Building social cognition from Scratch

Question 1

Social Cognition

Answer 1

Cognitive process involved in social info processing

Question 2

What can serve to identify endophenotypes (inside phenotype) related to disorder

Answer 2

congenital (disease from birth) abnormalities in neural substates (CNS)

Question 3

Ways social cognition can be measured

Answer 3

Autonomic responses
Non-verbal behaviour
EEG, MEG, PET, fMRI and brain stimulation

Question 4

Babies face recognition

Answer 4

innate preference for faces (especially mothers) Imprinting
starts of using superior colliculus (subcortical structures) automatic movement based on what we see
adults use fusiform face area

Question 5

Brain area responsible for analysing fear and sadness

Answer 5

Amygdala

Question 6

Triadic attention

Answer 6

Two people and an object

Question 7

Biological motion

Answer 7

different to mechanical as self propelled and non linear
3 month old can discriminate

Question 8

instinctive sympathy

Answer 8

feeling sad when others do emerges at age of 2

Question 9

Social animal

Answer 9

Unable to survive alone- rely on group to regulate physiology (Allostasis)

Question 10

Allostasis

Answer 10

energy metabolism to social strategies
higher allostatic demands associated with more complex sociality
domain-general process
sociality mechanism that promotes regulation

Question 11

meta-analysis of neural circuits of allostasis

Answer 11

neuroimaging suggest overlap of neural system of social behaviours

Question 12

Social regulation of allostasis

Answer 12

synchrony (temperature)
Joint attention
learning
social attachment (eventual learn to regulate others)

Question 13

Cognition

Answer 13

info processing that operates on inputs and generates outputs

Question 14

Social cognition and self-other processes

Answer 14

switching between representation of self and others (self/other control)
perceiving + attending (Gaze, Motion and facial expressions)
Predicting and responding (TOM and empathy)

Question 15

Social inference

Answer 15

minimal info need
triangle study - Heider and Simmel

Question 16

Dot moving study

Answer 16

Atkinson et al
Social attribution tendencies
representation of social processes
degree of automaticity

Question 17

Domain- general mechanisms

Answer 17

Social behaviour implemented by general processes
aggregation of non-social general processing areas

Question 18

Domain-specific mechanisms

Answer 18

Specialised social-cognitive processes
modularity

Question 19

Experimental approach

Answer 19

Stimuli constant - manipulate task as social or non
task constant- manipulate stimuli as social or non-social
non-social controls in social cognition experiments

Question 20

Evidence for social brain

Answer 20

Dunbar social brain hypothesis - neocortex size correlates with average social group size

Question 21

Social cognition only human

Answer 21

yes- TOM unique for humans
No- homologous brain areas for self and others (Mice study). structure and activity covary with complexity of social environment.

Question 22

instinctive behaviours

Answer 22

Greater pupil dilation of pupils in 6 year olds for spiders vs flowers

Question 23

Habituation

Answer 23

Babies spend less time look at objects the more they are shown them

Question 24

Interoception

Answer 24

attend to ones own states - prediction of the body and external milieu