Does Social Neuroscience Contribute to social cognition? 9.00 Robin Dunbar : Evolution and the social brain 9.50 Cecilia Heyes : Mirror Neurons: From Origins to Function 11.00 Ian Apperly : Controlled and automatic mindreading in children and adults 11.50 Claus Lamm : Empathy, Prosocial and Moral Behavior 13.40 Karin Roelofs : Neuroendocrine mechanisms of social behavior 14.50 Debate

Does Social Neuroscience Contribute to social cognition? Debate with all speakers Discussant: Klaus Fiedler Moderator: Frank Van Overwalle

Goal of Social neuroscience Social neuroscience integrates ideas from multiple research areas in psychology and neuroscience to address questions about social processes in the mind and brain New descipline since around 2005 Goal of Social neuroscience

ESAN: European Social Affective Neuroscience (2008) SANS: Social and Affective Neuroscience Society (2008) S4SN: Society for Social Neuroscience (2010) Dedicated societies

Dedicated journals

Approaches (Amodio, Social Cognition, 2010) Social Brain Mapping Where are high-level social psychological processes located in the brain? By scanning participants’ brains, we study the neural basis of … romantic love while viewing pictures of significant others > strangers (Aron et al., 2005). self while judging whether trait adjectives describe the self > another person (Kelley et al., 2002; Mitchell, Banaji, & Macrae, 2005). social information processing while judging animate > inanimate objects (Mitchell, Heatherton, & Macrae, 2002). Question: do we identify the critical processes and brain areas? Approaches (Amodio, Social Cognition, 2010)

Social Brain Mapping Approaches Mirror / Mentalizing Networks specialized for social processing Approaches

Social Brain Mapping Approaches Since processing in the brain creates / requires memory traces, it is legitimate to ask where high-level psychological processes are located (eliminating subsidiary processes) Motivation: Social Brain Hypothesis Dedicated methods: fMRI Adaptation fMRI Pattern analysis Approaches

Social Brain Mapping Approaches Very exciting ! However, the brain is an economic device, using very similar areas for social and non-social processing, showing some overlap of… ToM -and- attention reorientation in TPJ High abstract thinking on people -and- objects in mPFC Very exciting ! Approaches

Approaches (Amodio, Social Cognition, 2010) Social Hypothesis Testing The use of new methods for assessing psychological variables instead of RT or cognitive load manipulations ERP: event-related potentials fMRI: functional magnetic resonance imaging & related methods Approaches (Amodio, Social Cognition, 2010)

Social Hypothesis Testing A single core trait inference system: implicit/spontaneous activations when reading behaviors are extended under explicit/intentional instructions to infer a trait from behaviors Approaches

Social Hypothesis Testing The application of methods from behavioral research is often limited: RT (because presentation takes longer) Cognitive load (because secondary task activates other areas of no interest) Interactions (do not show summation of waves in ERPs) Approaches

Methodological issues Construct validity: what does activation in a brain area mean? (lack of clear 1-to-1 mapping does not allow reverse inference) Solutions: Localizer (to identify the region of interest independently) Correlation of brain activity with behavioral measure Beware of inflated voodoo correlations – no independent testing or control of multiple testing Fortunately, there is strong control of multiple testing in fMRI analysis itself Methodological issues

What are the major contributions (success stories) of social neuroscience to the understanding of social behavior? What have we discovered anew? What have neuroimaging methods contributed over and above behavioral methods such as RT? What are the major disappointments of social neuroscience (and is it possible to do something about it)? Future: What are threats and critical issues / questions Questions for debate

The debate In a first round, each of the speakers addresses one or more of these three questions in a short contribution (maximum 3-5 minutes) the discussant focuses on what he considers the most critical points in social neuroscience. He also addresses some of the points raised in the first round (maximum 10 minutes) In a second round, all speakers may interact and respond to the discussant’s critique, and he may respond as well (later or interactively) the public may joint in at this point as well. The debate