Week 6 RF-Social Cognition and the Mirror Neuron System Flashcards
What is Social Cognition? (Fiske & Taylor, 1991)
-Our ability to process, store and apply
information when we interact with
other people in different social
situations e.g., empathy, decision-making etc.,
Social:
* Self and Other/s
Cognition:
Information about the social world needs:
* Encoding
* Storing
* Applying
What is the Theory of mind?
- Attribution of mental states to self and
others (Premack & Woodruff, 1978 who tried testing ToM in monkeys) - Also known as mindreading, mentalising
- Encompasses inferences on the basis of
behaviour - Practical reasoning - attributions of:
– intentions
– beliefs
– desires
What is Implicit Theory of Mind?
Two systems account of ToM:
o Implicit (seen without talking about) vs. explicit mentalising (Apperly, 2008; Apperly & Butterfill, 2009; Frith & Frith, 2008, 2012)
Evidence of implicit ToM in perspective taking:
o Dot perspective-taking task (e.g. McCleery et al., 2011; Qureshi, Apperly & Samson, 2010; Samson et al, 2010)
What was the Perspective taking task? (Samson et al., 2010)
-Showed a sequence of events that could have either been you or an avatar. Then a number was shown representing the number of dots you’ll see in the next visual stimuli.
-Had to say whether number said was consistent with what was shown and if the avatar could see this i.e., taking in their perspective (did consistent and inconsistent trials).
- Participant’s responses are slower in inconsistent compared to consistent perspective trials.
- This effect is found when participants make self-judgements and do not require to take into account the avatar’s perspective aka a Self-consistency Effect (evidence of implit mentalising).
What is Domain Specific vs. Domain
General?
■ It seems that something automatic is going on in this perspective taking task, but what is it?
– Automatic representation of what the avatar can see?
– Automatic attentional orienting?
What is Implicit Mentalising vs Attentional re-orienting?
- Self-consistency effect replicated with non-social stimuli – arrow, both behaviourally (Santiesteban et al., 2014) and using neurostimulation rTMS (Santiesteban et al., 2017).
- Attention re-orienting underlies visual processing in this task
Controversies:
⎼ e.g. Schurz et al., (2015)
* Integrating account:
⎼ e.g. Capozzi & Ristic (2020
What is the role of The Temporo-Parietal Junction (TPJ)?
Key node within socio-cognitive processes including:
⎼ Visual perspective taking (Aichhorn et al, 2006).
⎼ Imitation inhibition (Spengler et al., 2009).
⎼ Theory of mind (Saxe & Kanwisher, 2003).
- Also, key region involved in domain-general processing, working memory, attentional processes
⎼ Attention re-orienting (Vossel et al., 2008)
What is the Neural Basis of Theory of Mind?
■ Some researchers claim that brain regions being solely activated by social processes this is the case. For example, Saxe 2006,
2010, et al., Saxe & Wexler (2005)
argue that the right TPJ plays a
specific role in ‘thinking about
thought’.
– …”the right TPJ contains domain-specific representations with content like ‘Bob thinks that his keys are in his pocket’… which form the core of ToM”
– rTPJ does ‘it’ with input from and output to other regions
What is Imitation?
■ Imitation: The ability to replicate the action/behaviour of another person
■ It requires the merging of self-other
representations
■ Can be intentional but can also occur without our awareness
■ Has been studied in the context of:
– Development
– Culture and evolution
– Cognitive Psychology
– Social Cognitive neuroscience
What is Imitation in regards to Social Psychology?
- Imitation = mimicry or the chameleon
effect in social psychology (Chartrand
& Bargh, 1999). - In social situations we imitate actions
(gestures/ voice patterns, e.g. regional
accents) of others, seemingly without
awareness. - Degree of mutual imitation correlates
with the quality of social interaction. - Considered a ‘social glue’: promoting
rapport, affiliation and group harmony.
What is Neonatal Imitation? (Meltzoff & Moore, 1977)
Maratos (1973) and Meltzoff Moore (1977) found that newborns can imitate movements of a model -even when these movements involve moving body parts they
cannot see including:
– tongue protrusion
– mouth opening and
– lip protrusion
What is Neonatal Imitation? (Ferrari et al., 2006)
- Rhesus macaques (N = 15) were tested on days 1, 3, 7 and 14 after birth
They were shown 5 actions by human models including (for 20 seconds):
o Mouth opening
o Lip smacking
o Tongue protrusion
o Hand opening
o Eye opening
- Some infant monkeys matched tongue
protrusion / lip smacking or both on day 3
What is Neonatal Imitation? (Oostenbroek et al., 2016)
<100 infants, longitudinally at 1, 3, 6
and 9 weeks of age with a range of facial reactions like tongue protrusions then followed by objects doing similar things e.g., spoon sticking out.
-Only tongue protrusion showed consistent evidence of imitation (perhaps this is because babies are ready to use their tongue when they’re ready to feed so is it actually imitation?).
-Hard to argue against this study as it has a large sample size and is well-controlled.
How do we go from Imitation to Mind reading?
■ It has been suggested that imitation in infancy is subserved by an innate ability to read the minds of others (Tomasello et al., 2005).
■ For decades, the data from neonatal imitation has fueled speculations of the ‘innate’ origin of the mirror neuron
system (MNS).
■ The discovery of the MNS has led to suggestions that it forms the basis of social cognition – from action understanding to attribution of mental states to others.
What are Mirror Neurons?
A set of neurons that become active during performance of an action and also during passive observation of a similar action (Gallese et al., 1996; Rizzolatti et al., 1996)
First observed in monkeys but there is evidence of a similar system in the human brain (Gazzola & Keysers, 2009; Iacobonni et al., 1999)
What is our understanding of mirror neurons in humans?
The discovery of the mirror-neuron system (MNS) has lead to a whole new field of research that is now known as Social
Neuroscience.
Several claims and counterclaims have been made regarding the origins of the MNS and its function in social cognition.
The imitation in infants data have led to the theory that the MNS is innate (e.g. Lepage & Theoret, 2007).
There are also claims that the MNS help us understand what another human is doing (Rizzolatti & Arbib, 1998; Rizzolatti &
Craighero, 2004).
What is the link between mirror neurons and associative learning?
The innateness of the MNS has been
challenged by empirical data from various
research groups
The alternative view of the origins of the MNS is that they are a product of associative learning – same kind of learning that produces Pavlovian conditioning – (Heyes, 2001, 2005, 2009; Heyes
& Ray, 2000)
The Associative learning hypothesis suggests that each mirror neuron originates from sensorimotor experience – correlated experience of observing and executing the same action.
-Before learning: weak unsystematic connections between the sensory and motor neurons.
-During learning: there is a correlated activation between sensory and motor neurons=forming connections.
-After learning: Stronger connection leading
to a new mirror neuron that fires during observation and execution of an action.
What is the link between mirror neurons and the role of experience? (Calvo-Merino et al., 2005)
-Capoeira dancers, ballet dancers, or non-dance controls watch ballet or capoeira dance videos attached to fMRI.
-Greater mirror system activation when watching own dance they’re experts in compared to non-experts, some generalisation.
- Evidence of Perceptual experience, motor experience or sensorimotor experience in the creation of mirror neurons.
