According to an MRI study from the University of New Jersey (USA), when we hear our own name, the left hemisphere of our brain is activated more strongly than when we hear other people’s names. Specifically, the activity is greater in neurons of the middle frontal cortex and the temporal cortex. “These experiments show that recognizing that someone names us sets in motion specific brain areas that remain silent the rest of the time,” the authors concluded in the journal Brain Research .
Our name influences us so much that we are more inclined to buy something if it is offered to us by a seller who shares with us an initial in the first or last name, according to a study in the Journal of Consumer Research . And they have also scientifically proven that we are more likely to marry a person whose name begins with the same letter as ours.
Why is it so powerful to use proper names and pronunciations? There is scientific evidence showing that hearing one’s name has a huge impact on the brain. That evidence helps us understand how powerful hearing their own names can be for people.
According to a 2006 study by the Institute for the Study of Child Development, using or hearing your own name is considered self-representational behavior. Other self-representation behaviors include recognizing one’s own image in a mirror, using adjectives to describe oneself, or describing one’s mental state.
The researchers knew that some of these activities corresponded to specific activation patterns in the brain. They wanted to find out whether hearing one’s own name would lead to similar brain activation in the participants.
The medial prefrontal cortex is responsible for many of the important processes that make us who we are. This includes emotions, perspective taking, and development of mental theories. Many of these processes run in the background or are in a “sleep” or “autopilot” state. They are not processes that we actively control, but the brain reacts to them in predictable patterns that help shape its identity and personality.
The researchers tested brain activation in this region to see if the subjects’ brains would respond in a self-representational way when they heard their own names in relation to other names. This effect could explain why our ears perk up when we hear our own names in a noisy, crowded room.
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Results
Subjects were exposed to the repeated sounds of four different names, including his own, in random patterns. They heard the names of all the participants repeated the same number of times. They were told to minimize their physical reactions to the sound of their own name. Using a brain scanner, the researchers studied the reaction in the brain when the participants heard their own name among others.
They found that there is a unique brain activation when a subject hears his own name. These patterns are similar to the patterns that the brain exhibits during other self-representational behaviors. Hearing our name causes the brain to react as if it is engaging in the behaviors and thought patterns that serve as some of its main markers of identity and personality.
In fact, this reaction is so powerful that similar patterns were seen in patients in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). A PVS is defined as a condition in which awareness of self and the environment is absent. Patients in PVS are unable to move, speak, identify others, and in some cases even open their eyes.
However, these same patients demonstrated brain activation upon hearing their names, if only for a moment . It is the evidence of self-recognition. Thus, our brains involuntarily respond to the sound of our own names, even in a state where we cannot respond or act on anything else.
