1. 15: Social Cognition Cognitive Neuroscience David Eagleman
Jonathan Downar

2. Chapter Outline Social Perception Social Thinking: Theory of Mind
Social Feelings: Empathy and Its Many Components
Social Emotions, Motivations, and Behavior
Neurotransmitters and Social Behavior
The Social Self

3. Social Perception What’s in a Face? Do I Look Like a Liar to You?
Social Knowledge and the Temporal Pole
Social Signals and the Superior Temporal Sulcus

4. What’s in a Face?
Figure 15.2 It is easier to notice and remember differences between members of a familiar group than it is for members of a different or unfamiliar group. (a) how different do the human faces appear to you? (b) how different do the baboon faces appear? Most people find it easy to identify differences between the human faces, but they fail to notice any significant differences between baboon faces.

5. What’s in a Face?
There is a significant amount of non-verbal information communicated by the face.
The fusiform face area and the ventral visual stream are important for recognizing faces.
The amygdala and insula are important for quickly recognizing social emotional cues on faces.

6. What’s in a Face?
Figure 15.3 Some of the areas in the face-processing network. Areas involved in face processing include the fusiform face area, frontal eye fields, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior insula, temporal lobe, supplementary eye field, and amygdala.

7. Do I Look Like a Liar to You?
We make judgements about other people based on seeing their face for only 100 msec.
Faces can be classified by the factors of trustworthiness and dominance.
Where a face falls on these scales can be manipulated by changing the features of the face.

8. Do I Look Like a Liar to You?
Figure 15.5 Personality judgments from facial shape. People can make quick judgments about a person’s personality from the shape of the person’s face, even when wearing a neutral expression. These personality judgments can be summarized by two main factors: trustworthiness and dominance.

9. Social Knowledge and the Temporal Pole
Social knowledge, such as recognizing celebrities, activates the anterior temporal pole.
A part of the right superior anterior temporal lobe is active when considering qualities such as “polite” or “honorable”.
The temporal pole is functionally connected to the basolateral amygdala.

10. Social Knowledge and the Temporal Pole
Figure 15.6 The temporal pole. The temporal pole is located at the anterior end of the temporal lobe, and lesions to this area are associated with forgetting information about famous people, such as those pictured here.

11. Social Signals and the Superior Temporal Sulcus
Social intentions are communicated by gaze direction, posture, and vocalizations.
The superior temporal sulcus (STS) is sensitive to gaze direction in others.
STS is also active for other social cues, such as posture, facial movements, and contagious yawning.
STS is active when recognizing a voice.

12. Social Signals and the Superior Temporal Sulcus
Figure 15.7 The superior temporal sulcus is important for detecting and interpreting social cues.

13. Social Signals and the Superior Temporal Sulcus
Figure 15.8 Intentionality is represented in the superior temporal sulcus. Areas in the superior temporal sulcus activate more for voice than for nonvoice sounds, and more for witnessing purposeful rather than purposeless actions.

14. Social Thinking: Theory of Mind
What Is Theory of Mind?
Neural Mechanisms of Theory of Mind
Mirror Neurons and Theory of Mind
Disorders of Theory of Mind

15. What Is Theory of Mind?
It is the ability to perceive and understand the mental states of others, and to recognize that they differ from our own.
First order theory of mind is the ability to predict the thoughts of another person.
Second order theory of mind is understanding what a third person would think about the second person’s thoughts.

16. What Is Theory of Mind?
The Sally-Anne task is often used to study theory of mind.
Sally places a ball in a basket.
Anne moves the ball without telling Sally.
Sally returns and looks for the ball.
Where will Sally look for the ball?
After about age 5, children demonstrate theory of mind by correctly predicting she will look in the basket.

17. What Is Theory of Mind?
Figure 15.9 The Sally–Anne task. After viewing the picture story of Sally and Anne, subjects are asked where Sally should look for the hidden toy. Those who lack a theory of mind think that Sally will look in the box, where Anne hid it. They do not understand that Sally holds the false belief that the toy is still in the basket.

18. What Is Theory of Mind?
Other species show some components of theory of mind.
Perceptual theory of mind is perceiving social cues that predict intentions.
Motivational theory of mind is perceiving desires and intentions.
No other species have informational theory of mind, which is what is tested in the Sally-Anne task.

19. Neural Mechanisms of Theory of Mind
The network of brain areas important for theory of mind include
Medial prefrontal cortex
Precuneus
Posterior cingulate cortex
Temporoparietal junction
Superior temporal sulcus

20. Neural Mechanisms of Theory of Mind
Figure A common network of regions is involved in theory of mind functions. These functions require the brain to represent the beliefs, thoughts, and intentions of others. The theory of mind network has some overlap with the mirror system, which is active when observing, performing, or imitating actions.

21. Mirror Neurons and Theory of Mind
Mirror neurons are active when performing a particular movement or when observing another perform the same action.
These have been observed in area F5 in monkeys, which connects with the superior temporal sulcus.

22. Mirror Neurons and Theory of Mind
Figure Mirror neurons are found in area F5 of the monkey brain. This area is roughly equivalent to the lateral premotor cortex in the human brain. it takes input from the superior temporal sulcus region.

23. Mirror Neurons and Theory of Mind
Mirror neurons fire when the action cannot be fully observed.
They are also activated by the sound associated with an action.
These neurons are most active for purposeful actions.
In humans, the mirror neuron system is centered in the ventral premotor cortex.

24. Mirror Neurons and Theory of Mind
Figure The mirror system versus the theory of mind system. Both systems draw upon the area around the temporoparietal junction, at the border of the inferior parietal cortex and superior temporal cortex. however, the mirror system relies more on the lateral premotor cortex, and activates for observing or performing specific external actions or movements. The theory of mind system relies more on the medial prefrontal cortex, and activates during reflection on mental states (in the absence of any observable actions).

25. Mirror Neurons and Theory of Mind
Mirror neurons may provide an anatomical basis for representing theory of mind.
There is an overlap between the theory of mind network and the location of mirror neurons.
But there are also anatomical differences between the networks.
Research has hinted that there may be additional networks of mirror neurons.

26. Disorders of Theory of Mind
The theory of mind network is largely independent of general intelligence.
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder have social and communication impairments and repetitive behaviors.

27. Disorders of Theory of Mind
Figure The brain regions associated with general intelligence (green) and the theory of mind (red) do not share a high degree of overlap.

28. Disorders of Theory of Mind
In individuals with autism, there are abnormalities in brain regions associated with the theory of mind.
Superior temporal sulcus has less gray matter and abnormal patterns of activation during social cognition tasks.
There is weaker functional connectivity between the anterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex.

29. Disorders of Theory of Mind
Disorders of theory of mind also are evident in schizophrenia.
Individuals with schizophrenia have reduced gray matter.
Medial prefrontal cortex
Posterior cingulate gyrus
Superior temporal lobes
Insula
Thalamus

30. Disorders of Theory of Mind
Figure Brain regions with gray matter loss in schizophrenia. Compared to healthy controls, patients with schizophrenia have a reduction in gray matter in certain areas, including the medial prefrontal cortex, temporal poles, anterior insula, and some regions of the lateral prefrontal and premotor cortex. This network overlaps with the networks for social cue perception and theory of mind. (Lines at lower right indicate the positions of these axial slices within the brain.)

31. Social Feelings: Empathy and Its Many Components
An Emotional Theory of Mind
Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion
Neural Mechanisms of Emotional Mimicry and Contagion
Neural Mechanisms of Empathy, Sympathy, and Antipathy
Disorders of Empathy

32. An Emotional Theory of Mind
This is the ability to infer the emotional state of another person.
Empathy involves generating an appropriate response to the emotional state of another.
Emotional contagion is the tendency of emotional states to evoke similar emotions in others.

33. An Emotional Theory of Mind
Figure The Fortune Teller by Georges de La Tour. A good pickpocket (left) uses informational theory of mind to presume what a victim does and does not know about the location of his purse.

34. Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion
Empathy includes the emotional state of the other person as well as one’s own emotional state.
Sympathy is consciously sharing the emotional state of someone else.

35. Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion
Figure Images of a starving or malnourished child can spark empathy, even in complete strangers.

36. Neural Mechanisms of Emotional Mimicry and Contagion
Pupil size is effected by emotional states.
The pupil size of an observer mimics the pupil size of the person they are observing.
Small changes in pupil size are associated with changes in activity in the amygdala, superior temporal sulcus, insula, and anterior cingulate.
Activity in limbic regions modulates the Edinger-Westphal nuclei.

37. Neural Mechanisms of Emotional Mimicry and Contagion
Figure Neural mechanisms of emotional contagion. (a) Researchers manipulated the apparent pupil size of a person in a photograph, and they found that the subject appeared to be sadder when the pupils were larger. The numbers underneath each face describe how large the pupils were compared with the original image. (b) When subjects viewed sad faces with larger pupils, their own pupils also became larger. The neural pathways driving this emotional contagion included the superior temporal sulcus and anterior cingulate cortex, which can influence the amygdala. The amygdala in turn can drive activity in a midbrain nucleus—the Edinger­Westphal nucleus—which controls pupil size.

38. Neural Mechanisms of Emotional Mimicry and Contagion
Figure The lateral premotor cortex is active when performing or observing an action. Likewise, the anterior insula is active when experiencing pain or observing a person in pain.

39. Neural Mechanisms of Empathy, Sympathy, and Antipathy
For women in romantic relationships
Researchers applied painful stimulation to her hand.
This activated primary and secondary somatosensory cortex and the anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex.
When she observed the stimulation applied to her partner’s hand, this activated the anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex.

40. Neural Mechanisms of Empathy, Sympathy, and Antipathy
Figure Pain networks. Brain regions including the anterior cingulate cortex, the anterior insula, and the cerebellum become more active both when a subject is experiencing pain and when the subject’s loved one experiences pain.

41. Neural Mechanisms of Empathy, Sympathy, and Antipathy
Subjects played an investment game with a stranger, who was either cooperative or uncooperative.
Shocks were applied to the stranger.
The anterior cingulate and insula were active when observing cooperative players.
Much less active when observing uncooperative players.

42. Neural Mechanisms of Empathy, Sympathy, and Antipathy
Figure Mechanisms of empathy for pain. (a) Subjects played a cooperation game against an opponent who played either fairly or unfairly. They then underwent fMRi while watching the opponent receive painful shocks. (b) The anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex showed empathetic activation when watching the other player receive shocks. however, there was less activation when watching unfair players receive shocks. (c) Among male subjects, watching the unfair player receive shocks actually activated the nucleus accumbens—a key region in the reward pathway.

43. Disorders of Empathy
Emotional empathy is the ability to respond emotionally to other people.
Cognitive empathy is the ability to understand the feelings of others.
Damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex affects cognitive empathy.
Damage to the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex affects emotional empathy.

44. Disorders of Empathy
Figure double dissociation between patients with impairments in theory of mind (cognitive index) and emotional recognition (emotional index). The MRi images show overlapping lesions for (a) patients who were impaired on the emotional recognition task and (b) on the theory of mind task. (c) The graph shows the double dissociation: the group with ventromedial prefrontal cortex lesions is impaired on the cognitive index, but not the emotional index, while the group with the inferior frontal gyrus lesions displayed the opposite pattern of impairments.

45. Disorders of Empathy
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder have difficulty with both emotional and cognitive empathy.

46. Disorders of Empathy
Figure Individuals with autism spectrum disorder often show abnormalities in the brain areas involved with social cognition.

47. Disorders of Empathy
Individuals who are psychopaths perform normally on tests of theory of mind and they recognize the emotions of others.
They do not show emotional contagion or emotional empathy.
Psychopaths have less gray matter in the ventromedial, orbitofrontal, and frontopolar cortex.

48. Disorders of Empathy
Figure Individuals diagnosed as having antisocial personality traits often have reduced gray matter volume in the ventromedial and orbitofrontal regions of the prefrontal cortex. Those who also have psychopathic traits have additional reductions in gray matter in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and temporal pole.

49. Social Emotions, Motivations, and Behavior
Social Emotions from Theory of Mind
Social Emotions from Social Values
Social Reward and Social Aversion
The Anatomy of a Lie

50. Social Emotions from Theory of Mind
When an individual feels guilt or shame
There is activity in the posterior and retrosplenial cingulate cortex.
There is activity in the temporal pole, superior temporal sulcus, and anterior insula.
There is also activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex.
Activity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex is associated only with guilt.

51. Social Emotions from Theory of Mind
Figure The orbitofrontal cortex and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex are activated during guilty emotional states. These areas are less active during induction of other emotional states such as sadness or shame.

52. Social Emotions from Social Values
People value concepts like kindness and honor.
This social valuation is translated into emotional reactions.
The anterior temporal lobe is active when people apply these concepts to evaluate their own actions or the actions of others.

53. Social Emotions from Social Values
Evaluating one’s own actions activates ventromedial prefrontal cortex.
Evaluating another’s actions activates lateral prefrontal cortex and insula.
Positive emotions activate the ventral tegmental area, hypothalamus, septum.
Negative emotions activate the insula and orbitofrontal cortex.

54. Social Emotions from Social Values
Figure disorders that affect social functioning (e.g., frontotemporal dementia, autism spectrum disorders, and psychopathy) often involve abnormalities of key brain regions involved in social perception, theory of mind, and empathy.

55. Social Reward and Social Aversion
Social rewards tend to be very powerful.
Striatal reward circuitry responds to social rewards as well as primary rewards, such as food or drink.
Ostracism and criticism are common negative reinforcement in many societies.

56. Social Reward and Social Aversion
Figure Brain activation for social and monetary rewards. Both monetary rewards and social rewards (such as praise) activate the ventral striatum bilaterally. however, the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex activates only for social rewards, and it is less active for monetary rewards.

57. Social Reward and Social Aversion
The medial prefrontal cortex and the dorsal striatum are active when subjects consider how others think of them.
In social anxiety disorder, there is increased connectivity between the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and the amygdala when the individual is criticized.

58. Social Reward and Social Aversion
Figure Neural mechanisms of social reputation. When considering your own reputation (how others might think of you), activity increases in the striatum and also in the medial prefrontal cortex—an area that is important for theory of mind.

59. The Anatomy of a Lie
Dishonest subjects have longer reaction times when lying.
Dishonest subjects activated additional brain regions, particularly the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, when lying.
Stimulating the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex can influence deceptive behaviors.

60. The Anatomy of a Lie
Figure Measuring lies. (a) Subjects were told the amount of the wager and then asked to predict whether the coin toss would be heads or tails. in the condition in which they had no opportunity to lie, they recorded their prediction. When they had the opportunity to lie, they did not record their prediction. After the coin toss, subjects recorded whether their prediction had been correct or incorrect. if it was correct, they won the amount of the wagers; if it was incorrect, they lost that amount. (b) Some individuals showed honest behavior, guessing correctly around 50% of the time. Others were dishonest, reporting correct guesses more than 75% of the time. (c) neural activity associated with the decision to lie. (d) neural activity associated with the decision to tell the truth.

61. Neurotransmitters and Social Behavior
An Ancient and Fundamental System
Oxytocin
Vasopressin

62. An Ancient and Fundamental System
Oxytocin and vasopressin are neuropeptides that influence social behaviors.
Receptors are concentrated in the limbic system, including the hypothalamus, amygdala, septum, and hippocampus.
The distribution of receptors varies between men and women.

63. An Ancient and Fundamental System
Figure Oxytocin and vasopressin receptors are found in the hypothalamus, hippocampus, septal area, and amygdala.

64. Oxytocin
This peptide promotes affiliation, pair bonding, and parenting behaviors.
In female prairie voles, monogamous behaiviors depend on oxytocin.
Oxytocin has prosocial influences.
It reduces activation in the amygdala while viewing fearful faces.

65. Oxytocin
Figure (a) Prairie voles are monogamous and form social bonds, whereas the (b) montane voles are polygamous.

66. Oxytocin
Figure The trust game. The investor loans a certain amount of money to the trustee, and the invested money then triples in value. The trustee then decides how much money, if any, to return to the investor. if too little is returned, the investor may choose to loan out less money in future rounds of the game, as a punishment for breaking trust. however, unless the trustee sends some money to the investor, neither party can make any money.

67. Vasopressin
This neuropeptide promotes social dominance and aggression.
It is important for partner bonding in males.
Prairie voles are monogamous and have more vasopressin receptors in the ventral pallidum.
In humans, vasopressin biases individuals towards perceiving social threats.

68. Vasopressin
Figure Male golden hamsters asserting dominance. injecting vasopressin into the hypothalamus causes the hamster to become dominant, marking the habitat with his pheromones by rubbing objects with scent glands on his flank. Conversely, blocking vasopressin in the hypothalamus suppresses these dominance behaviors.

69. Vasopressin
Figure vasopressin 1a receptor in the ventral pallidum (vP) of monogamous and polygamous voles. The greater extent of dark coloration for the monogamous prairie voles indicates a much higher concentration of the AVPR1a receptor than in the polygamous meadow vole.

70. The Social Self The Wondrous Self-Awareness of the Human Brain
Forms of Self-Awareness
Why Bother with Self-Awareness?
Neural Correlates of Self-Awareness
Disorders of Self-Awareness
Self-Awareness and Social Cognition

71. The Wondrous Self-Awareness of the Human Brain
Self-awareness is mostly a human trait.
Young children are not self-aware until a particular point in development.
Some neurological conditions involve decreased self-awareness.

72. The Wondrous Self-Awareness of the Human Brain
Figure Humans start to show signs of self-awareness between 6 and 12 months of age.

73. Forms of Self-Awareness
Self-awareness seems to be related to social cognition.
Reflecting on one’s own thoughts, goals, or feelings is a form of self-awareness.
The mirror test is a test for self-awareness in which you determine if an organism recognizes that its reflection is really itself.
Humans and few other species pass.

74. Forms of Self-Awareness
Figure In addition to humans, other animal species demonstrate self-awareness, as assessed by their behavior in front of a mirror. Zippy, a chimp made famous by numerous TV appearances in the 1950s and 1960s, looks himself over in a three­way mirror as he tries on a jacket.

75. Why Bother with Self-Awareness?
Theory of mind may just be a consequence of self-awareness.
There is a survival advantage to being able to predict or guess what others are thinking.
An alternative theory suggests that self-awareness may be a consequence of theory of mind.

76. Neural Correlates of Self-Awareness
Self-reflection activates the temporal poles, temporoparietal junction, precuneus, and medial prefrontal cortex.
Cognitive self-reflection activates mostly medial frontopolar cortex.
Emotional self-reflection activates medial prefrontal cortex, cingulate cortex, and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex.

77. Neural Correlates of Self-Awareness
Figure Self-reflection on personal qualities activates the temporal poles, temporoparietal junction, precuneus, and medial prefrontal cortex.

78. Neural Correlates of Self-Awareness
Figure Monitoring one’s own actions activates the medial prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate. Each point represents the peak of the activated region in a different neuroimaging study of self­-monitoring of one’s actions.

79. Disorders of Self-Awareness
Somatoparaphrenia and anosognosia are disorders of self-awareness.
Patients do not recognize or acknowledge their own body parts.
Both are caused by damage to the right temporoparietal junction and posterior insula.
Somatoparaphrenia often involves damage to the right medial prefrontal cortex.

80. Disorders of Self-Awareness
Figure Lesion sites of patients diagnosed with anosognosia, somatoparaphrenia, and hemineglect tend to be found in the right hemisphere. The number of patients with damage at a particular location is indicated by the color scale at the bottom of the image.

81. Self-Awareness and Social Cognition
There is a strong link between self-awareness and social cognition.
The neural basis of self-awareness depends on what aspects of the self are being considered.
Areas associated with self-awareness have other functions as well.