| The current study sought to investigate the effect that familiarity may have on micro-rhythm suppression (a putative electroencephalographic measure of mirror neuron activity) and empathic accuracy (EA). It was hypothesized that use of an empathic accuracy paradigm adapted from Zaki et al. (2009) and use of strangers and friends to a social perceiver would reveal the possible effects of familiarity on both micro-rhythm suppression and EA. As participants watched emotional-reaction videos of themselves (S), a familiar other (FO) and a stranger (SO), he or she rated the tone of the target's emotions in real time throughout the video. It was predicted that micro-rhythm suppression differences would be smaller between S and FO than between S and SO and that these difference effects would positively correlate with empathic accuracy and with self-report measures of empathy. Results showed that, while the trends and correlations for all micro-rhythm suppression were in the hypothesized direction and were supported by previous work in our laboratory (Woodruff, Martin, & Bilyk, 2011; Woodruff & Klein, 2013), the sample size was inadequate for the effect size of familiarity and subsequently did not have adequate power to detect an effect. The detailed post-hoc analyses highlighted issues with our adapted paradigm. These analyses in light of previous research do suggest that familiarity can be an influential variable on micro-rhythm suppression, but with a smaller than anticipated effect size. |
