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Does the threat of COVID-19 modulate automatic imitation?
The tendency to involuntarily imitate the actions of others (automatic imitation) can be modulated by social affiliative cues. Here, we explored whether the disruption to our social lives caused by the COVID-19 pandemic may subsequently influence automatic imitation. Three groups were initially pres...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10124885/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37093873 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284936 |
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author | Roberts, James W. Bennett, Simon J. |
author_facet | Roberts, James W. Bennett, Simon J. |
author_sort | Roberts, James W. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The tendency to involuntarily imitate the actions of others (automatic imitation) can be modulated by social affiliative cues. Here, we explored whether the disruption to our social lives caused by the COVID-19 pandemic may subsequently influence automatic imitation. Three groups were initially presented a sentence comprehension task that featured either neutral (control), safe or unsafe primes to COVID-19 infection. They then completed an automatic imitation task, where a numeric cue was presented alongside apparent motion of an index or middle finger, which was either compatible or incompatible with the required response. Reaction times were longer for the incompatible compared to compatible trials, and thus demonstrated automatic imitation. However, there was no influence of the primes indicating that automatic imitation was unaffected by the risk of COVID-19. The potential theoretical explanations and practical implications of pathogen avoidance and social bonding incentives are discussed with reference to pandemic events. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10124885 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-101248852023-04-25 Does the threat of COVID-19 modulate automatic imitation? Roberts, James W. Bennett, Simon J. PLoS One Research Article The tendency to involuntarily imitate the actions of others (automatic imitation) can be modulated by social affiliative cues. Here, we explored whether the disruption to our social lives caused by the COVID-19 pandemic may subsequently influence automatic imitation. Three groups were initially presented a sentence comprehension task that featured either neutral (control), safe or unsafe primes to COVID-19 infection. They then completed an automatic imitation task, where a numeric cue was presented alongside apparent motion of an index or middle finger, which was either compatible or incompatible with the required response. Reaction times were longer for the incompatible compared to compatible trials, and thus demonstrated automatic imitation. However, there was no influence of the primes indicating that automatic imitation was unaffected by the risk of COVID-19. The potential theoretical explanations and practical implications of pathogen avoidance and social bonding incentives are discussed with reference to pandemic events. Public Library of Science 2023-04-24 /pmc/articles/PMC10124885/ /pubmed/37093873 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284936 Text en © 2023 Roberts, Bennett https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Roberts, James W. Bennett, Simon J. Does the threat of COVID-19 modulate automatic imitation? |
title | Does the threat of COVID-19 modulate automatic imitation? |
title_full | Does the threat of COVID-19 modulate automatic imitation? |
title_fullStr | Does the threat of COVID-19 modulate automatic imitation? |
title_full_unstemmed | Does the threat of COVID-19 modulate automatic imitation? |
title_short | Does the threat of COVID-19 modulate automatic imitation? |
title_sort | does the threat of covid-19 modulate automatic imitation? |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10124885/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37093873 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284936 |
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