Lecture 17: Social Cognition Flashcards
Social cognition
emerged in the 1980s as a subarea of social psychology focused on how people
process, store, and retrieve information about
themselves, other people, and social situations
first mentioned as a concept
in 1992. Subsequently others used the term social
cognitive neuroscience to refer to the same
field
25-yr. old railway worker charged with putting explosive powder/fuse in rock holes, cover with sand, pat down with tamping iron. On Sep
13, 1848 he failed to notice exposed powder…ignited
explosion…made history
-He never lost consciousness, and had no
obvious neurological symptoms
-But afterwards he seemed a different
person – disorganized, socially
inappropriate, “no longer Gage”
phineas gage
Social impairments documented in more recent
cases of orbitofrontal damage, such as patient MR
-he crashed motorcycle into a fixed object
-suffered coup (direct impact) and contrecoup
(brain striking skull) injury
-pronounced injury in the
orbitofrontal cortex
Case Study: M.R
-normal IQ
-normal perceptual processing
-normal motor control
Performance on standard cognitive tests
-normal language ability
-normal memory
Social behavior is “off” (inappropriate, strange)
-Will discuss personal topics with strangers
-Will talk endlessly about boring topics (e.g., a
detailed account of the cuts used to trim a tree)
-Will greet a stranger with a hug, sit too close, or
stare too long…
Case Study: B.W
Patient BW, a 14-yr. old boy, exhibited severe antisocial behavior throughout much of his childhood
Experimental Studies: Orbitofrontal
Damage
The Faux Pas Task
“Anne receives a vase as a wedding gift from Jeannette. A year later Anne has forgotten that the vase was from Jeannette. Jeannette accidentally breaks the vase while at Anne’s house.
Anne tells Jeannette not to worry because it was a wedding gift that she never liked anyway.”
-Did someone make a social mistake here?
-Healthy people, and people with lateral prefrontal cortex damage do well (identify the faux pas correctly).
-People with orbitofrontal damage perform poorly:
Orbitofrontal patients think Jeannette will feel badly, but they think it’s because Anne was trying to hurt
Jeannette’s feelings (not reassure her).
-orbitofrontal damage impairs the ability to reason/think about ongoing social interactions; patients fail to take context into account when making social judgments.
Orbitofrontal damage impairs the ability to reason/think about ongoing social interactions; patients fail to take
context into account when making social judgments.
Evidence:
Faux Pas task
Teasing Task
Teasing Task
-Make up a nickname for one of the experimenters
(who they did not know well)
-Healthy people don’t like this, and will reluctantly make up a positive nickname, and then immediately apologize
-Orbitofrontal patients do this happily, usually make up negative nicknames, use a “sing song” mocking voice when saying the name, weren’t embarrassed, and actually expressed pride in their social behavior. If not embarrassed, no reason to change
-Awareness of Behavior vs. Social Knowledge
-Orbitofrontal patients and controls engaged in structured conversation with a stranger (graduate student experimenter),
-Awareness of Behavior vs. Social Knowledge
Examples:
Tell me about an embarrassing moment you’ve had.
Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want to have as a dinner guest and why?
When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself? Why?
Is there something you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?
-Patients more likely than controls to introduce
impolite/inappropriate/excessively personal & intimate conversation topics (as judged by objective raters).
-But patients possessed the social knowledge: they
stated prior to conversation that it is inappropriate to
discuss intimate/emotional topics with a stranger.
Unaware in the moment that they are doing so in a
context where it is inappropriate! Therefore do not
generate emotional feedback that would allow them to change behavior.
The researchers videotaped the conversation
Damage to the orbitofrontal cortex:
Can leave a person with many intact cognitive abilities, but inappropriate social behavior.
Spares retention of social knowledge, but impairs the
ability to apply that knowledge in ongoing interaction likely related to decision making deficits.
Does not prevent patients from becoming aware of their mistakes when viewing their own behavior.
Exactly how to characterize the contributions of
orbitofrontal cortex to social cognition remains an unsolved part of the “orbitofrontal puzzle”.
Self-Perception and Self-Knowledge
Self-perception is unique because self is both the
perceiver and perceived.
Sense of self depends in part on perceiving the
difference between self-knowledge and
knowledge of others
Does self-perception depend on distinct or
unique neural structures? How is self-knowledge
represented?
Self-Referential Processing
-More words remembered that were processed in
relation to the self, versus in relation to others (the
president here)
-called the self-referent (or self-reference) effect
What explains the self-referent effect?
Hypothesis 1: processing relative to the self is
just a deeper level of processing (i.e., connects
with more stored knowledge than other types of
processing)
“Deeper” processing leads to better subsequent
memory
increased activity in regions associated with “depth”
effects
Hypothesis 2
processing relative to the self is a special cognitive process with unique memory/organization that is distinct from other cognitive processing
self-referential processing will engage distinct neural
Encoding task
Participants made yes/no judgments
concerning self, other, or case/printed format (is
word in upper case?)
Region for Self-Referential Processing
Self: Does this trait describe you?
Other: Does this trait describe George Bush?
Format: Is this word presented in uppercase
letters?
Medial Prefrontal
Cortex (MPFC)
MPFC response greater for self condition
Self-Referent Effect and Subsequent Memory
medial pfc
Medial PFC involved in successful vs. unsuccessful
encoding of/memory for self-relevant information,
whereas inferior PFC involved in successful vs.
unsuccessful encoding of/memory for non-self-
relevant information
left inferior prefrontal cortex
It is hypothesized that activations in left inferior prefrontal cortex reflect a domain-specific semantic working memory capacity that is invoked more for semantic than nonsemantic analyses regardless of stimulus modality
7 patients with vmPFC damage
Compared to 8 control patients with lesions outside vmPFC
and 23 healthy controls
so we can be sure that the damage to that area causes that deficit
default mode network
set of brain regions that exhibits strong low-frequency oscillations coherent during resting state and is thought to be activated when individuals are focused on their internal mental-state processes, such as self-referential processing, interoception, autobiographical memory retrieval, or imagining future
Self-Reference as the Brain’s Default Mode
-What do you think about when you don’t have a specific task to do?
The fact that MPFC has a high state of activity during
“rest” might reflect self-referential processing during resting state
(“What am I doing? How do I feel?”, “What will I do
later?”)
How To Help Smokers Quit
- Helping people quit smoking has many obvious benefits both
for individuals and for society - Most smokers try to quit but relapse rates are very high
- Promising approach: Tailoring smoking-cessation messages
- Assess characteristics relevant to individual’s specific
needs/goals - Tailor messages to those specific needs and goals
- Evidence indicates that tailoring messages to an individual’s
needs and goals can increase quitting rates 6 months after
intervention
Why Does Tailoring Help?
- Hypothesis (Chua et al, 2011, Nat. Neuroscience): Engages
self-related processing - Prediction: Subjects who engage in more self-
related processing are more likely to quit - Approach:
- Identify self-related processing areas (mPFC,precuneus)
- Measure response to smoking messages in those areas
- Compare response in quitters/non-quitters
Messages Task
Tailored vs Untailored Messages
* Tailored: “You are concerned with being tempted to smoke around
other smokers.”
* Untailored: “Smokers are admitted to the hospital more often than
nonsmokers.”
Overlap with Self-Related vs. ValenceTailored > Untailored
- Many areas involved in social cognition
Critical region
Orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and/or
ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC)– terms are
sometimes used interchangeably
Phineas Gage
- First evidence that pointed to the role of the orbitofrontal
cortex (OFC) in social cognition - Work accident caused a tamping iron to pierce Gage’s skull,
through orbitofrontal cortex and other parts of frontal cortex
No loss of consciousness or obvious neurological symptoms,
but…
* Drastic changes in personality– impatient, rude, obstinate,
used lots of profanity
* Often abandoned future plans that he made
Patient M.R.
Motorcycle accident led to injury in OFC
* Normal performance on standard cognitive tests
* Exhibited socially inappropriate behavior
* Discussed personal topics with strangers
* Greets strangers with a hug, sits too close, stares too long
* Talks endlessly about boring topics
Studying Social Cognition
- Faux Pas Task
- Teasing Task
- Engaging in personal conversations
- Social judgments (e.g., trustworthiness) based on facial
expression
- Faux Pas Task:
Read narratives where social faux pas is committed
“Anne receives a vase as a wedding gift from Jeannette.
A year later, Anne has forgotten that the vase was from Jeanette.
Jeanette accidentally breaks the vase while at Anne’s house.
Anne tells Jeannette not to worry because it was a wedding gift
she never liked anyway.”
Did someone make a social mistake here?
- Read narratives where social faux pas is committed
- Healthy controls can correctly identify the faux pas
- But OFC patients do poorly (don’t detect the faux pas) à have
trouble putting together the whole sequence of events properly
and take context into account when making social judgments
- Teasing Task:
- Make up nickname for an experimenter
- Healthy controls don’t like this, make up positive nicknames,
and then apologize - OFC patients enjoy the task, make up negative nicknames,
weren’t embarrassed, etc. (note: If they’re not embarrassed,
then there’s no reason to change)
Engaging in personal conversation with experimenter where
personal questions are asked (while being videotaped):
Examples:
Tell me about an embarrassing moment you’ve had.
When did you last cry in front of another person? Why?
Is there something you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time?
Why haven’t you done it?
Engaging in personal conversation with experimenter where
personal questions are asked (while being videotaped):
* OFC patients are much more likely than healthy controls to
introduce impolite, inappropriate, and excessively personal
conversation topics (i.e., unaware of their behavior in the
moment)
However, they do have social knowledge– they know that it is
inappropriate to discuss intimate/emotional topics with a
stranger
When they watch the video of themselves, they report greater
embarrassment than other controls
Given that they are unaware in the moment that they are
behaving inappropriately, they therefore do not generate
emotional feedback that would allow them to change
behavior (e.g., embarrassment)
- Social judgments based on facial expressions:
Shown photos of 10 unfamiliar faces with various expressions
(angry, disgusted, fearful, happy, sad, neutral) à indicate the
extent to which they would ask this person for directions
- OFC patients and controls performed similarly for neutral faces
- But OFC patients were much more likely to rate a face as
approachable than other controls, even though they could
recognize a foreboding face
OFC patients, relative to other controls…
Are worse at detecting social faux pas
* Are more likely to assign negative nicknames (and do so
happily)
* Do have knowledge of what constitutes a socially appropriate
vs. inappropriate situation, but seem to unable to generate emotional feedback (e.g., embarrassment) IN THE
MOMENT that would allow them to change their behavior
(even though they feel embarrassed watching a video of
themselves after the fact)
* Are much more likely to rate an emotional face as
approachable
Self-Perception and Self-Knowledge
Our sense of self depends on perceiving the difference
between knowledge about our self and knowledge of others
* How does the representation of self-knowledge differ from
the representation about non-self information?
Self-Referential Processing
Self-referent effect
Self-referent effect: When presented with a word list, we
remember more words if we process them in relation to the
self (e.g., Does this word describe you?) versus if you process
them relative to others (e.g., Does this word describe the
President?)
Self-referent effect
- 2 explanations:
1. Processing relative to the self is an example of a deeper level
of processing that connects the word with other stored
knowledge (e.g., Levels of processing view by Craik & Lockhart)
-should have same increased activity in left
inferior frontal regions that are associated with greater depth
of encoding
- Processing relative to the self is a SPECIAL cognitive process
with unique memory and organization different from other
processes
—should engage distinct neural regions for judgments about the self
Self-Referential Processing
* Encoding Task (Kelley et al., 2002)
Make yes/no judgments
concerning…
* Self: Does this word describe you?
* Other: Does this word describe George Bush?
* Printed format: Is this word in uppercase or lowercase letters?
Note: Both self and other judgments require deeper levels of
processing than the printed format judgment… but only the
self judgment involves self-referential processing
- Hypothesis 1 (Levels of processing view): Predicts that both
self and other judgments should recruit left inferior frontal
regions over print judgment, since both require deeper levels of
processing - Hypothesis 2 (“Self” is special): Predicts that there should be a
special region that shows greater activity for self judgments
than both other and case judgments
Self-Referential Processing
* Left inferior frontal cortex (LIFC)
showed greater activity for BOTH self and other judgments (i.e., require deeper processing) than for printed format judgments
MPFC showed greater response (i.e., less reduction in activity) for self judgments than for other and printed format
judgments
Thus, processing self-relevant information is a SPECIAL process!
medial prefrontal cortex
MPFC is part of the default network
* This network of regions decrease in activity during attention
to demanding cognitive tasks (i.e., require externally-focused
attention), and increase in activity during rest (i.e., that
involve self-focused attention)
When we don’t have a specific task to do, MPFC activity
increases
* This might reflect the idea that we engage in thinking about
the self (self-referential processing) during rest… “What am I
doing? What will I do later?
What is our “sense of self”?
Our sense of self is NOT merely a collection autobiographical
memories
* After making the judgment about themselves (e.g., “Are you
extroverted?”), people are no faster at retrieving a related
episode (e.g., “Think of a time where you acted extroverted”)
* Thus, people don’t recall specific episodes from their life when
they have to decide whether a trait
applies to themselves
- BUT, people are faster at retrieving a specific episode about
others after making trait judgments of others à we use our
memory to retrieve specific episodes when making judgments
of others
Personality traits are true across most of our lives– not tied
to any single life event
* Patient K.C. (amnesic patient) could accurately describe his
own personality (after the accident), which changed after the
onset of amnesia à can acquire new semantic information
about himself
Self-Referential Processing
Self-referent effect (improved memory for self-relevant info)
is associated with activity in MPFC (not merely deeper
processing)
- MPFC is part of the brain’s default network, which because
more active during rest (when engaged in internal thoughts
about the self) and less active while engaged in other
externally-focused tasks - MPFC is also linked to social aspects of mental simulations
- Self/personality knowledge is represented as trait
summaries rather than as individual episodes (e.g., evidence
from Patient K.C.)
Right Temporal-Parietal Junction (rTPJ)
Important for theory of mind (i.e., understanding the mental
states of others)
- Problem of Other Minds: Why is it so hard to know other minds?
theory of mind
understanding the mental
states of others
- Assessed using False Belief task
- rTPJ shows greater activity when individuals engage in false belief
task, compared to other control tasks
rTPJ is specifically involved in reasoning about other people’s
mental states
Evidence from Phineas Gage and Patient M.R. revealed which brain region
to be important for social cognition and normal social behavior?
- What is the self-referent effect and how do we study it?
What is our sense of self?
– Is it a collection of autobiographical memories, or something else?
– Describe behavioral evidence from healthy subjects and from Patient K.C.
