Social Neuroscience
Chapter 1
Hyperscanning – recording two or more brains simultaneously (through fMRI, or
EEG)
Social psychology – attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings,
and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied
presence of others
Social neuroscience - attempt to understand and explain using neural mechanisms
how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the actual,
imagined, or implied presence of others
Cognitive psychology – study of mental processes such as thinking, perceiving,
speaking, acting, and planning
- Important in decomposing complex social behaviors into simpler mechanisms
that are easier to explore using neuroscientific methodologies
Term ‘social neuroscience’ – Cacioppo and Berntson
- Field started to grow rapidly in 2000s
Social robots – autonomous robots that can carry out some human functions like
companionship and assistance, might appear human (android)
Robots that look almost, but not perfectly, human tend to elicit strong unease - the
uncanny valley phenomenon
Ecological validity – meaningful outside of the laboratory context
Modularity – notion that certain cognitive processes are restricted in the type of
information they process and the type of processing carried out
Domain specificity – cognitive process specialized for processing only one
particular kind of information
Phrenologists – created brain maps containing highly specialized functions (such as
love of animals) based on anecdotal observations of skull shapes
,Social brain – specific parts, or part of non-social processes, or different type of
information processing – more fuzzy (Mitchell)
Mirror system – specifically social
- Respond when seeing an action performed by someone else and when they
perform the same action
,Reductionism – one type of explanation will be replaced with another, more basic,
type over time (in this sense social psychology will be replaced with concepts of
neuroscience)
Reverse inference - attempt to infer the nature of cognitive processes from
neuroscience (notably neuroimaging) data.
- Amygdala – fear
- Emotional brain – moral dilemmas
- Hippocampus – LTM
- Temporo-parietal junction – theory of mind
Blank slate - The idea that the brain learns environmental contingencies without
imposing any biases, constraints, or preexisting knowledge on that learning.
- Accepts, stores, processes information
- Social interactions completely attributable to culture, society and environment
- Number of close friends – predicted by size of brain?
- Tendency to form monogamous attachments – dependent on brain chemistry
- Infants – prefer social stimuli
Aggression
- What causes aggression and what causes variability in levels of aggression?
- Murder rates vary by country
- Resource control and perceived injustice – biological instinct
- Testosterone levels correlated with aggression in people of low SES but not
high – SES is a brake on bio influences
- Example of reductive NS
Slavery – possible because it existed
- Neurocognitive mechanisms – switching off empathic processes towards the
slave group, dehumanization
, Cultural neuroscience - an interdisciplinary field bridging cultural psychology,
neurosciences, and neurogenetics.
- Culture influences brain, brain impacts culture
Gene-culture co-evolution - culture can influence gene frequencies in a population,
and genes have an impact on cultural evolution via psychological predispositions.
- Genotypes predispose people to create particular features in their
environment
- aspect of a given culture may tend to favor individuals of a
given genotype
- lactose intolerance and practice of cattle domestication and
dairy farming
- co-evolving genes that make it possible to live in high altitude
– haemoglobin concentration or blood oxygen saturation
- long vs short serotonin gene
- carriers of short – more mental health problems
following negative life event, but also more
responsiveness to positive events – especially in social
realm
- short – social sensitivity, more prevalent in collectivistic cultures
- mu-opioid – two variants (G and A) – G – greater sensitivity to social rejection
– more in collectivistic cultures
- MAO-A – breaks down serotonin and dopamine, diff variants – low expressing
– antisocial behavior following neg. life events, low problems following positive
– social sensitivity – collectivistic cultures
Chapter 2
Temporal resolution – accuracy with which one can measure when an event is
occurring
- Brain damage – permanent – no temporal resolution
- EEG/ERP, MEG, TMS, single-cell recording – millisecond resolution
- fMRI – several seconds (slower hemodynamic response)
Chapter 1
Hyperscanning – recording two or more brains simultaneously (through fMRI, or
EEG)
Social psychology – attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings,
and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied
presence of others
Social neuroscience - attempt to understand and explain using neural mechanisms
how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the actual,
imagined, or implied presence of others
Cognitive psychology – study of mental processes such as thinking, perceiving,
speaking, acting, and planning
- Important in decomposing complex social behaviors into simpler mechanisms
that are easier to explore using neuroscientific methodologies
Term ‘social neuroscience’ – Cacioppo and Berntson
- Field started to grow rapidly in 2000s
Social robots – autonomous robots that can carry out some human functions like
companionship and assistance, might appear human (android)
Robots that look almost, but not perfectly, human tend to elicit strong unease - the
uncanny valley phenomenon
Ecological validity – meaningful outside of the laboratory context
Modularity – notion that certain cognitive processes are restricted in the type of
information they process and the type of processing carried out
Domain specificity – cognitive process specialized for processing only one
particular kind of information
Phrenologists – created brain maps containing highly specialized functions (such as
love of animals) based on anecdotal observations of skull shapes
,Social brain – specific parts, or part of non-social processes, or different type of
information processing – more fuzzy (Mitchell)
Mirror system – specifically social
- Respond when seeing an action performed by someone else and when they
perform the same action
,Reductionism – one type of explanation will be replaced with another, more basic,
type over time (in this sense social psychology will be replaced with concepts of
neuroscience)
Reverse inference - attempt to infer the nature of cognitive processes from
neuroscience (notably neuroimaging) data.
- Amygdala – fear
- Emotional brain – moral dilemmas
- Hippocampus – LTM
- Temporo-parietal junction – theory of mind
Blank slate - The idea that the brain learns environmental contingencies without
imposing any biases, constraints, or preexisting knowledge on that learning.
- Accepts, stores, processes information
- Social interactions completely attributable to culture, society and environment
- Number of close friends – predicted by size of brain?
- Tendency to form monogamous attachments – dependent on brain chemistry
- Infants – prefer social stimuli
Aggression
- What causes aggression and what causes variability in levels of aggression?
- Murder rates vary by country
- Resource control and perceived injustice – biological instinct
- Testosterone levels correlated with aggression in people of low SES but not
high – SES is a brake on bio influences
- Example of reductive NS
Slavery – possible because it existed
- Neurocognitive mechanisms – switching off empathic processes towards the
slave group, dehumanization
, Cultural neuroscience - an interdisciplinary field bridging cultural psychology,
neurosciences, and neurogenetics.
- Culture influences brain, brain impacts culture
Gene-culture co-evolution - culture can influence gene frequencies in a population,
and genes have an impact on cultural evolution via psychological predispositions.
- Genotypes predispose people to create particular features in their
environment
- aspect of a given culture may tend to favor individuals of a
given genotype
- lactose intolerance and practice of cattle domestication and
dairy farming
- co-evolving genes that make it possible to live in high altitude
– haemoglobin concentration or blood oxygen saturation
- long vs short serotonin gene
- carriers of short – more mental health problems
following negative life event, but also more
responsiveness to positive events – especially in social
realm
- short – social sensitivity, more prevalent in collectivistic cultures
- mu-opioid – two variants (G and A) – G – greater sensitivity to social rejection
– more in collectivistic cultures
- MAO-A – breaks down serotonin and dopamine, diff variants – low expressing
– antisocial behavior following neg. life events, low problems following positive
– social sensitivity – collectivistic cultures
Chapter 2
Temporal resolution – accuracy with which one can measure when an event is
occurring
- Brain damage – permanent – no temporal resolution
- EEG/ERP, MEG, TMS, single-cell recording – millisecond resolution
- fMRI – several seconds (slower hemodynamic response)
