Bite your chopstick, knave! (How restricting imitation might enhance empathy but not pronunciation teaching!)

This piece from Neurosciencenews.com (or as we tend to call it: New-Old-Science) on empathy and imitation, using chopsticks, is just too much fun to let pass. The study  by Matsuda et al at Hokaido University, titled “Imitation inhibition and facial expression recognition: Imitation-inhibition training inhibits the impact of interference with facial mimicry”, was basically getting at something similar to the "startle reflex," that is responding (sometimes) too fast emotionally. That is a common feature of PTSD, the body processing things way ahead of the conscious mind; you respond, in effect, without thinking. At some level, empathy is also like that. 

In the study, the treatment group was trained to "respond more slowly" to images on a screen by having to perform an action with fingers requiring some processing time. The "pièce de résistance," however, was that in the test phase, both the treatment and control groups were required to bite down on a chopstick which (quote) " . . .  inhibited their ability to mimic facial expressions." With that add on filter, the chopstick, the treatment group was better/faster at recognizing facial expressions than the control group. Now exactly why the chopstick was necessary is not explained, but it was apparently needed to cancel out initial, unconscious facial/physical imitation that would have complicated things. 

The conclusion: "These results suggest that imitation-inhibition training increases self-reported empathy and allows for a similar level of recognition of others’ emotional states, regardless of discrepancies between the condition of self and others."

Wow . . . 

So . . . suppressing initial emotional response, in this case realized in facial imitation, enhances empathy partially defined as being able to recognize emotions in others. That is certainly an aspect of the metacognitive dimension of empathy, or maybe empathy, Japanese style? I have lived there; could be, in fact!

But what might that same suppression of imitative "mirroring" do during learning, of pronunciation, let's say . . . I can tell you, actually. 

That is a near perfect metaphor or analogy for instruction that either formally or informally restricts body response and engagement, which is far too often the case. Imitation today has a bad name in the field, in part, seen as being essentially simplistic, noncognitive. Consequently, that is how it is treated or applied, dismissed as being not meaningful enough or superficial. And without holistic body engagement in the first place, that is . . . well . . . accurate. 

The implicit restrictions today on spontaneous body response, to a large extent the result of  conscious/cognitive bias and media (versus face-to-face interaction) involvement in the field--at least in  adult education--work against us, the learner and learning. 

The "chopstick chomp" at least has entertainment value . . . and being able to read other's emotions, detached from your body and your own has got to be a good thing, occasionally.  

So try the "Chopstick Chomp" with your friends playing a game that normally involves some emotional juice, or with your class sometime. I have. The effect is sometimes "dramatic;" sometimes, not. 

There, of course, is a better way to do pronunciation!

Keep in touch!

Bill

Original Research: Closed access.
“Imitation inhibition and facial expression recognition: Imitation-inhibition training inhibits the impact of interference with facial mimicry” by Naoyoshi Matsuda et al. Cognitive Studies: Bulletin of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society