Social Neuroscience Flashcards
what does SN involve?
linking mind and behaviour (psychology) to the brain (biology and neuroscience)
what are key topics in SN similar to?
cognitive neuroscience, by considering decision-making and emotions over attitudes and relationships
criticism of SN
reductionism- social processes must be best understood at the social level
domain-general
brain areas involved in social cognition respond to everything
domain-specific
brain areas only respond to social cognition
module
computational routine that responds to particular inputs and is highly specialised
theories of SN
theory theory
simulation theory
theory theory
domain-specific
others’ minds are understood by forming a folk psychological theory, which consists of a set of concepts about others (beliefs and desires) and governing principles of how these concepts interact
simulation theory
domain-general
others’ minds are understood by simulation and finding mirror neurons (neurons that fire when an animal acts and when observing the same action from another)
common cognitive neuroscience pitfalls
reverse inference
voodoo correlations
the salmon
reverse inference
reasoning back from the presence of brain activation to engagement of a particular cognitive function
can be improved by examining brain networks or using more precise regions
voodoo correlations
if brain regions-of-interest (ROI) and definitions are based on the same data, this leads to circulatory and inflated chance of type one errors
the salmon
important to use appropriate statistics and correct for multiple comparisons
what does SN consider?
the extent to which cognitive and neural processes are specialised for social behaviour or shared with other non-social faculties
what is the social brain hypothesis?
cognitive abilities required for navigating social environments shaped the large brains of primates relative to other animals
computation (why)
prosocial behaviour
algorithm (what)
associative learning
implementation
(how/physical)
brain areas that overlap with general reward learning:
- anterior cingulate sulcus (ACCs)
- ventral medial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC)
- amygdala
- ventral striatum (Vstr)
brain areas that are more socially specialised:
- anterior cingulate gyrus (ACCg)
- dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC)
- temporo parietal junction (TPJ)
- superior temporal sulcus (STS)
empathy
the capacity to vicariously experience and understand others’ emotions
involves shared representations and mental flexibility to enable shifts in perspective
what precedes empathy?
emotional contagion and mimicry
what results from empathy?
sympathy and compassion
brain regions involved in empathy
ACC and insula, connected to:
- supplementary motor area (SMA) and granular insula (Ig)
- ACCs and dysgranular insula (Id)
- ACCg and argranular insula (Ia)
pain
the perception of actual or threatened tissue damage and the private experience of unpleasantness
singer (2004) found…
the ACC and Insula activated for self-pain and others’ pain, providing evidence of signal empathy
ACCg
specialisation for others’ reward, suggesting this has a socially specialised function
evidence for shared representations
placebo analgesia effect hypothesises that experimentally reducing the first-hand experience of pain should also reduce empathy for pain if empathy is ‘shared’
evidence against shared representations
patients with congenital insensitivities to pain still activate ACC and anterior insula (AI)
activation for others’ pain and reward is seen in ACCg and AI, not in ACCs or posterior inula (PI) which are associated with self-pain
domain-general or domain-specific?
empathy and vicarious processing seem to be both domain-general (ACCs)
and domain-specific (ACCg) with shared and non-shared neural correlates involved in this processing
what is empathy in regard to prosocial behaviour?
the capacity to understand and resonate with the affect of other people
benefit of using economic games to measure prosociality
reveal actual preferences through having choices become incentivised and improving subject anonymity
computational fMRI
measures behaviour by choices
- uses a maths model to estimate values (how good each choice is) and correlate this with brain activity for each decision over time
associative learning theory
prediction errors (PE) are the key process that drives learning
these signal the unexpectedness of our outcomes (the difference between prediction and actual outcome)
how much we are learning is determined by:
- the PE (how unexpected the outcome is)
- the learning rate which scales the PE (determines how much the value on each trial is updated, which differs between individuals and contexts)
what do prosocial learning tasks show?
higher learning rates for self, which is modulated by empathy
what tracks prosocial PE?
subgenual anterior cingulate cortex
what tracks PE regardless of beneficiary?
ventral striatum
damage to sgACC…
disrupts learning to gain prosocial rewards
older adults are…
- worse at associative learning tasks
- more willing to put in effort to help others
- show reduced self-bias during prosocial learning
