“No man is an island”—we live among others, and each person in our social network holds a unique place, depending on how well we know them, how close we feel, or how often we interact. But how are these relationships reflected in the brain?
In two studies, we found that the names of close others—like family and friends—triggered brain responses similar to those evoked by the participant's own name. In contrast, names of celebrities and strangers produced very different patterns.
This suggests that the brain may represent psychological closeness as the degree of similarity between neural responses to the self and to others.
Full text:
Tacikowski, P., Cygan, H. B., Nowicka, A. (2014). Neural correlates of own and close-other's name recognition: ERP evidence. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8:1-10. (PDF)
Tacikowski, P., Brechmann, A., Jednorog, K., Marchewka, A., Dobrowolny, M., Nowicka, A. (2011). Is it about the self or the significance? An fMRI study of self-name recognition. Social Neuroscience, 6:98-107. (PDF)
