Extended self: medial prefrontal activity during transient association of self and objects
Open accessAbstract
The idea of 'extended self' refers to the incorporation of personally relevant external stimuli into one's concept of self. The current study used a transient imagined ownership paradigm to explore brain regions that support the association between self and objects. We hypothesized that incidental associations between self and objects would be manifested by activation in a brain region, medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), recruited in explicit self-referential processing. We further predicted that a memorial advantage for, and positivity-bias towards, self-relevant objects would be related to activity in MPFC. As anticipated, MPFC showed greater activation when objects were assigned to participants compared to when objects were assigned to another person. Activity in MPFC was also associated with superior subsequent source memory and increased preference for objects assigned to the self. These findings provide neural evidence for the incorporation of self-relevant objects into an extended self, which, in turn, increases their judged value (mere ownership effect).
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A temporary association of self and objects assigned to participants engages the mPFC more than other objects.
“Also, a temporary association of self and objects that were assigned to participants, for example, engaged the mPFC more than other objects (Kim & Johnson, 2012).”
From Optimizing performance through intrinsic motivation and attention for learning: The OPTIMAL theory of motor learning (2016) · cites this paper as Kim & Johnson, 2012
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- Authors
- Kim, K., & Johnson, M. K.
- Affiliations
- Yale University (US)
- ORCID
- Kim, Kyungmi
- Venue
- Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2010-12-09
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 199-207
- ISSN
- 1749-5016 (ISSN-L)
- 1749-5024
- PMC
- PMC3277366
- OpenAlex
- W2124263915
- Cited by
- 104
- References
- 62
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 1.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute on Aging (R37AG009253)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Embodied and Extended Cognition
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Keywords
- extended self, self and object, medial prefrontal cortex, self-referential processing, source memory, object preference
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Association, Brain, Brain Mapping, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Memory, Self Concept, Prefrontal Cortex
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