13.4 Socrates's Imperative: Know Thyself Flashcards
social cognitive neuroscience
center on which neural and psychological mechanisms support the processing of information about the self and about other people whether these mechanisms are the same or different, how the brain differentiates between the self and other, and how social contexts affect these processes.
self-reference effect
People remember significantly more information when they process it in relation to themselves. The enhanced memory for information processed in relation to the self is known as the self-reference effect.
medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC)
was differentially activated when you hear words about your self compared to other words. In addition to having a uniquely strong memory for traits that we judge in relation to ourselves, we have a unique way of deciding whether a trait is self-descriptive.
default network.
When we are at rest, cognitively speaking, our brains continue to engage but revert to a number of psychological processes that describe a default mode of brain function. Researchers named the brain regions that support these processes the default network.
default network brain regions
the MPFC, precunues, posterior cingulate cortex, retrosplenial cortex, TPJ, medial temporal lobe and inferior parietal lobule.
sentinel hypothesis
The researchers hypothesized that the higher metabolic rate in the MPFC reflects self-referential processing, such as thinking about what might be getting ready to do or evaluating our current condition. Thus, the default network is there to ensure that we always have some idea of what is going on around us.
default network most active
when tasks direct our attention away from external stimuli and we are inwardly focused, engaged in self-reflective thought and judgment assessments that depend on social and emotional content. It is connected to the medial temporal lobe memory system, which explains why we often consider the past in these ramblings.
unrealistically positive self-perceptions
Even though we have the richest possible set of data against which to judge ourselves, this process is often inaccurate. A wide range of behavioral studies have shown that people often have unrealistically positive self-perceptions. Studies suggest that the most ventral portion of the anterior cingulate cortex is responsible for focusing attention on positive information about the self.
The vmPFC, the ventral region of the MPFC
a region involved with simulating other people’s mind, other times and other places. The vmPFC is key to predicting our state of mind: the more activated it is when we consider the future, the less shortsighted our descisions will be
embodiment
Most of us take for granted the feeling of body ownership, complete with all its parts, and the feeling of spatial unity between the ‘self’ and the body
TPJ, temporoparietal junction
is involved in self processing and integrating multisensory body-related information, which plays a key role in the feeling of embodiment.
autoscopic phenomena (APs)
Autoscopic phenomena are psychic illusory visual experiences consisting of the perception of the image of one’s own body or face within space, either from an internal point of view, as in a mirror or from an external point of view.
autoscopy
is the experience of perceiving the surroundings fr om a position outside of one’s own body. Neuroanatomical studies have shown that out-of-body experiences are caused by damage to right temporoparietal cortex
autoscopic hallucination.
In this case, people do not fee l as if they have left their body, but they see a double of themselves in extrapersonal space. tend to be caused by damage to right parieto-occipital or right temporo-occipital cortex
heautoscopy
which is the experience of see ing a double of oneself in extrapersonal space but being unsure of whether one fee ls disembodied or not. results fr om left temporoparietal lesions
