Understanding social cognition

Social cognition def: 2 components

• Ability to read/infer others’ mental states by

  • Judging social cues

  • Integrating this info with knowledge of context

• and using this to guide our social behaviour

2 branches of social cognition

• "Hot" Social Cognition

• "Cold" Social Cognition

“Hot” social cog. description (2), 2 examples of processes

• Emotion-charged

• Driven by real-time affective cues

• Emotion perception

• Emotional empathy: somatic capacity to share mental state

“Cold” social cognition description (1), 2 examples of processes (2)

• Deliberate + conscious reasoning about mental states

• ToM

• Cog. empathy (can understand even when different from our own perspective)

Involved brain regions

• OFC + vmPFC

  • Reward evalutaion, social context

• ACC + Insula

  • Emotion empathy

  • Visceral internal sensations

• Amygdala + striatum

  • Rapid, autonomic recognition of salience + emotional threat

Interesting mechanism underlying social cognition: name + related hypothesis name

• Embodied mirroring

• Facial feedback hypothesis

What is the facial feedback hypothesis? (1)

• Micro-mimicry of others’ facial expressions when observing them

How does this relate to severe TBI + what can it lead to?

• Embodied mirroring + physiological emotional arousal can be disrupted → alexithymia

Alexithymia def

Inability to identify or describe one's own emotional state

Best assessment summarised (1)

• Dynamic audiovisual tools of static standard tests + text-based stories

Reason why static visual tests fail to detect social cognition deficits

• Not ecological valid - emotional expressions in real life are fluid and fleeting

Reason why text-based ToM stories might fail to detect (1)

• Results can be confounded by reading skills, attention + verbal memory

Ecologically valid instrument name

The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT)

Structured levels of TASIT (3) (not as vital)

1. Emotion Evaluation Test (EET): Assesses the ability to identify basic emotions (e.g., happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, surprise) from dynamic visual cues, vocal prosody, and facial movements.

2. Social Inference (Minimal): Evaluates the ability to distinguish between sincere and sarcastic exchanges when non-verbal cues (pitch, facial expression) clarify the speaker's true intent.

3. Social Inference (Enriched): Tests complex social understanding in scenarios involving deception or sarcasm, requiring the viewer to integrate background context to determine what a speaker is thinking, feeling, saying, and doing