L13 - social cognition

What is social perception?

specialised processing of faces

What is social drives?

need for bonding, social reward and social status

What is social identity?

ability to determine age, gender and status of others

What is social learning?

observational learning

What is social signalling?

generating non-verbal and verbal cues such as facial expressions, eye movements, voice intonation and gestures

What is social inferences?

mentalising and interpreting signalling, body language and prosody

What are the vmPFC/OFC, and lateral PFC involved in social cognition?

valuation of social outcomes and cognitive control

What are the temporal cortex, PCC, and parietal cortex involved in social cognition?

person specific knowledge, tracking others intentions, and self/other distinction

What is the Faux Pas test?

faux pas is an embarrassing social mistake, after reading a story with a faux pas, people with medial PFC lesions couldn’t understand the speakers mental state (theory of mind)

What is experience sharing theory?

some aspects of our ability to understand others is based on our ability to mimics their experience

What neurons are thought to be related it the experience sharing theory and when do they fire and where are they?

mirror neurons, fire when you do a specific action and same neurons fire if someone else does the same action. Seem to be spread throughout brain and support social learning and planning of behavioural responses to others

What is hyperscanning?

uses EEG or MRI to can 2 people simultaneously, one person has a button connected to an electrode on the other person, find that their brains sync and indicates 2 brains working together in some sort of social interaction

What question does hyperscanning cause us to ask?

How do 2 brains dynamically coordinate to produce a shared social state?

How can social connection affect the modifiable risk factors of AD?

midlife hearing loss is a modifiable risk factor for AD most likely because people withdraw from social situations if they cannot converse, social isolation is another modifiable risk factor for AD

What does the WHO say loneliness is?

a discrepancy between one desired and actual experience of connection

What are the 3 elements of social connection?

structure - number and variety of relationships, roles and interactions, function - the kind of interactions you have with people, quality - positive or negative

What is an interesting correlation about recent living situations and loneliness?

loneliness has increased and so has the number of people living in single person households

What are the 3 main pathways from social disconnection to health?

biological (stress hormones, gene expression), psychological (meaning/purpose, support), behavioural (physical activity and sleep) and are linked with mortality, physical health, mental health and wellbeing, and brain health

What was found about women of differing social isolation degrees?

dose dependent relationship between increasing social isolation and mortality

What is the evolutionary hypothesis about social connection and what does it propose about social isolation?

social structures and behaviours have evolved over time with the brain, proposes that loneliness is a cue like thirst to see what we need, social isolation also activates brain regions which promote short term preservation such as increased threat vigilance, anxiety, increased cortisol levels

What was seen about cortisol levels and marital status?

people never married or previously married had higher levels of cortisol in the morning than people currently married

What is increased cortisol release associated with?

disrupted sleep, immune function and cognition and predicts AD risk

What are the findings about social media and loneliness?

nondirectional whether lonelier people use SM more or whether SM results in feelings of loneliness, people with more NMP (never met people) had higher odds of loneliness than people with less NMP

Why should we be cautious of evolutionary approaches?

could be interpreted to otherwise mean that behaviour is genetically determined, could be used to justify the status quo or legitimise authoritarian political programmes e.g. social darwinism survival of the fittest, some explanations may be unfalsifiable, nature and nurture are interwoven through epigenetics

What is epigenetics?

how the environment alters the way that genes are expressed