether by gender roles influence;Experiment 2 used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging(fMRI)technique to get different types of subjects,brain data(fe male,male-masculine,male-feminine)and then analysis of the neural mechanisms of mate copying,the differences in behavior and brain mechanisms between different typ es of subjects.Finally,the study draws a few conclusions by the two experiments:Female mate choice copying obvious effect,is not affected by gender roles;There are differences in the results of male and female mate copying.In the present,compared with the baseline level,the female subjects showed obvious mate copying under the positive and negative conditions,while the male subjects showed only the mate copying under the negative conditions,while the positive conditions showed no significant difference;Different conditions activate different brain regions.The positive condition is related with empaty,while the negative condition is connected with the observation of goal-directed motor-acts activates;Male and female in the process of mate choice copying occurs in different brain regions,female compared with male activated more empathy-related brain regions,while the male subjects have more observation of goal-directed motor-acts activates;Overall,mate choice copying as a social learning process that occurs mainly in the mirror neuron system,including the brain regions associated with empathy and direct observation of the learning areas of the brain.Moreover,the cognitive executive function DLPFC also play a role in this social learning.In this study,we improved the experimental research paradigm,added the baseline level,specifically analyzed the positive and negative conditions of the mate copying.At the same time,we added the gender role variables to study the characteristics of the subjects themselves.This study explores the brain mechanism of mate replication by means of functional nuclear magnetic resonance(fMRI),which provides the basis and support for further study of mate choice copying.