Interacting with others

Question 1

Why is the social environment important to humans?

Answer 1

As humans we require social interaction for survival and this environment is highly complex

Question 2

What are the two broad categories of cognition and how do we see this divide exhibited?

Answer 2

Hot: Social and emotional

Cold: Reasoning, Attention, visual processing, problem solving, memory

Autism: all cold
Williams syndroms: All hot

Brian damage: Dependent

Question 3

What are the key social cognitive domains?

Answer 3

TOM, Attribution theory, emotional perception, social perception.

Question 4

What does theory of mind test and how?

Answer 4

Perspective taking.

Through short cartoon
Vary form false belief to indirect speech (indirect speech)
Mostly 3rd person perspective

Question 5

What is Emotional perception and how do we measure this?

Answer 5

Our ability to recognise emotions from indirect sources.

Recognise corresponding emotions
to faces and voices.

Question 6

What is social perception and knowledge?

Answer 6

Social perception is ability to judge social situations, including status and relationships.

Social knowledge is the awareness of these rules, roles and goals

Both closely related.

Question 7

What is attribution style and how is it measured?

Answer 7

What we attribute the positive or negative outcomes in our lives.
Also: how the meaning of events is related to this

Internal. personal and situational attributions questionnaire (IPSAQ)

Things caused:
By others (personal)
By the environment (Situations)
By self (Internal)

Question 8

What is the social brain?

Answer 8

The social brain is the area that serves other functions too, but are most constantly activated by social stimuli

Question 9

What are some of the findings of Michael Green?

Answer 9

Social cognition into Sub-Domains.

Experience sharing-Mirror processing

Emotional Sharing: Response to unpleasant and pleasant

Emotional Regulation:
Self reflective strategies to calm oneself down

Question 10

What is the implication for the overlap with the DMN and Social brain network?

Answer 10

That when we have no specific goal we tend to think of others and this reflects the importance of that.

Question 11

What did a 20 year long study show with regards to schizophrenia and social abilities?

Answer 11

That those with schizophrenia represented the lowest performers.

The social impairment begin before hospitalisation and are long lasting.

Schizophrenia is:
A social disorder of varying levels
Impairs social cognition and functioning
Social symptoms exist: Para and Motivation

Question 12

How does schizophrenia show up in the four domains of social cognition?

Answer 12

Theory of Mind: Over-mentalising

Emotional per: Demonstrate negative emotions

Social per: Non-verbal cue decoding is poor

Attribution: Personlaising (others, not situation)

Question 13

What did a 53 study meta-analysis find when comparing cognitions and life outcomes?

Answer 13

Social cognition is more significant than cold cognition. Particularly TOM

Question 14

What does the research show with regards to social cognition and social functioning?

Answer 14

Positive symptoms associated with social deficits, however the highest correlation is with negative. Paranoia is hyper TOM hypothesis.

Question 15

What areas are there lower and higher activation in TOM tasks in schizophrenics?

Answer 15

Lower:
MFG, STG, temporal poles, Inferior parietal lobe, somatosensory areas.

Higher: MIFG, IFG, Superior temporal gyrus, percuneus, cerebellum


Question 16

What is a summary of results from the studies in this social field?

Answer 16

Behavioural differences related to brain abnormalities,

But,
Cause and effect not known,
Mechanisms not known

Question 17

What are the strengths and limitations to studying social cognitions?

Answer 17

Gives us some insights into neural mechanisms.

Weakness: Can’t capture interactive element of social behaviour.

Question 18

What is the issue with social cognition research and how could it be fixed?

Answer 18

It is difficult to interact in social arenas with fMRI.

Interactive Game theory may help

Question 19

What has the trust game highlighted?

Answer 19

Healthy controls:

Influenced by reputation and learning
Info about the social interaction

TOM is essential for effective trust

We get better with age
Oxytocin increases trust

Neuroimaging:
TOM and trust linked in areas.
Dop and caudate nucleus implicated in outcome of game.

Question 20

What did the trust study in relatives, controls and patients show?

Answer 20

1: Fist order relatives have lower trust than controls 2: Patients are unable to be context flexible

Question 21

What did Groman find in the trust game studies?

Answer 21

Schizophrenics were generally less trusting, but not significantly different in unfair investing.

The caudate nucleus had less activation in positive partners

Caudate was less active in those with positive symptoms.

Temporal Parental Junction less active when receiving payment

Question 22

What 3 problems do the studies using chronic psychosis have?

Answer 22

Medication
Isolation
Out of work

Question 23

What are the findings of the trust game when using adolescents and recent onset psychosis

Answer 23

Adults in the control group exhibited higher trust.

Adolescent patients learnt to trust. Adults failed to learn

Patients had lower baseline trust and adults had less trust than adolescents.

All groups learnt to distrust.