Session Eleven (Social Cognitive Neuroscience) Flashcards
What is social cognitive neuroscience? How are it’s viewpoints different from those of other related disciplines?
- Extension of Cognitive Neuropsychology that thinks about cognitive processes in the context of our interactions with other people.
- Emphasis on functions that are either altered or entirely derived from interactions with others.
- Uses methods of cognitive neuroscience to address questions traditionally posed by social psychology
- Studies the brain as one unit in many, not as an independent social processor
Define SCN?
An attempt to understand and explain, using the methods and theories of neuroscience, how the thoughts feelings and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual/ imagined/ implied presence of others.
What did Fotopoulou et al find in 2017 that supports the social element of CogNeuro?
Our sense of self is constructed through early social interactions.
Therefore…
CogNeuro alone is missing the social nature of humans
What does the Kuhl et al study from 2003 tell us about our language abilities?
Compared learning ability in two groups of American babies:
- Group A interacted with a Chinese person in real life
- Group B had the exact same conversation, but via a pre-recorded film
Found Group B learned nothing, Group A learned a substantial amount. This tells us some aspect of our language learning behaviour is entirely reliant on social processes, therefore SCN is vital to our understanding of language.
What did Redcay et al (2019) find to support Kuhl et al’s language learning in babies study?
- Neural processes differ entirely between individuals engaged in a 2nd person perspective vs a 3rd person perspective.
- Reciprocal social interaction/ direct engagement with partner in real time VS passive observation with no active participation treated as entirely different by the brain.
Highlights the importance of studying neuronal processes in a social context.
What is the Social Brain?
The complex network of brain areas that enable us to recognise others and evaluate their mental states, feelings, dispositions and actions.
What areas are included in the Social Brain?
- Medial Prefrontal Cortex (mPFC)
- Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC)
- Inferior Frontal Gyrus
- Superior Temporal Sulcus (STS)
- Amygdala
- Anterior Insula
Why do we have a social brain?
The Social Brain Hypothesis:
- Adult brain makes up 2% of body weight but 20% of energy demands
- Humans have large brains to allow them to meet computational demands of living in complex social groups
- Social processes such as empathy, complex communication, deception, lying… all require immense computational power and therefore energy
- If we look across our nearest animal relatives (apes, monkeys, bonobos) there is a correlation between size of neocortex and group size
- Older theory of large brains was that it developed to better adapt to our environment, but this doesn’t explain why other Savannah animals haven’t developed brains like ours.
How does the brain develop?
- Significant growth after birth
- Baby = 450g, Adult = 1400g
- Most neurones are fully formed at birth, so expansion is due to growth of synapses, dendrites, axons, glial cells, myelination….
- Synaptic density of a baby is about 150% that of an adult (pruning)
- Different areas of the brain develop at different rates (PFC reaches adult levels at adolescence)
- Pruning occurs to increase efficiency, cuts out needless pathways
What research methods are common in SCN?
- Performance measures e.g. response times or accuracy
- Observational measures e.g. eye tracking
- Survey measures e.g. questionnaires, interviews
PET, MRI, TMS, ERP, Single cell recordings, Naturally occurring lesions
Explain the 4 different ways of studying social brain activity (single/dual brains)?
Single Brain 3rd Person =
- when 1 brain is being imaged, in response to a non-interactive stimuli.
- only measuring OBSERVER phenomena
Single Brain 2nd Person =
- when 1 brain is being imaged, but this time in response to an interactive stimulus
- measuring the SENDER and RECEIVER phenomena of the one brain
Dual Brain Sequential =
- when 2 brains are being imaged, 1 is sending stimulus and the other is being shown it and responding to it
- measure the SENDER activity of brain A and the RECEIVER activity of brain B
Dual Brain Simultaneous =
- when 2 brains are being imaged, both of which are sending and receiving stimuli
- total interaction between the two
- measure the SENDER and RECEIVER data from both brains being studied
What is the Theory of Mind?
A person’s ability to make attributions about mental states such as intentions, desires, or beliefs to others and to understand that others have beliefs intentions and desires that are different from one’s own.
AKA Mentalising or Cognitive Perspective Taking
Why is ToM important to human development?
- Vital aspect of how we navigate our social world.
- Processes such as lying, irony, sarcasm, teaching others, negotiating, predicting another’s behaviour, empathy or friendship forming would be impossible without ToM
- Furthermore, may be important to how we recognise others
What did Dodell-Feder et al (2016) find about the association between ToM and the development of close relationships?
Strongly related.
- Found that activity in regions of the brain associated with mentalising when thinking of your partner was associated with greater partner well-being and relationship satisfaction
- Shows that partners who are able to mentalist better create greater satisfaction in their partners.
- Therefore the ability to mentalist is essential to the development of strong social bonds.
How does facial recognition develop in humans, and what relevance might this have to ToM?
Farroni et al, 2005:
- Newborns preferentially focus on face like stimulus
- However doesnt have to be 100% biologically accurate, will respond to a stimulus with eyes on top even if they’re vertical
Berenthal et al, 1984:
- 3 month olds can detect biological motion
Systems becomes more specialised and mature from infancy to adulthood as additional areas of the cortex are recruited to the mentalising pathways.
ToM might develop in conjunction to our ability to recognise others as also being human
What are the two competing theories of brain development after birth?
Interactive Specialisation:
- Development involves organising patterns of interactions between brain regions
- As children develop new abilities, brain activity changes in many areas not just the one
- This is supported by the fact brain damage early on can be compensated for as other areas are recruited.
Maturation:
- As you age different parts of the brain ‘come online’ therefore you become able to do more
- Evidence: damage to SOME specific areas means you’ll never recover that ability e.g. damage to one highly specific area means you’ll never be able to recognise faces
Likely a mixture of the two
How does our ability to understand others change as we age?
- At 18 months we gain the ability to show joint attention; two individuals paying attention to the same thing
- At around the same age children become able to infer other’s feelings based on what they are looking at e.g. sad + broken toy = sad because their toy broke
- This suggests shared attention is somehow crucial to the development of mentalising abilities
- Children soon after can distinguish between pretend and real beliefs and realities.
- False belief understanding emerges at around 4-5 (this is the toy in a box/ pirate sandwich thing)
What distinguishes children who pass and fail the false understanding task?
MRI activation in certain areas:
- TPJ
- mPFC
What brain changes occur in adolescence?
- Synaptic pruning
- Myelination increases steadily from birth and becomes stable in adolescence (= white matter volume)
- Grey matter changes throughout teenage years
- Most profound anatomical change is cortex thinning
What did Dumontheil et al (2010) show about mentalising in adolescence?
- Developed a more complex mentalising task
- Showed that error rates decreased well throughout adolescence
- Only stabilise in adulthood
- Suggests our brains continue to develop social processes throughout our adolescence.
What has neuro-imaging research shown about how teenagers respond to social stimulus?
Wang et al (2006):
- Teenagers show greater dmPFC activity than adults when performing mentalising tasks
- Possibly shows they need to focus harder to be able to perform these tasks
Magis-Weinberg et al (2017):
- Teenager show greater AI activity when comparing social vs nonsocial information
Shows prolonged structural development throughout adolescence, perhaps due to different neural strategies than adults
How does face recognition develop through adolescence?
Evidence is mixed.
- Some suggests that it increases over the first decade of life, then experiences a ‘pubertal dip’
- However Fuhrmann et al (2016) showed a linear trajectory, with significant improvement in facial recognition between the ages of 11 and 16 driven by mounting exposure to new faces.
What areas of the brain are thought to be involved in mentalising?
- pSTS at the temporoparietal junction (TPJ)
- PFC (especially dorsal and ventral mPFC)
- OFC
What will occur if areas of the brain associated with mentalising are damaged?
Unpredictable, generally…
- If young: can have permanent effect on ability to mentalize
- If older: can have no effect
Provides mixed evidence for the maturation vs interactive specialisation theories
What are the two main theories relating to how we understand others?
The Theory Theory:
- Develop a set of rules and theories used to predict other’s mental states
- Gopnik et al, 1992
Simulation Theory:
- Understand others by simulating their behaviour in our brains
- Some amount of evolutionary backing; monkeys have things called mirror neurones which light up both when doing an action themselves AND when seeing someone else doing an action (although unclear whether humans also have these)
- Theory is limited as behaviour is actually a poor predictor of internal mental states
- Goldman et al, 1998
What is Empathy? What are the. components of empathy?
- Possessing knowledge of another’s mental state.
- An extension of perspective taking that is specific to emotional states
- 3 Components to empathy; ABC (Affective, Behavioural, Cognitive)
- Two affective processes occur in response to feeling empathy; Empathic distress (feel distress with them) or Empathic Concern (concern over their feelings)
- Empathic distress leads to withdrawal, Empathic concern leads to reassurance
What are some Facets of empathy?
- Imagine-self vs imagine-others
- Emotion contagion (mimicking and catching an emotion you see in someone else)
- Matching neural responses (closer to simulation theory, see someone in distress, brain simulates their distress)
How can researchers measure empathy?
- Bodily responses
- Queestionaire-based measures
- Neural responses
- Empathic accuracy
How has empathy supposedly evolved?
Initially developed for the sake of paternal care:
- Church et al, 1959
- Empathy is adaptive as being able to understand baby’s emotions leads to better care, survival benefit
- Their study showed that rats will stop pressing a leaver that gives them food if it is shown to hurt another rat
- Another study showed hen’s eye temperature rises when they see their chicks in distress, indicating physical response
Perhaps then brought in a reward component:
- Strathearn et al, 2009
- Mothers who see their baby smiling experience both a hormonal and neural increase in reward pathways
- Empathy taps into the brain’s reward pathways
From here it became generalised:
- Neural reuse theory; neurones which initially had one purpose develop another as humans develop
- Pain empathy may piggyback on to parental care empathy
How can empathy be studied?
- Normally using imaging techniques while exposing someone to an empathic situation
- Can be abstract, based on cues
- Can be image-based e.g.watch a film of someone stubbing their toe
Outline the ‘empathy network’
Not really such a thing, no clear pathway becomes activated, but certain associated areas:
- Anterior insula
- dACC
- Anterior Midcingulate Cortex
- Amygdala
- Brainstem
What did Singer et al (2004) show about empathy for pain?
During empathy we activate the affective (emotional) part of our pain network, but not the sensory part
- AI and ACC activation correlates with empathy scores
What did Cheng et al (2010) show about empathy for pain?
Different parts of the brain activate in response to different people being in pain:
- Loved ones: AAC and Insula
- Stranger: Superior frontal gyrus and rTPJ
Is the empathic response universal?
Nope, highly dependent on a number of factors relating to the person in pain:
- Whether you know them (Cheng et al, 2010)
- Race (Xu et al, 2009)
- Gender
- Religon
- Drug addiction (people feel more empathy for AIDS through blood transfusion than AIDS through drug addiction)
- Person’s individual behaviours
Also dependent on qualities relating to the empathiser e.g. doctors show less empathy than normal when seeing someone being stabbed with a needle (Cheng et al, 2007)
What has research shown about empathy in adolescence?
Teenagers may have a raised capacity for empathy
Mella et al, 2012:
- Teenagers show earlier automatic responses to painful situations than young adults
Masten et al, 2010:
- Adolescents with higher insult activation wrote more prosocial e-mails to rejected individuals
What has research shown us about Social Pain?
Very similar to physical pain, possibly as social pain is associated with rejection which is maladaptive in the same way physical damage is
Eisenberger, 2012:
- Overlap between neurones associated with physical and emotional pain
- Literally “hurt feelings”
- Possibly caused by Mu-opioid activity
Eisenberger, 2006:
- People more sensitive to physical pain are also more sensitive to emotional pain
DeWall, 2010:
- Pain killers reduce activation in an area of the brain associated with emotional pain when doing the ball-rejection task
What is Love?
(baby don’t hurt me)
Love = emotion associated with being in an attachment relationship.
Dyadic relationships, involve turning to attachment figure fir care in times of need.
What has SCN research shown about how love affects pain?
Master et al, 2009:
- Found that holding a partner’s hand led to reduced pain sensation when compared to holding an object or a stranger
- Loving attachment can help reduce pain
- However this appears to be dependent on attachment, avoidant individuals may experience increased pain
What did Goldstein et al’s 2018 dual-brain study show about Love’s impact on pain?
- When a person was holding their partner and in pain…
- Their pain was reported lower
- Empathy was displayed I the parter’s brain
- Reduction in pain experienced by participant correlated with level of inter-partner coupling
Level of coupling appears to reflect level of analgesia and empathy
What did Bartels et al show about the rewarding aspect of love (2004)?
- fMRI study comparing viewing pictures of a loved one vs a friend
- Viewing pictures of loved one activated reward system
- Reward system was rich in oxytocin/vassopressin
- Deactivation in regions associated with mentalising such as amygdala, TPJ, mPFC
