TY  - JOUR
AU  - Pfeiffer, Ulrich
AU  - Schilbach, Leonhard
AU  - Timmermans, Bert
AU  - Kuzmanovic, Bojana
AU  - Georgescu, Alexandra Livia
AU  - Bente, G.
AU  - Vogeley, Kai
TI  - Why we interact: On the functional role of the striatum in the subjective experience of social interaction
JO  - NeuroImage
VL  - 101
SN  - 1053-8119
CY  - Orlando, Fla.
PB  - Academic Press
M1  - FZJ-2014-03985
SP  - 124 - 137
PY  - 2014
AB  - There is ample evidence that human primates strive for social contact and experience interactions with conspecifics as intrinsically rewarding. Focusing on gaze behavior as a crucial means of human interaction, this study employed a unique combination of neuroimaging, eye-tracking, and computer-animated virtual agents to assess the neural mechanisms underlying this component of behavior. In the interaction task, participants believed that during each interaction the agent's gaze behavior could either be controlled by another participant or by a computer program. Their task was to indicate whether they experienced a given interaction as an interaction with another human participant or the computer program based on the agent's reaction. Unbeknownst to them, the agent was always controlled by a computer to enable a systematic manipulation of gaze reactions by varying the degree to which the agent engaged in joint attention. This allowed creating a tool to distinguish neural activity underlying the subjective experience of being engaged in social and non-social interaction. In contrast to previous research, this allows measuring neural activity while participants experience active engagement in real-time social interactions. Results demonstrate that gaze-based interactions with a perceived human partner are associated with activity in the ventral striatum, a core component of reward-related neurocircuitry. In contrast, interactions with a computer-driven agent activate attention networks. Comparisons of neural activity during interaction with behaviorally naïve and explicitly cooperative partners demonstrate different temporal dynamics of the reward system and indicate that the mere experience of engagement in social interaction is sufficient to recruit this system.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000344931800011
C6  - pmid:24996121
DO  - DOI:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.06.061
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/154701
ER  -