Social cognition

Faces are dense with social cues about

Emotional and attentional states

Amygdala can help establish judgments about

Attractiveness, likeability, trustworthiness, compliance, and aggressiveness in about 100 milliseconds

Amygdala recieves visual imput from

Faster subcortical as well as slower cortical

Can motivate responses to

Emotional features of faces without conscious awareness

Faces are on a spectrum of

Being trustworthy or dominant

Temporal pole represents

Social sematic knowledge (facts) about people

Knowledge can be

Factual (biographies) or abstract (traits)

There are rich connections in the

Medial temporal lobe

Superior temporal sulcus (STS) is activated by

Seeing social actions (body language)

STS also

Processes sounds and intentinality of actions

STS lesions lead to

Childhood autism

Theory of Mind (ToM)

Ability to understand that others have their own thoughts, feelings, and perspectives

First order ToM

Predicts what someone else is thinking or feeling

Second order ToM

Predicts about what someone thinks or feels about what another person is thinking or feeling

Perceptual ToM

Picking up on social cues that might indicate intention

Control animals show a preference for

A known partner over a stranger

Disruption of OTr in nucleus can cause

Issues with pair bonding

In male hamsters, a VPr fusion another the anterior hypothalamus makes a male

More dominant. Antagonists make them submissive

In male prairie moles, VPr antagonists during mating prevent

Bonding

Untreated meadow moles don’t huddle much with

Known or unknown animals. Same with ones with missed VP.

Meadow moles whose VP was overexpressed with VPr spent

More time huddling with known partners

Small gene changes causes a

Radical change in the animals behavior

Reflection of our personal qualities activate

The temporal poles, TPJ, precuneus and mPFC

Reflecting on thoughts activates the

Medial prefrontal cortex

Reflecting on emotions activates the

mPFC, ACC and the vmPFC

Reflecting on (or monitoring) what we’re doing activates the

More posterior mPFC and the ACC.

Somatoparaphrenia is experienced as a lack of

Body integration

Limb does not feel like

A part of self

Body Intensity Identity disorder

Damage focuses on the right parietal lobe. Includes the TPJ, but also includes the right posterior insula

Participants were asked to make either mental or physical judgements about

2 individuals

Participants with autism showed

More activation in the middle cingulate gyrus for other compound to self mentalizing. Opposite seen in controls

Areas of functionality connected to the

vmPFC whose activity is enhanced in self over other judgements in controls

Strength of contrast between self and other mentalizing was

Negatively correlated with social symptoms severity.

Cognitive empathy

We understand how they feel

Emotional empathy

We feel how they feel

Mimery

The unconscious adoption of other’s emotional state

Emotional contagion

A form of an emotional elidemic

Lateral premotor area (F5) in monkeys is connected to the

STS

(SCZ) Loss of distinction between

Their own thoughts and those of others. (Thought control + broadcasting)

Social perceptual issues have consequences for

Epidemic accuracy.

Disruption of social cue

Processing

Emotional states should generally be

Isomorphic

Affiliative emotions tend to be

mimicked in kind

Dominance emotions often elicit

Complementary responses (i.e., submissiveness).

Emotional contagion (EC) is a form of

Emotional epidemic.

Mimicry and EC lack the

Cognitive component seen in empathy.

Empathy allows for the maintenance of

Our own emotional state in the face of the other.

Empathy for pain involves the

Non-sensory parts of the brain (ACC, insular cortex)

Cognitive empathy depends on

vmPFC

Motional empathy depends on

vlPFC. (In ASD both are impaired)

Sociopaths have cognitive empathy, but

Tend not to experience others’ emotions (emotional indifference).

Certain emotions only exist in

Social contexts (e.g., shame, guilt)

Social valuation (judgments) depend upon the

ATL

Deciding how our actions compare to social benchmarks activates

vmPFC

Deciding how others’ actions relate to benchmarks activates

Lateral OFC and insula

Feelings of pride activate reward areas like the

VTA and NA

Feelings of shame activate

mPFC and insula

Maintenance of reputation is an act of

ToM

mPFC and dorsal striatum are activated when we

Consider our reputation

Oxytocin (OT) promotes

Affiliation, pair bonding, and parenting.

Vasopressin (VP) promotes

 social dominance, aggression, and other agonistic behaviors.

Differences in sex expression of these systems: role of VP in males might be similar to that

Of OT in females.

VP in males promotes

In-group affiliation and out-group defense.

In female rats, OT infusion will lead them to

Care for orphaned pups (alloparenting)

OT antagonists can

Prevent bonding even with their own pups.

In female prairies voles (a rare monogamous mammal), OT infusion in the presence of a male leads to

Bonding

OT receptor antagonists during mating

Prevent bonding

In humans, OT infusion promotes

Mentalizing (thinking about the mental states of ourselves and others)

OT signaling in the nucleus accumbens appears to be critical for

Monogamy in prairie voles

In male hamsters, a VP infusion into anterior hypothalamus makes a subordinate

More dominant;

In male prairie voles (mono), VPr antagonists during mating prevent

Bonding

Genetic enhancement of VP receptors in ventral pallidum of montane voles (poly) makes them act more like

Prairie voles (mono).