the social and emotional brain (2)

Question 1

What is the focus of social cognition?

Answer 1

Social cognition focuses on how we process, store, and apply information about other people and social situations.

Question 2

What is the social brain hypothesis? What evidence is there to support it?

Answer 2

The social brain hypothesis argues that humans gave an unusally large brain for our body size because we have evolved to deal with the computational demands of complex social interactions.
Found that monkeys that lived in larger groups, had a larger neocortex for social processing

Question 3

Describe the significance of facial expressions in social interaction.

Answer 3

Facial expressions carry info about emotional state, intentions (such as eye gaze), membership in social categories (race, gender) and disposition (trustworthiness)

Question 4

What evidence suggests that face processing may be innate?

Answer 4

Johnson et al - newborns (within hour after birth) prefer preferentially look at face-like-patterns
Reid - fetuses (34 weeks) more sensitive to face-like configurations

Question 5

Outline what research has found about facial emotion processing at 5 months.

Answer 5

Using fNRIs found that the right occipital area selectively responds to faces (face processing active) over a neutral stimulus .
But there is no difference between happy and fearful faces (immaturity of sensitivity to facial emotions)
Suggested to develop at around 7 months.

Question 6

What is social referencing, and how does it relate to facial expression recognition?

Answer 6

Social referencing is the ability to regulate behaviour in ambiguous situations based off others’ facial expressions. For example, in the visual cliff experiment 12m/o demonstrated using social referencing

Question 7

Why is eye gaze detection important in understanding others?

Answer 7

Eye gaze provides info on important social cues, distinguishing emotions, facilitating dyadic communication, directing attention and giving clues about intention

Question 8

Is eye-gaze detection innate?

Answer 8

Newborns are born with poor visual acuity, but focus on contrast facilitates eye gaze detection = innate
Newborns have a preference for mutual eye gaze = innate
4m/o – enhanced neural processing (faster response to direct than averted gaze) of direct gaze – emit infant N170 ERP response = innate

Question 9

How is eye-gaze detection different in autistic children?

Answer 9

Evidence suggests that autistic children have intact perception of eye gaze but struggle to use eye gaze to predict behaviour
Evidence also shows no difference in STS activity when looking at goal-directed (congurent tirals) and incongurent trials = perception of gaze shift not linked with mentalistic significance

Question 10

What brain regions are involved in eye-gaze detection?

Answer 10

STS (Superior Temporal Sulcus)
- Activated in eye gaze detection tasks
- Detecting changeable features on the face
- Lesion – impairs eye gaze detection
FFA (Fusiform Face Area)
- Activated in facial identify task
- Involves processing the unchangeable features of a face

Question 11

What is empathy?

Answer 11

An emotional reaction/understanding another’s feelings and the ability to infer emotional experiences.
Has affective (mirroring) and cognitive (ToM) components.

Question 12

Define the two components of empathy.

Answer 12

Affective - feeling what someone else is feeling
Cognitive - understanding what someone is feeling by reasoning and attributing mental states

Question 13

What is the ToM and which aspect of empathy does it relate to?

Answer 13

ToM - the ability to infer others’ mental states and intentions
Relates to the cognitive aspect of empathy - reasoning about mental states and attributing mental states

Question 14

Explain the roles of the following brain regions in social/emotional cognition:
Temporal lobes
Parieto-temporal junction
Medial prefrontal cortex

Answer 14

Temporal lobes - semantic memory storage allows activation of semantic schemas for current emotional/social context
Parieto-temporal junction - role in biological motion allows for agent detection
Medial prefrontal cortex - more sensitive to people, minds and intention (pragmatics of) language suggests it has a ‘binding’ role of social information

Question 15

Describe the neural bases of empathy and Theory of Mind (ToM).

Answer 15

Both empathy and ToM activate: medial prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction, temporal poles
ToM (cognitive empathy) specifically activates the orbitofrontal cortex, while empathy activates the left amygdala.

Question 16

How do researchers measure Theory of Mind?

Answer 16

Theory of Mind is often measured using false-belief tasks, such as the Sally-Anne task, which assesses the ability to understand that others may hold beliefs different from one’s own (post 4-5 months can pass this task)

Question 17

What are some criticisms of the Sally-Anne task?

Answer 17

Critics argue that false-belief tasks like the Sally-Anne task may not solely assess Theory of Mind but also involve inhibition and problem-solving skills. Additionally, they may be too complex for younger children.

Question 18

What alternative tasks have been proposed to measure Theory of Mind?

Answer 18

Alternative tasks include Repacholi and Gopnik’s food-request procedure, which assesses understanding of others’ desires, and Kovacs, Teglas, and Endress’s study, which assess if infants can understand an agent’s beliefs.

Question 19

Describe Repacholi and Gopnik’s food-request procedure.

Answer 19

14m/o and 18m/o observe an experimenter eating 2 types of food, one they showed disgust and to another they showed happiness
when experimenter then asked the child for some food, 14m/o – 54% gave preferred food, 18m/o – 92% gave preferred food
Suggests that even 18 m/o children can take into account beliefs/desires

Question 20

Describe Kovacs, Teglas, and Endress ToM study.

Answer 20

Study aimed to demonstrated that if ToM mechanisms are innate, they should be spontaneous and automatic.
Found that 7m/o could compute an agent’s beliefs, demonstrating surprise when its behaviour was not inline with its beliefs
Concluded that infants as young as 7 months can spontaneously and automatically compute others’ beliefs, indicating that Theory of Mind development may occur earlier than previously thought.