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)
