Original ArticleThe neural basis of human female mate copying: An empathy-based social learning process

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the neural basis of human female mate copying. Consistent with previous mate copying effects, women's attractiveness ratings for target males increased significantly greater after the males were observed paired with romantic partners versus ordinary friends, and this was mainly accounted for by males being paired with attractive romantic partners. Attractiveness ratings for male targets were lower when they were paired with an attractive opposite-sex friend. The fMRI data showed that the observational learning process in mate copying recruited brain regions including the putamen, the inferior frontal gyrus, the middle cingulate, the SMA, the insula, and the thalamus - areas overlapped with brain regions involved in empathy. The blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signals in higher cognitive functions including the parieto-frontal network, as well as visual areas, were significantly more activated when women evaluated males in the friend versus romantic-partner context, whereas brain regions were not more active in the reverse comparison, suggesting that less cognitive functions or as least no more functions were involved in evaluating the quality of target males in the romantic-partner context than in the friend context. Further analysis indicated that specific brain regions related to the evaluation process of mate copying were associated with bilateral fusiform gyrus (FFA). Thus, results are consistent with a view that mate copying is a domain-specific adaptation involving an empathy-based social-learning process that is also associated with reduced cognition.