NSBED – student’s guide to social neuroscience
Chapter 1
Key words
- Hyperscanning: the simultaneous recording from two/more different brains.
- Social psychology: an attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings,
and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence
of others (Allport)
- Cognitive psychology: the study of mental processes such as thinking, perceiving,
speaking, acting, and planning.
- Ecologically validity: an approach/measure that is meaningful outside of the laboratory
context.
- Modularity: the notion that certain cognitive processes are restricted in the type of
information they process and the type of processing carried out.
- Domain specificity: the idea that a cognitive process is specialized for processing only
one particular kind of information.
- Reductionism: one type of explanation will become replaced with another, more basic,
type of explanation over time
- Reverse inference: an attempt to infer the nature of cognitive processes from
neuroscience data
- Blank slate: the idea that the brain learns environmental contingencies without
imposing any biases, constraints, or preexisting knowledge on that learning
- Cultural neuroscience: an interdisciplinary field bridging cultural psychology,
neurosciences, and neurogenetics
- Gene-culture co-evolution: culture can influence gene frequencies in a population,
and genes have an impact on cultural evolution via psychological predispositions
- Collectivist culture: the goals of the social group are emphasized over individual goals
- Individualist culture: the goals of the individual are emphasized over the social group
Activity in regions of one person’s brain can reliably elicit activity in other regions of another
person's brain during social interaction. Cognition in an individual brain is characterized by a
network of signals between various regions of the brain.
A mega-brain is a concept which is used to describe different regions in different brains which
can have mutual influences over each other. This phenomenon is caused by our ability to
perceive, interpret, and act on the social behaviors of others.
Social neuroscience links together the different disciplines of cognitive and social psychology,
by linking mind with brain.
Current researchers tend to work on topics such as emotion, self-regulation and decision-
making, but feel that the discipline as a whole needs more statistical and methodological rigor -
> it needs to be more ecologically valid and needs more interdisciplinary integration
,The social brain
How is it possible that the ‘social brain’ can be considered distinct from all the other functions of
the brain? One possibility is that there are particular neural substrates in the brain that are
involved in social cognition but not in other types of cognitive processing. This relates to the
notions of modularity and domain specificity. Modularity refers to a computational routine that
responds to particular inputs and performs a particular computation on them – a routine that is
highly specialized in terms of ‘what it does to what’. One key component of modularity is domain
specificity, which stands for the fact that the module processes only one kind of input (emotion,
faces).
Critics argue that the view of the mind and brain, in which the mechanisms in the brain have
evolved to tackle challenges within the social environment, resembles phrenology (the shape of
the skull relates to mental traits).
The opposite approach is to argue that the social brain is not specialized uniquely for social
behavior but is also involved in non-social aspects of cognition.
According to Mitchell there are certain regions of the brain that are activated in fMRI studies – he
argues that social psychology is a natural kind that distinguishes itself from other aspects of
cognition because it relates to concepts that are less stable and less definite than those
involved in e.g. perception or action. It is stated by Ramachandran that mirror neurons will
provide a unifying framework and help explain mental abilities that have hitherto remained
mysterious and inaccessible to experiments. Mirror neurons have been implicated in imitation,
empathy and mind reading.
Barret & Satpute offer an overview in which they consider 3 broad ways in which the social brain
may be implemented:
1. A simple domain-specific view consisting of brain regions that are specialized for
processing particular kinds of social information and non-social information.
2. Postulates that networks of regions in which each region in the network has a high
degree of specialization
3. Postulates that neither brain regions nor individual brain networks are functionally
specialized or segregated into social and non-social functions.
Summary: there is a variety of views concerning the broad nature of the neural mechanisms
that support human social behavior. There is the view that there are highly specialized neural
mechanisms, however these may be very limited in the type of information they process. On the
other hand, there is the view that the mechanisms that support social behavior are used for
many other functions, whereas the highly specialized viewpoint tends to have been linked to the
idea of a small number of contributing brain regions, it is not incompatible with the idea of brain
networks.
,Neuroscience data
Most researchers in the field of neuroscience and social behavior do not take a reductionist
approach. They try to create bridges between different levels of explanation rather than replace
one.
Another use of neuroscience data to bridge levels of explanation is via the reverse inference
approach. It is not a problem free approach. Forward inference: if some is frightened their
amygdala is activated. Reverse inference: if the amygdala is activated then someone is
frightened.
There is 1 scenario in which brain-based data could have no significant impact on our
understanding of social processes -> blank slate scenario. The brain just accepts, stores and
processes whatever information given without biases or limitations. Social processes are all in
the brain, but some of them are created by environmental constraints and historical accidents,
whereas others may be caused by the inherent organization, biases, and limitations of the brain
itself.
Gene-culture co-evolution
Cultural neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field bridging cultural psychology, neurosciences
and neurogenetics that explains how neurobiological processes give rise to cultural values,
practices and beliefs as well as how culture shapes neurobiological processes. There is
skepticism about this approach.
The principle of gene-culture co-evolution holds that certain genotypes may predispose people
to create particular features in their environment and – at the same time – aspects of a given
culture may tend to favor individuals of a given genotype. The outcome is that there is a good fit
between a particular genotype and a particular cultural practice.
There is evidence that genes linked to increased social sensitivity are more prevalent in
collectivist cultures, whereas genes linked to reduced social sensitivity are more prevalent in
individualist cultures. A possible conclusion is that genes and culture have co-evolved.
Thus, social neuroscience can be defined as an attempt to understand and explain, using neural
, how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the mechanisms
actual, imagined, or implied presence of others
Exam questions:
• Is the ‘social brain’ highly modular?
• How can neuroscience and social psychology inform each other?
• Is cultural neuroscience likely to be a promising way of unpacking the complexities of culture?
Chapter 2
Key words:
- Temporal resolution: refers to the accuracy with which one can measure when an event
is occurring. The effects of brain damage are permanent and so this has no temporal
resolution. PET and fMRI have temporal resolutions.
, - Spatial resolution: refers to the accuracy with which one can measure where an event is
occurring. Single-cell recordings have spatial resolution at neuron level.
- Invasiveness: component of a method to whether or not the equipment is located
internally or externally. PET is invasive as it requires an injection.
- Mental chronometry: the study of the time-course of information processing in the
human nervous system
- Speed-accuracy trade-off: if people are forced to respond faster, they will tend to be
less accurate.
- Preferential looking paradigms: the infant is presented with a number of stimuli and
the amount of time that the infant spends looking at each is scored.
- Habituation paradigms: the same stimulus is presented repeatedly and the infant’s
attention towards the stimulus, which is measured in looking time, diminishes
- Inter-rater (inter-observer) reliability: the extent to which two independent observers
generate the same answers
- Blind scoring: the observer is unaware of the status of the event that is being scored.
- Masking: the presentation of junk visual material after a stimulus (to eliminate
persistence of a visual image).
- Reliability: the extent to which the same measure would yield the same results if
repeated
- Acquiescence bias: a tendency to respond affirmatively in surveys, irrespective of the
content of the question.
- Factor analysis: a statistical method for reducing a data set -> grouping 20 questions in
smaller subsets.
- External validity: the extent to which a measure relates to something useful in ‘real life’
- Type I error: getting a significant result in a statistical test when, in fact, there is no real
effect
- Type II error: Getting a nonsignificant result when in fact there is a real effect.
- Neurons: a type of cell that makes up the nervous system
- Dendrites: branching structures that receive information from other neurons
- Axon: a branching structure that carries information away from the cell body towards
other neurons and transmits action potentials
- Synapse: the small gap between neurons in which neurotransmitters are released,
permitting signaling between neurons
- Action potential: a sudden change in the electrical properties of the neuronal
membrane in an axon
- Neurotransmitters: chemical signals that affect the synaptic functioning of neurons
- Autonomic nervous system (ANS): a set of nerves located in the body that controls the
activity of the internal organs
- Somatic nervous system: part of the peripheral nervous system that coordinates
muscle activity
- Sympathetic system: a division of the ANS that increases arousal but decreases
functions as digestion
- Parasympathetic system: a division of the ANS that has a resting effect but increases
functions as digestion
- Skin conductance response (SCR): small changes in conductivity as a result of mild
sweating
- Electromyography (EMG): a method for assessing electrical activity associated with
muscle movement
Chapter 1
Key words
- Hyperscanning: the simultaneous recording from two/more different brains.
- Social psychology: an attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings,
and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence
of others (Allport)
- Cognitive psychology: the study of mental processes such as thinking, perceiving,
speaking, acting, and planning.
- Ecologically validity: an approach/measure that is meaningful outside of the laboratory
context.
- Modularity: the notion that certain cognitive processes are restricted in the type of
information they process and the type of processing carried out.
- Domain specificity: the idea that a cognitive process is specialized for processing only
one particular kind of information.
- Reductionism: one type of explanation will become replaced with another, more basic,
type of explanation over time
- Reverse inference: an attempt to infer the nature of cognitive processes from
neuroscience data
- Blank slate: the idea that the brain learns environmental contingencies without
imposing any biases, constraints, or preexisting knowledge on that learning
- Cultural neuroscience: an interdisciplinary field bridging cultural psychology,
neurosciences, and neurogenetics
- Gene-culture co-evolution: culture can influence gene frequencies in a population,
and genes have an impact on cultural evolution via psychological predispositions
- Collectivist culture: the goals of the social group are emphasized over individual goals
- Individualist culture: the goals of the individual are emphasized over the social group
Activity in regions of one person’s brain can reliably elicit activity in other regions of another
person's brain during social interaction. Cognition in an individual brain is characterized by a
network of signals between various regions of the brain.
A mega-brain is a concept which is used to describe different regions in different brains which
can have mutual influences over each other. This phenomenon is caused by our ability to
perceive, interpret, and act on the social behaviors of others.
Social neuroscience links together the different disciplines of cognitive and social psychology,
by linking mind with brain.
Current researchers tend to work on topics such as emotion, self-regulation and decision-
making, but feel that the discipline as a whole needs more statistical and methodological rigor -
> it needs to be more ecologically valid and needs more interdisciplinary integration
,The social brain
How is it possible that the ‘social brain’ can be considered distinct from all the other functions of
the brain? One possibility is that there are particular neural substrates in the brain that are
involved in social cognition but not in other types of cognitive processing. This relates to the
notions of modularity and domain specificity. Modularity refers to a computational routine that
responds to particular inputs and performs a particular computation on them – a routine that is
highly specialized in terms of ‘what it does to what’. One key component of modularity is domain
specificity, which stands for the fact that the module processes only one kind of input (emotion,
faces).
Critics argue that the view of the mind and brain, in which the mechanisms in the brain have
evolved to tackle challenges within the social environment, resembles phrenology (the shape of
the skull relates to mental traits).
The opposite approach is to argue that the social brain is not specialized uniquely for social
behavior but is also involved in non-social aspects of cognition.
According to Mitchell there are certain regions of the brain that are activated in fMRI studies – he
argues that social psychology is a natural kind that distinguishes itself from other aspects of
cognition because it relates to concepts that are less stable and less definite than those
involved in e.g. perception or action. It is stated by Ramachandran that mirror neurons will
provide a unifying framework and help explain mental abilities that have hitherto remained
mysterious and inaccessible to experiments. Mirror neurons have been implicated in imitation,
empathy and mind reading.
Barret & Satpute offer an overview in which they consider 3 broad ways in which the social brain
may be implemented:
1. A simple domain-specific view consisting of brain regions that are specialized for
processing particular kinds of social information and non-social information.
2. Postulates that networks of regions in which each region in the network has a high
degree of specialization
3. Postulates that neither brain regions nor individual brain networks are functionally
specialized or segregated into social and non-social functions.
Summary: there is a variety of views concerning the broad nature of the neural mechanisms
that support human social behavior. There is the view that there are highly specialized neural
mechanisms, however these may be very limited in the type of information they process. On the
other hand, there is the view that the mechanisms that support social behavior are used for
many other functions, whereas the highly specialized viewpoint tends to have been linked to the
idea of a small number of contributing brain regions, it is not incompatible with the idea of brain
networks.
,Neuroscience data
Most researchers in the field of neuroscience and social behavior do not take a reductionist
approach. They try to create bridges between different levels of explanation rather than replace
one.
Another use of neuroscience data to bridge levels of explanation is via the reverse inference
approach. It is not a problem free approach. Forward inference: if some is frightened their
amygdala is activated. Reverse inference: if the amygdala is activated then someone is
frightened.
There is 1 scenario in which brain-based data could have no significant impact on our
understanding of social processes -> blank slate scenario. The brain just accepts, stores and
processes whatever information given without biases or limitations. Social processes are all in
the brain, but some of them are created by environmental constraints and historical accidents,
whereas others may be caused by the inherent organization, biases, and limitations of the brain
itself.
Gene-culture co-evolution
Cultural neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field bridging cultural psychology, neurosciences
and neurogenetics that explains how neurobiological processes give rise to cultural values,
practices and beliefs as well as how culture shapes neurobiological processes. There is
skepticism about this approach.
The principle of gene-culture co-evolution holds that certain genotypes may predispose people
to create particular features in their environment and – at the same time – aspects of a given
culture may tend to favor individuals of a given genotype. The outcome is that there is a good fit
between a particular genotype and a particular cultural practice.
There is evidence that genes linked to increased social sensitivity are more prevalent in
collectivist cultures, whereas genes linked to reduced social sensitivity are more prevalent in
individualist cultures. A possible conclusion is that genes and culture have co-evolved.
Thus, social neuroscience can be defined as an attempt to understand and explain, using neural
, how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the mechanisms
actual, imagined, or implied presence of others
Exam questions:
• Is the ‘social brain’ highly modular?
• How can neuroscience and social psychology inform each other?
• Is cultural neuroscience likely to be a promising way of unpacking the complexities of culture?
Chapter 2
Key words:
- Temporal resolution: refers to the accuracy with which one can measure when an event
is occurring. The effects of brain damage are permanent and so this has no temporal
resolution. PET and fMRI have temporal resolutions.
, - Spatial resolution: refers to the accuracy with which one can measure where an event is
occurring. Single-cell recordings have spatial resolution at neuron level.
- Invasiveness: component of a method to whether or not the equipment is located
internally or externally. PET is invasive as it requires an injection.
- Mental chronometry: the study of the time-course of information processing in the
human nervous system
- Speed-accuracy trade-off: if people are forced to respond faster, they will tend to be
less accurate.
- Preferential looking paradigms: the infant is presented with a number of stimuli and
the amount of time that the infant spends looking at each is scored.
- Habituation paradigms: the same stimulus is presented repeatedly and the infant’s
attention towards the stimulus, which is measured in looking time, diminishes
- Inter-rater (inter-observer) reliability: the extent to which two independent observers
generate the same answers
- Blind scoring: the observer is unaware of the status of the event that is being scored.
- Masking: the presentation of junk visual material after a stimulus (to eliminate
persistence of a visual image).
- Reliability: the extent to which the same measure would yield the same results if
repeated
- Acquiescence bias: a tendency to respond affirmatively in surveys, irrespective of the
content of the question.
- Factor analysis: a statistical method for reducing a data set -> grouping 20 questions in
smaller subsets.
- External validity: the extent to which a measure relates to something useful in ‘real life’
- Type I error: getting a significant result in a statistical test when, in fact, there is no real
effect
- Type II error: Getting a nonsignificant result when in fact there is a real effect.
- Neurons: a type of cell that makes up the nervous system
- Dendrites: branching structures that receive information from other neurons
- Axon: a branching structure that carries information away from the cell body towards
other neurons and transmits action potentials
- Synapse: the small gap between neurons in which neurotransmitters are released,
permitting signaling between neurons
- Action potential: a sudden change in the electrical properties of the neuronal
membrane in an axon
- Neurotransmitters: chemical signals that affect the synaptic functioning of neurons
- Autonomic nervous system (ANS): a set of nerves located in the body that controls the
activity of the internal organs
- Somatic nervous system: part of the peripheral nervous system that coordinates
muscle activity
- Sympathetic system: a division of the ANS that increases arousal but decreases
functions as digestion
- Parasympathetic system: a division of the ANS that has a resting effect but increases
functions as digestion
- Skin conductance response (SCR): small changes in conductivity as a result of mild
sweating
- Electromyography (EMG): a method for assessing electrical activity associated with
muscle movement
