Integrating automatic and controlled processes into neurocognitive models of social cognition

Neural Networks Mediating High-Level Mentalizing in Patients With Right Cerebral Hemispheric Gliomas

Mentalizing is the ability to understand others' mental state through external cues. It consists of two networks, namely low-level and high-level metalizing. Although it is an essential function in our daily social life, surgical resection of right cerebral hemisphere disturbs mentalizing processing with high possibility. In the past, little was known about the white matter related to high-level mentalizing, and the conservation of high-level mentalizing during surgery has not been a focus of attention. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to examine the neural networks underlying high-level mentalizing and then, secondarily, investigate the usefulness of awake surgery in preserving the mentalizing network. A total of 20 patients with glioma localized in the right hemisphere who underwent awake surgery participated in this study. All patients were assigned to two groups: with or without intraoperative assessment of high-level mentalizing. Their high-level mentalizing abilities were assessed before surgery and 1 week and 3 months after surgery. At 3 months after surgery, only patients who received the intraoperative high-level mentalizing test showed the same score as normal healthy volunteers. The tract-based lesion symptom analysis was performed to confirm the severity of damage of associated fibers and high-level mentalizing accuracy. This analysis revealed the superior longitudinal fascicles (SLF) III and fronto-striatal tract (FST) to be associated with high-level mentalizing processing. Moreover, the voxel-based lesion symptom analysis demonstrated that resection of orbito-frontal cortex (OFC) causes persistent mentalizing dysfunction. Our study indicates that damage of the OFC and structural connectivity of the SLF and FST causes the disorder of mentalizing after surgery, and assessing high-level mentalizing during surgery may be useful to preserve these pathways.

When compliments do not hit but critiques do: an fMRI study into self-esteem and self-knowledge in processing social feedback

The way we view ourselves may play an important role in our responses to interpersonal interactions. In this study, we investigate how feedback valence, consistency of feedback with self-knowledge and global self-esteem influence affective and neural responses to social feedback. Participants (N = 46) with a high range of self-esteem levels performed the social feedback task in an MRI scanner. Negative, intermediate and positive feedback was provided, supposedly by another person based on a personal interview. Participants rated their mood and applicability of feedback to the self. Analyses on trial basis on neural and affective responses are used to incorporate applicability of individual feedback words. Lower self-esteem related to low mood especially after receiving non-applicable negative feedback. Higher self-esteem related to increased posterior cingulate cortex and precuneus activation (i.e. self-referential processing) for applicable negative feedback. Lower self-esteem related to decreased medial prefrontal cortex, insula, anterior cingulate cortex and posterior cingulate cortex activation (i.e. self-referential processing) during positive feedback and decreased temporoparietal junction activation (i.e. other referential processing) for applicable positive feedback. Self-esteem and consistency of feedback with self-knowledge appear to guide our affective and neural responses to social feedback. This may be highly relevant for the interpersonal problems that individuals face with low self-esteem and negative self-views.

Fairness, fast and slow: A review of dual process models of fairness

Fairness, the notion that people deserve or have rights to certain resources or kinds of treatment, is a fundamental dimension of moral cognition. Drawing on recent evidence from economics, psychology, and neuroscience, we ask whether self-interest is always intuitive, requiring self-control to override with reasoning-based fairness concerns, or whether fairness itself can be intuitive. While we find strong support for rejecting the notion that self-interest is always intuitive, the literature has reached conflicting conclusions about the neurocognitive systems underpinning fairness. We propose that this disagreement can largely be resolved in light of an extended Social Heuristics Hypothesis. Divergent findings may be attributed to the interpretation of behavioral effects of ego depletion or neurostimulation, reverse inference from brain activity to the underlying psychological process, and insensitivity to social context and inter-individual differences. To better dissect the neurobiological basis of fairness, we outline how future research should embrace cross-disciplinary methods that combine psychological manipulations with neuroimaging, and that can probe inter-individual, and cultural heterogeneities.

How mentalisation changes the mind

In this article, we offer an account of how various psychological therapies address dysfunctional mentalisation and identify pitfalls of therapy that could lead to an impasse or even to negative consequences associated with psychological treatment. Some practical recommendations follow from our model, particularly in relation to the careful monitoring of the intensity of the patient's attachment and the use of interventions aimed at promoting mentalising.

Observer's anxiety facilitates magnocellular processing of clear facial threat cues, but impairs parvocellular processing of ambiguous facial threat cues

Facial expression and eye gaze provide a shared signal about threats. While a fear expression with averted gaze clearly points to the source of threat, direct-gaze fear renders the source of threat ambiguous. Separable routes have been proposed to mediate these processes, with preferential attunement of the magnocellular (M) pathway to clear threat, and of the parvocellular (P) pathway to threat ambiguity. Here we investigated how observers’ trait anxiety modulates M- and P-pathway processing of clear and ambiguous threat cues. We scanned subjects (N = 108) widely ranging in trait anxiety while they viewed fearful or neutral faces with averted or directed gaze, with the luminance and color of face stimuli calibrated to selectively engage M- or P-pathways. Higher anxiety facilitated processing of clear threat projected to M-pathway, but impaired perception of ambiguous threat projected to P-pathway. Increased right amygdala reactivity was associated with higher anxiety for M-biased averted-gaze fear, while increased left amygdala reactivity was associated with higher anxiety for P-biased, direct-gaze fear. This lateralization was more pronounced with higher anxiety. Our findings suggest that trait anxiety differentially affects perception of clear (averted-gaze fear) and ambiguous (direct-gaze fear) facial threat cues via selective engagement of M and P pathways and lateralized amygdala reactivity.

Intranasal Oxytocin May Improve High-Level Social Cognition in Schizophrenia, But Not Social Cognition or Neurocognition in General: A Multilevel Bayesian Meta-analysis

While there is growing interest in the potential for intranasal oxytocin (IN-OT) to improve social cognition and neurocognition (ie, nonsocial cognition) in schizophrenia, the extant literature has been mixed. Here, we perform a Bayesian meta-analysis of the efficacy of IN-OT to improve areas of social and neurocognition in schizophrenia. A systematic search of original research publications identified randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of IN-OT as a treatment for social and neurocognitive deficits in schizophrenia for inclusion. Standardized mean differences (SMD) and corresponding variances were used in multilevel Bayesian models to obtain meta-analytic effect-size estimates. Across a total of 12 studies (N = 273), IN-OT did not improve social cognition (SMD = 0.07, 95% credible interval [CI] = [-0.06, 0.17]) or neurocognition (SMD = 0.12, 95% CI = [-0.12, 0.34]). There was moderate between study heterogeneity for social cognition outcomes (τs= 0.12). Moderator analyses revealed that IN-OT had a significantly larger effect on high-level social cognition (ie, mentalizing and theory of mind) compared to low-level social cognition (ie, social cue perception) (b = 0.19, 95% CI = [0.05, 0.33]). When restricting our analysis to outcomes for high-level social cognition, there was a significant effect of IN-OT (SMD = 0.20, 95 % CI = [0.05, 0.33]) but the effect was not robust to sensitivity analyses. The present analysis indicates that IN-OT may have selective effects on high-level social cognition, which provides a more focused target for future studies of IN-OT.

Utility of the cumulative stress and mismatch hypotheses in understanding the neurobiological impacts of childhood abuse and recent stress in youth with emerging mental disorder

Childhood abuse has an enduring impact on the brain's stress system. Whether the effects of childhood abuse and adulthood stress are additive (cumulative stress hypothesis) or interactive (mismatch hypothesis) is widely disputed, however. The primary aim of this study was to test the utility of the cumulative stress and mismatch hypotheses in understanding brain and behaviour. We recruited 64 individuals (aged 14-26) from a specialised clinic for assessment and early intervention of mental health problems in young people. A T1-weighted MRI, a resting state fMRI and clinical assessment were acquired from each participant. Grey matter estimates and resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) of the hippocampus, amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) were determined using segmentation and seed-to-voxel rsFC analyses. We explored the effects of childhood abuse and recent stress on the structure and function of the regions of interest within general linear models. Worse psychiatric symptoms were significantly related to higher levels of life time stress. Individuals with mismatched childhood and recent stress levels had reduced left hippocampal volume, reduced ACC-ventrolateral prefrontal cortex rsFC and greater ACC-hippocampus rsFC, compared to individuals with matched childhood and recent stress levels. These results show specific utility of the cumulative stress hypothesis in understanding psychiatric symptomatology and of the mismatch hypothesis in modelling hippocampal grey matter, prefrontal rsFC, and prefrontal-hippocampal rsFC. We provide novel evidence for the enduring impact of childhood abuse on stress reactivity in a clinical population, and demonstrate the distinct effects of stress in different systems. Hum Brain Mapp 38:2709-2721, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Prefrontal cortex-mediated executive function as assessed by Stroop task performance associates with weight loss among overweight and obese adolescents and young adults

People with cognitive deficits or executive dysfunction are often overweight or obese. Several human neuroimaging studies have found that executive function (EF) predicts food intake and weight gain; however, fewer studies have investigated the relationship between EF and weight loss. The Stroop task is a classic measure of EF that is used in many neuroimaging studies. In the present work, functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) data were collected during performance of the Stroop task from a sample of overweight or obese adolescents and young adults (n=31) who participated in a summer fitness and weight loss camp. We assessed the Stroop effect by interference in the reaction time (RT) to visual challenges, and by alterations in levels of oxygenated hemoglobin, as detected by fNIRS. In line with previous studies, we found that the Stroop effect was successfully induced by different visual task conditions among obese/overweight individuals. Moreover, our results reveal that better Stroop task performance is correlated with greater weight loss over a4-weekfitness intervention. Indeed, behavioral data demonstrated that reduced RT interference predicted a greater percentage of weight loss. Moreover, overweight/obese individuals with a greater hemodynamic response in the left ventrolateral and bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex due to the Stroop effect lost more weight during the short-term fitness intervention than participants with lower levels of activation of these neural regions. Overall, our results support a role for prefrontal cortex-mediated EF in influencing food intake and weight loss outcomes in a population of a previously unstudied age.

Age and executive ability impact the neural correlates of race perception

Decreased executive ability elicits racial bias. We clarified the neural correlates of how executive ability contributes to race perception by comparing young adults (YA) to a population with highly variable executive ability: older adults (OA). After replicating work showing higher race bias in OA vs YA and a negative association between bias and executive ability, a subsample of White YA and OA perceived Black and White faces and cars during functional magnetic resonance imaging. YA had higher executive ability than OA, and OA had higher variability in executive ability. When perceiving Black vs White faces, YA exhibited more dorsolateral prefrontal cortex recruitment-a region previously implicated in regulating prejudiced responses-than OA. Moreover, OA with relatively impaired executive ability had more amygdala activity toward Black faces vs OA with relatively intact executive ability, whereas responses to White faces did not differ. Both YA and OA with relatively intact executive ability had stronger amygdala-ventrolateral prefrontal cortex connectivity when perceiving Black vs White faces. These findings are the first to disentangle age from executive ability differences in neural recruitment when perceiving race, potentially informing past behavioral work on aging and race perception.

Intuitive and Deliberative Empathizers and Systemizers

OBJECTIVE

Recent findings suggest there may be some overlap between individual differences in orientations for intuitive thinking and empathizing, and between deliberative thinking and systemizing. This overlap is surprising, given that intuitive and deliberative thinking derive from dual-process theories that concern domain-general types of processing, whereas theoretically, empathizing and systemizing are domain-specific orientations for understanding people and lawful physical phenomena.

METHOD

The present studies (Study 1: N = 2,789, Study 2: N = 87; Finnish volunteers ages 15-69, 65% females) analyzed each of these four constructs using self-report as well as performance measures.

RESULTS

Confirmatory factor analysis showed that systemizing was strongly and positively related to deliberative thinking and negatively related to intuitive thinking. Empathizing was negatively related to deliberative thinking, whereas no association between empathizing and intuition was found. However, some deliberative aspects and some intuitive aspects were involved in empathizing.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings indicate that a distinction between "intuitive empathizing" and "deliberative systemizing" is not warranted.

Noradrenergic modulation of emotional memory in aging

Interest in the role of the noradrenergic system in the modulation of emotional memories has recently increased. This study briefly reviews this timely line of research with a specific focus on aging. After having identified surprisingly few studies that investigated emotional memory in older adults from a neurobiological perspective, we found a significant interaction between noradrenergic activity and emotional memory enhancement in older adults. This pattern of data are explained both in terms of a top-down modulation of behavioral processes (e.g., changes in priority and individual goals) and in terms of greater activity of noradrenergic system during aging. Altogether, both behavioral and genetic variations studies (e.g., Alpha 2 B Adrenoceptor genotype) have shown that healthy older adults are able to circumvent or minimize the experience of negative emotions and stabilize or even enhance positive emotional experiences. Future studies are highly warranted to better clarify the relationship between noradrenaline and emotional memories in the aging brain.

Understanding the minds of others: A neuroimaging meta-analysis

Theory of mind (ToM) is an important skill that refers broadly to the capacity to understand the mental states of others. A large number of neuroimaging studies have focused on identifying the functional brain regions involved in ToM, but many important questions remain with respect to the neural networks implicated in specific types of ToM tasks. In the present study, we conducted a series of activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analyses on 144 datasets (involving 3150 participants) to address these questions. The ALE results revealed common regions shared across all ToM tasks and broader task parameters, but also some important dissociations. In terms of commonalities, consistent activation was identified in the medial prefrontal cortex and bilateral temporoparietal junction. On the other hand, ALE contrast analyses on our dataset, as well as meta-analytic connectivity modelling (MACM) analyses on the BrainMap database, indicated that different types of ToM tasks reliably elicit activity in unique brain areas. Our findings provide the most accurate picture to date of the neural networks that underpin ToM function.

Reduced neural differentiation between self-referential cognitive and emotional processes in women with borderline personality disorder

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is associated with disturbed emotion regulation. Psychotherapeutic interventions using mindfulness elements have shown effectiveness in reducing clinical symptoms, yet little is known about their underlying neurobiology. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, 19 female BPD patients and 19 healthy controls were compared during mindful introspection, cognitive self-reflection and a neutral condition. The activation pattern in the right dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) in BPD patients was different from that in healthy subject when directing attention onto their emotions and bodily feelings in contrast to cognitively thinking about themselves. Mindful introspection compared with the neutral condition was associated with higher activations in bilateral motor/pre-motor regions, left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and left posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), while cognitive self-reflection activated the right motor and somatosensory cortex, extending into the right supramarginal gyrus (SMG) and superior temporal gyrus (STG) in BPD patients compared with the controls. Results indicate that self-referential cognitive and emotional processes are not clearly differentiated in BPD patients at the neurobiological level. In particular, altered neural mechanism underlying self-referential thinking may be related to some aspects of the typical emotion dysregulation in BPD. Current data support the finding that mindful self-focused attention is effective in regulating amygdala activity in BPD as well as in healthy subjects.

Common and distinct networks for self-referential and social stimulus processing in the human brain

Self-referential processing is a complex cognitive function, involving a set of implicit and explicit processes, complicating investigation of its distinct neural signature. The present study explores the functional overlap and dissociability of self-referential and social stimulus processing. We combined an established paradigm for explicit self-referential processing with an implicit social stimulus processing paradigm in one fMRI experiment to determine the neural effects of self-relatedness and social processing within one study. Overlapping activations were found in the orbitofrontal cortex and in the intermediate part of the precuneus. Stimuli judged as self-referential specifically activated the posterior cingulate cortex, the ventral medial prefrontal cortex, extending into anterior cingulate cortex and orbitofrontal cortex, the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, the ventral and dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex, the left inferior temporal gyrus, and occipital cortex. Social processing specifically involved the posterior precuneus and bilateral temporo-parietal junction. Taken together, our data show, not only, first, common networks for both processes in the medial prefrontal and the medial parietal cortex, but also, second, functional differentiations for self-referential processing versus social processing: an anterior-posterior gradient for social processing and self-referential processing within the medial parietal cortex and specific activations for self-referential processing in the medial and lateral prefrontal cortex and for social processing in the temporo-parietal junction.

Feeling before knowing why: the role of the orbitofrontal cortex in intuitive judgments--an MEG study

In theory, intuitive decisions are made immediately, without conscious, reasoned thought. They are experienced as decisions based on hunches that cannot be explicitly described but, nevertheless, guide subsequent action. Investigating the underlying neural mechanisms, previous research has found the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) to be crucial to intuitive processes, but its specific role has remained unclear. On the basis of a two-stage conceptualization of intuition suggested by Bowers, Regehr, Balthazard, and Parker Cognitive Psychology, 22, 72-110 (1990), we attempt to clarify the OFC’s role in intuitive processing. We propose that it functions as an early integrator of incomplete stimulus input guiding subsequent processing by means of a coarse representation of the gist of the information. On the subjective level, this representation would be perceived as a (gut) feeling biasing the decision. Our aim in the present study was to test this neural model and rule out alternative explanations of OFC activation in intuitive judgments. We used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to record participants' electromagnetic brain responses during a visual coherence judgment task. As in earlier studies, the OFC was found to be activated when participants perceived coherence. Using MEG, it could be shown that this increase in activation began earlier in the OFC than in temporal object recognition areas. Moreover, the present study demonstrated that OFC activation was independent of physical stimulus characteristics, task requirements, and participants’ explicit recognition of the stimuli presented. These results speak to the OFC’s fundamental role in the early steps of intuitive judgments and suggest the proposed neural model as a promising starting point for future investigations.

Altered Medial Frontal and Superior Temporal Response to Implicit Processing of Emotions in Autism

Interpreting emotional expressions appropriately poses a challenge for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In particular, difficulties with emotional processing in ASD are more pronounced in contexts where emotional expressions are subtle, automatic, and reflexive-that is, implicit. In contrast, explicit emotional processing, which requires the cognitive evaluation of an emotional experience, appears to be relatively intact in individuals with ASD. In the present study, we examined the brain activation and functional connectivity differences underlying explicit and implicit emotional processing in age- and IQ-matched adults with (n = 17) and without (n = 15) ASD. Results indicated: (1) significantly reduced levels of brain activation in participants with ASD in medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and superior temporal gyrus (STG) during implicit emotion processing; (2) significantly weaker functional connectivity in the ASD group in connections of the MPFC with the amygdala, temporal lobe, parietal lobe, and fusiform gyrus; (3) No group difference in performance accuracy or reaction time; and (4) Significant positive relationship between empathizing ability and STG activity in ASD but not in typically developing participants. These findings suggest that the neural mechanisms underlying implicit, but not explicit, emotion processing may be altered at multiple levels in individuals with ASD.

Using the EZ-Diffusion Model to Score a Single-Category Implicit Association Test of Physical Activity

OBJECTIVE

The Single-Category Implicit Association Test (SC-IAT) has been used as a method for assessing automatic evaluations of physical activity, but measurement artifact or consciously-held attitudes could be confounding the outcome scores of these measures. The objective of these two studies was to address these measurement concerns by testing the validity of a novel SC-IAT scoring technique.

DESIGN

Study 1 was a cross-sectional study, and study 2 was a prospective study.

METHOD

In study 1, undergraduate students (N = 104) completed SC-IATs for physical activity, flowers, and sedentary behavior. In study 2, undergraduate students (N = 91) completed a SC-IAT for physical activity, self-reported affective and instrumental attitudes toward physical activity, physical activity intentions, and wore an accelerometer for two weeks. The EZ-diffusion model was used to decompose the SC-IAT into three process component scores including the information processing efficiency score.

RESULTS

In study 1, a series of structural equation model comparisons revealed that the information processing score did not share variability across distinct SC-IATs, suggesting it does not represent systematic measurement artifact. In study 2, the information processing efficiency score was shown to be unrelated to self-reported affective and instrumental attitudes toward physical activity, and positively related to physical activity behavior, above and beyond the traditional D-score of the SC-IAT.

CONCLUSIONS

The information processing efficiency score is a valid measure of automatic evaluations of physical activity.

Neuronal correlates of social decision making are influenced by social value orientation-an fMRI study

Our decisions often have consequences for other people. Hence, self-interest and other-regarding motives are traded off in many daily-life situations. Interindividually, people differ in their tendency to behave prosocial. These differences are captured by the concept of social value orientation (SVO), which assumes stable, trait-like tendencies to act selfish or prosocial. This study investigates group differences in prosocial decision making and addresses the question of whether prosocial individuals act intuitively and selfish individuals instead need to control egoistic impulses to behave prosocially. We address this question via the interpretation of neuronal and behavioral indicators. In the present fMRI-study participants were grouped into prosocial- and selfish participants. They made decisions in multiple modified Dictator-Games (DG) that addressed self- and other-regarding motives to a varying extent (self gain, non-costly social gain, mutual gain, costly social gain). Selfish participants reacted faster than prosocial participants in all conditions, except for decisions in the non-costly social condition, in which selfish participants displayed the longest decision times. In the total sample we found enhanced neural activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC/BA 9) during decisions that resulted in non-costly social benefits. These areas have been implicated in cognitive control processes and deliberative value integration. Decisively, these effects were stronger in the group of selfish individuals. We believe that selfish individuals require more explicit and deliberative processing during prosocial decisions. Our results are compatible with the assumption that prosocial decisions in prosocials are more intuitive, whereas they demand more active reflection in selfish individuals.

Characterizing an ERP correlate of intentions understanding using a sequential comic strips paradigm

Chronometric properties of theory of mind and intentions understanding more specifically are well documented. Notably, it was demonstrated using magnetoencephalography that the brain regions involved were recruited as soon as 200 ms post-stimulus. We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to characterize an electrophysiological marker of attribution of intentions. We also explored the robustness of this ERP signature under two conditions corresponding to either explicit instructions to focus on others' intentions or implicit instructions with no reference to mental states. Two matched groups of 16 healthy volunteers each received either explicit or no instructions about intentions and performed a nonverbal attribution of intentions task based on sequential four-image comic strips depicting either intentional or physical causality. A bilateral posterior positive component, ranging from 250 to 650 ms post-stimulus, showed greater amplitude in intentional than in physical condition (the intention ERP effect). This effect occurs during the third image only, suggesting that it reflects the integration of information depicted in the third image to the contextual cues given by the first two. The intention effect was similar in the two groups of subjects. Overall, our results identify a clear ERP marker of the first hundreds of milliseconds of intentions processing probably related to a contextual integrative mechanism and suggest its robustness by showing its blindness to task demands manipulation.

Perception of social stimuli in mania: an fMRI study

Patients with mania show alterations of social behaviour. Neuropsychological studies in euthymic bipolar disorder (BD) have revealed deficits in cognitive, but not emotional aspects of social cognition (SC). Here, we studied the neural signature of social stimulus processing in mania. We expected alterations in regions associated with cognitive SC (dorsal-medial prefrontal cortex, dMPFC). Participants comprised 14 manic patients and 14 matched healthy controls who viewed standardized pictures with social and non-social content during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Region-of-interest-analyses focused on areas related to SC (dorsal/ventral medial prefrontal cortex; temporo-parietal junction), determined by a quantitative meta-analysis. Between-group comparisons ('social>non-social') revealed reduced BOLD responses in the right dMPFC in manic patients, but no significant group difference in the ventral MPFC. In addition, manic patients showed elevated BOLD activation in the right temporo-parietal junction during perception of social stimuli, which was correlated with increased delusional ideation. Patients with mania show diminished BOLD responses to social stimuli in the right dMPFC, associated with cognitive SC and this may be related to reported deficits in understanding others' mental states. At the same time, manic patients show hyperactivation of the right temporo-parietal junction, likely related to exaggerated attribution of meaning to social stimuli.

Prospects for direct social perception: a multi-theoretical integration to further the science of social cognition

In this paper we suggest that differing approaches to the science of social cognition mirror the arguments between radical embodied and traditional approaches to cognition. We contrast the use in social cognition of theoretical inference and mental simulation mechanisms with approaches emphasizing a direct perception of others’ mental states. We build from a recent integrative framework unifying these divergent perspectives through the use of dual-process theory and supporting social neuroscience research. Our elaboration considers two complementary notions of direct perception: one primarily stemming from ecological psychology and the other from enactive cognition theory. We use this as the foundation from which to offer an account of the informational basis for social information and assert a set of research propositions to further the science of social cognition. In doing so, we point out how perception of the minds of others can be supported in some cases by lawful information, supporting direct perception of social affordances and perhaps, mental states, and in other cases by cues that support indirect perceptual inference. Our goal is to extend accounts of social cognition by integrating advances across disciplines to provide a multi-level and multi-theoretic description that can advance this field and offer a means through which to reconcile radical embodied and traditional approaches to cognitive neuroscience.

Task-dependent and distinct roles of the temporoparietal junction and inferior frontal cortex in the control of imitation

The control of neurological networks supporting social cognition is crucially important for social interaction. In particular, the control of imitation is directly linked to interaction quality, with impairments associated with disorders characterized by social difficulties. Previous work suggests inferior frontal cortex (IFC) and the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) are involved in controlling imitation, but the functional roles of these areas remain unclear. Here, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) was used to enhance cortical excitability at IFC and the TPJ prior to the completion of three tasks: (i) a naturalistic social interaction during which increased imitation is known to improve rapport, (ii) a choice reaction time task in which imitation needs to be inhibited for successful performance and (iii) a non-imitative control task. Relative to sham stimulation, stimulating IFC improved the context-dependent control of imitation-participants imitated more during the social interaction and less during the imitation inhibition task. In contrast, stimulating the TPJ reduced imitation in the inhibition task without affecting imitation during social interaction. Neither stimulation site affected the non-imitative control task. These data support a model in which IFC modulates imitation directly according to task demands, whereas TPJ controls task-appropriate shifts in attention toward representation of the self or the other, indirectly impacting upon imitation.

Facial affect recognition performance and event-related potentials in violent and non-violent schizophrenia patients

We investigated whether male inpatients with schizophrenia and a history of hands-on violent offences (forensic schizophrenic, FOS) are more impaired in emotion recognition than matched schizophrenia patients without any history of violence (general psychiatric schizophrenic, GPS). This should become apparent in performance in psychometry and in scalp event-related brain potentials (ERPs) evoked by pictures of facial affect. FOS and GPS (each n = 19) were matched concerning age, intelligence, comorbid addiction, medication and illness duration. FOS revealed significantly poorer affect recognition (AR) performance, especially of neutral and fear stimuli. Analysis of ERPs revealed a significant interaction of hemisphere, electrode position and group of the N250 component. Post hoc analysis of group effect showed significantly larger amplitudes in FOS at FC3. These results support the hypothesis that in FOS emotional faces are more salient and evoke higher arousal. Larger impairment in AR performance combined with higher salience and arousal may contribute to the occurrence of violent acts in schizophrenia patients.

Neuromagnetic vistas into typical and atypical development of frontal lobe functions

The frontal lobes are involved in many higher-order cognitive functions such as social cognition executive functions and language and speech. These functions are complex and follow a prolonged developmental course from childhood through to early adulthood. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is ideal for the study of development of these functions, due to its combination of temporal and spatial resolution which allows the determination of age-related changes in both neural timing and location. There are several challenges for MEG developmental studies: to design tasks appropriate to capture the neurodevelopmental trajectory of these cognitive functions, and to develop appropriate analysis strategies to capture various aspects of neuromagnetic frontal lobe activity. Here, we review our MEG research on social and executive functions, and speech in typically developing children and in two clinical groups – children with autism spectrum disorder and children born very preterm. The studies include facial emotional processing, inhibition, visual short-term memory, speech production, and resting-state networks. We present data from event-related analyses as well as on oscillations and connectivity analyses and review their contributions to understanding frontal lobe cognitive development. We also discuss the challenges of testing young children in the MEG and the development of age-appropriate technologies and paradigms.

Functional neuroimaging of working memory in survivors of childhood brain tumors and healthy children: Associations with coping and psychosocial outcomes

PURPOSE

Pediatric brain tumors are the second most common cancer diagnosis in individuals under age 20 and research has documented significant neurocognitive, psychosocial, and emotional late effects. Associations among these deficits have not been adequately considered and the role of survivors' coping with stress in relation to deficits is unknown. Further, research has yet to examine neurobiological processes related to neurocognitive, psychosocial, and emotional difficulties in survivors through the use of functional neuroimaging.

METHOD

Questionnaire measures and functional neuroimaging were used to examine the neurocognitive, psychosocial, and emotional functioning and coping responses of survivors of pediatric brain tumors (N = 17; age 8-16) and healthy children (N = 15).

RESULTS

Survivors experienced elevated levels of psychosocial and behavioral/emotional difficulties relative to healthy controls and normative data. Increases in brain activation in prefrontal and other anterior regions in response to a working memory task were associated with better psychosocial functioning, use of engagement coping strategies, and less use of disengagement coping strategies. Regression analyses suggest coping accounts for a significant portion of the association between brain activation and behavioral/emotional functioning.

CONCLUSIONS

This study extends late-effects research by examining neurobiological processes associated with psychosocial and emotional difficulties. These findings contribute to our understanding of difficulties in survivors and provide a foundation for research exploring these associations and mediators of deficits in future longitudinal studies.

The neural basis of event simulation: an FMRI study

Event simulation (ES) is the situational inference process in which perceived event features such as objects, agents, and actions are associated in the brain to represent the whole situation. ES provides a common basis for various cognitive processes, such as perceptual prediction, situational understanding/prediction, and social cognition (such as mentalizing/trait inference). Here, functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to elucidate the neural substrates underlying important subdivisions within ES. First, the study investigated whether ES depends on different neural substrates when it is conducted explicitly and implicitly. Second, the existence of neural substrates specific to the future-prediction component of ES was assessed. Subjects were shown contextually related object pictures implying a situation and performed several picture–word-matching tasks. By varying task goals, subjects were made to infer the implied situation implicitly/explicitly or predict the future consequence of that situation. The results indicate that, whereas implicit ES activated the lateral prefrontal cortex and medial/lateral parietal cortex, explicit ES activated the medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, and medial/lateral temporal cortex. Additionally, the left temporoparietal junction plays an important role in the future-prediction component of ES. These findings enrich our understanding of the neural substrates of the implicit/explicit/predictive aspects of ES-related cognitive processes.

Task preparation and neural activation in stimulus-specific brain regions: an fMRI study with the cued task-switching paradigm

To investigate the role of posterior brain regions related to task-relevant stimulus processing in task preparation, we used a cued task-switching paradigm in which a pre-cue informed participants about the upcoming task on a trial: face discrimination or number comparison. Employing an event-related fMRI design, we examined for changes of activity in face- and number-related posterior brain regions (right fusiform face area (FFA) and right intraparietal sulcus (IPSnum), respectively), and explored the functional connectivity of these areas with other brain regions, during the (preparation) interval between cue onset and onset of the (to-be-responded) target stimulus. The results revealed task-relevant posterior brain regions to be modulated during this period: activation in task-relevant stimulus-specific regions was selectively enhanced and their functional connectivity to task-relevant anterior brain regions strengthened (right FFA - face task, right IPSnum - number task) while participants prepared for the cued task. Additionally, activity in task-relevant posterior brain regions was influenced by residual activation from the preceding trial in the right FFA and the right IPSnum, respectively. These findings indicate that, during task preparation, the activation pattern in currently task-relevant posterior brain regions is shaped by residual activation as well as preparatory modulation prior to the onset of the critical stimulus, even without participants being instructed to imagine the stimulus.

Age differences in medial prefrontal activity for subsequent memory of truth value

Much research has demonstrated that aging is marked by decreased source memory relative to young adults, yet a smaller body of work has demonstrated that increasing the socioemotional content of source information may be one way to reduce age-related performance differences. Although dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) activity may support source memory among young and older adults, the extent to which one activates dorsal vs. ventral mPFC may reflect one's personal connection with incoming information. Because truth value may be one salient marker that impacts one's connection with information and allocation of attention toward incoming material, we investigated whether the perceived truth value of information differently impacts differences in mPFC activity associated with encoding source information, particularly with age. Twelve young (18–23 years) and 12 older adults (63–80 years) encoded true and false statements. Behavioral results showed similar memory performance between the age groups. With respect to neural activity associated with subsequent memory, young adults, relative to older adults, exhibited greater activity in dmPFC while older adults displayed enhanced ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and insula engagement relative to young. These results may potentially indicate that young adults focus on a general knowledge acquisition goal, while older adults focus on emotionally relevant aspects of the material. The findings demonstrate that age-related differences in recruitment of mPFC associated with encoding source information may in some circumstances underlie age-equivalent behavioral performance.

If it bleeds, it leads: separating threat from mere negativity

Most theories of emotion hold that negative stimuli are threatening and aversive. Yet in everyday experiences some negative sights (e.g. car wrecks) attract curiosity, whereas others repel (e.g. a weapon pointed in our face). To examine the diversity in negative stimuli, we employed four classes of visual images (Direct Threat, Indirect Threat, Merely Negative and Neutral) in a set of behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies. Participants reliably discriminated between the images, evaluating Direct Threat stimuli most quickly, and Merely Negative images most slowly. Threat images evoked greater and earlier blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) activations in the amygdala and periaqueductal gray, structures implicated in representing and responding to the motivational salience of stimuli. Conversely, the Merely Negative images evoked larger BOLD signal in the parahippocampal, retrosplenial, and medial prefrontal cortices, regions which have been implicated in contextual association processing. Ventrolateral as well as medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortices were activated by both threatening and Merely Negative images. In conclusion, negative visual stimuli can repel or attract scrutiny depending on their current threat potential, which is assessed by dynamic shifts in large-scale brain network activity.

Social cognition: empirical contribution. The developmental building blocks of psychopathic traits: revisiting the role of theory of mind

In the context of personality disorder development, theories of typical and atypical development both emphasize social cognition as an important building block for personality development. Prior claims of intact theory of mind (ToM) abilities in psychopathic individuals have relied upon a narrow conception of ToM as equivalent to "cognitive empathy." In this article, the authors make use of a broader conception of ToM comprising top-down and bottom-up processing, as well as the fractionation of ToM in terms of reduced or excessive ToM function, to examine relationships between ToM and psychopathic traits. A total of 342 adolescents (ages 12-17; Mage 15.39; SD = 1.45; 61.5% females) completed the Movie Assessment for Social Cognition (Dziobek, Fleck, Kalbe, et al., 2006) and the Child Eyes Test (Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Hill, Raste, & Plumb, 2001) in addition to three measures of psychopathic traits. Results demonstrated unique relations between the affective components of psychopathy (callous-unemotional traits [CU traits]) and impairment in both top-down and bottom-up ToM. In addition, excessive ToM related to affective components of psychopathy, while reduced or no ToM related to behavioral components of psychopathy. In mediational analyses, bottom-up ToM was shown to be necessary for top-town ToM in its relation with CU traits. Taken together, these results from the study lend support to revisiting the link between ToM and psychopathy.

Facial reactions during emotion recognition in borderline personality disorder: a facial electromyography study

BACKGROUND

Previous studies have suggested increased sensitivity for emotional facial expressions and subtle impairments in emotion recognition from facial expressions in borderline personality disorder (BPD). It has been proposed that facial mimicry contributes to emotion recognition of and emotional response to facial expressions. This study investigated whether BPD patients differ in facial reactions, emotion recognition and their subjective emotional response to faces showing different emotional expressions.

METHOD

Twenty-eight female BPD patients and 28 healthy controls underwent a facial recognition task with dynamic facial pictures while facial muscle activity (occipitofrontalis, corrugator supercilii, levator labii superioris, zygomaticus major and orbicularis oculi) was recorded. Furthermore, participants rated the emotional intensity of the presented faces and the intensity of their subjective feeling of this emotion.

RESULTS

Compared to controls, BPD patients showed enhanced responses of the corrugator supercilii muscle in response to angry, sad and disgusted facial expressions, and attenuated responses of the levator labii superioris in response to happy and surprised faces. There were no overall group differences regarding emotion recognition performance or intensity ratings.

CONCLUSION

These results do not support the view that facial recognition in BPD is impaired or that there is a general hypersensitivity to the emotional state of others. Instead, they suggest a negativity bias in BPD, expressed by reduced facial responding to positive social signals and increased facial responding to negative social signals. This is a pattern of facial reactions that might contribute to the difficulties in social interactions frequently reported by patients with this disorder.

Brain mechanisms underlying the impact of attachment-related stress on social cognition

Mentalizing, in particular the successful attribution of complex mental states to others, is crucial for navigating social interactions. This ability is highly influenced by external factors within one's daily life, such as stress. We investigated the impact of stress on the brain basis of mentalization in adults. Using a novel modification of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET-R) we compared the differential effects of two personalized stress induction procedures: a general stress induction (GSI) and an attachment-related stress induction (ASI). Participants performed the RMET-R at baseline and after each of the two inductions. Baseline results replicated and extended previous findings regarding the neural correlates of the RMET-R. Additionally, we identified brain regions associated with making complex age judgments from the same stimuli. Results after stress exposure showed that the ASI condition resulted in reduced mentalization-related activation in the left posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS), left inferior frontal gyrus and left temporoparietal junction (TPJ). Moreover, the left middle frontal gyrus and left anterior insula showed greater functional connectivity to the left posterior STS after the ASI. Our findings indicate that attachment-related stress has a unique effect on the neural correlates of mentalization.

Explicit versus implicit social cognition testing in autism spectrum disorder

Although autism spectrum disorder is defined by reciprocal social-communication impairments, several studies have found no evidence for altered social cognition test performance. This study examined explicit (i.e. prompted) and implicit (i.e. spontaneous) variants of social cognition testing in autism spectrum disorder. A sample of 19 adolescents with autism spectrum disorder and 19 carefully matched typically developing controls completed the Dewey Story Test. ‘Explicit’ (multiple-choice answering format) and ‘implicit’ (free interview) measures of social cognition were obtained. Autism spectrum disorder participants did not differ from controls regarding explicit social cognition performance. However, the autism spectrum disorder group performed more poorly than controls on implicit social cognition performance in terms of spontaneous perspective taking and social awareness. Findings suggest that social cognition alterations in autism spectrum disorder are primarily implicit in nature and that an apparent absence of social cognition difficulties on certain tests using rather explicit testing formats does not necessarily mean social cognition typicality in autism spectrum disorder.

Towards Modeling Social-Cognitive Mechanisms in Robots to Facilitate Human-Robot Teaming

For effective human-robot teaming, robots must gain the appropriate social-cognitive mechanisms that allow them to function naturally and intuitively in social interactions with humans. However, there is a lack of consensus on social cognition broadly, and how to design such mechanisms for embodied robotic systems. To this end, recommendations are advanced that are drawn from HRI, psychology, robotics, neuroscience and philosophy as well as theories of embodied cognition, dual process theory, ecological psychology, and dynamical systems. These interdisciplinary and multi-theoretic recommendations are meant to serve as integrative and foundational guidelines for the design of robots with effective social-cognitive mechanisms.

Effect of relationship experience on trust recovery following a breach

A violation of trust can have quite different consequences, depending on the nature of the relationship in which the trust breach occurs. In this article, we identify a key relationship characteristic that affects trust recovery: the extent of relationship experience before the trust breach. Across two experiments, this investigation establishes the behavioral effect that greater relationship experience before a trust breach fosters trust recovery. A neuroimaging experiment provides initial evidence that this behavioral effect is possible because of differential activation of two brain systems: while decision making after early trust breaches engages structures of a controlled social cognition system (C-system), specifically the anterior cingulate cortex and lateral frontal cortex, decision making after later trust breaches engages structures of an automatic social cognition system (X-system), specifically the lateral temporal cortex. The present findings make contributions to both social psychological theory and the neurophysiology of trust.

Implicit and explicit social mentalizing: dual processes driven by a shared neural network

Recent social neuroscientific evidence indicates that implicit and explicit inferences on the mind of another person (i.e., intentions, attributions or traits), are subserved by a shared mentalizing network. Under both implicit and explicit instructions, ERP studies reveal that early inferences occur at about the same time, and fMRI studies demonstrate an overlap in core mentalizing areas, including the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). These results suggest a rapid shared implicit intuition followed by a slower explicit verification processes (as revealed by additional brain activation during explicit vs. implicit inferences). These data provide support for a default-adjustment dual-process framework of social mentalizing.

A neuroimaging investigation of attribute framing and individual differences

Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to evaluate the neural basis of framing effects. We tested the reflexive and reflective systems model of social cognition as it relates to framing. We also examined the relationships among frame susceptibility, intelligence and personality measures. Participants evaluated whether personal attributes applied to themselves from multiple perspectives and in positive and negative frames. Participants rated whether each statement was descriptive or not and endorsed positive frames more than negative frames. Individual differences on frame decisions enabled us to form high and low frame susceptibility groups. Endorsement of frame-consistent attributes was associated with personality factors, cognitive reflection and intelligence. Reflexive brain regions were associated with positive frames while reflective areas were associated with negative frames. Region of Interest analyses showed that frame-inconsistent responses were associated with increased activation within reflective cognitive control regions including the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), dorsomedial PFC and left ventrolateral PFC. Frame-consistent responses were associated with increased activation in the right orbitofrontal cortex. These results demonstrate that individual differences in frame susceptibility influence personal attribute evaluations. Overall, this study clarifies the neural correlates of the reflective and reflexive systems of social cognition as applied to decisions about social attributions.

Training of affect recognition in schizophrenia patients with violent offences: behavioral treatment effects and electrophysiological correlates

Violent offenders with schizophrenia have a particularly poor performance level in facial affect recognition. Nineteen male schizophrenia patients, who had been committed to psychiatric hospital detention because of violent offences and lack of criminal responsibility, were recruited to receive the Training of Affect Recognition (TAR). Performance in the Pictures of Facial Affect (PFA)-test and event-related potentials (ERPs) were registered in a pre-post-treatment design. TAR was feasible with a very high treatment effect (Cohen's d = 1.88), which persisted for 2 months post-treatment. ERPs remained unchanged post- vs. pre-treatment, while low resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (LORETA) revealed activation decreases in left-hemispheric parietal-temporal-occipital regions at 172 msec and activation increases in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate at 250 msec. Possibly, violent offenders with schizophrenia are particularly amenable to TAR because of a high level of dysfunction at baseline. Post- vs. pre-treatment changes of neural activity (LORETA) may mirror a gain of efficiency in structural face decoding and a shift towards a more reflective mode of emotional face decoding, relying on increased frontal brain activity. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (BOLD-fMRI) -data from another study further supports this notion. TAR treatment might enable subjects with schizophrenia and a disposition to violence to reach a higher degree of deliberation of their reactive behavior to facial affect stimuli.

A neural signature of the creation of social evaluation

Previous research has shown that receiving an unfair monetary offer in economic bargaining elicits also-called feedback negativity (FN). This scalp-recorded brain potential probably reflects a bad-vs-good evaluation in the medial frontal cortex and has been linked to fundamental processes of reinforcement learning. In the present study, we investigated whether the evaluative mechanism indexed by the FN is also involved in learning who is an unfair vs fair bargaining partner. An electroencephalogram was recorded while participants completed a computerized version of the Ultimatum Game, repeatedly receiving fair or unfair monetary offers from alleged other participants. Some of these proposers were either always fair or always unfair in their offers. In each trial, participants first saw a portrait picture of the respective proposer before the monetary offer was presented. Therefore, the faces could be used as predictive cues for the fairness of the pending offers. We found that not only unfair offers themselves induced a FN, but also (over the task) faces of unfair proposers. Thus, when interaction partners repeatedly behave in an unfair way, their faces acquire a negative valence, which manifests in a basal neural mechanism of bad-vs-good evaluation.

Mentalizing-based treatment with adolescents and families

In this article, the process of mentalizing, its components, and role in self-regulation and attachment are reviewed. An examination is presented of the neurodevelopmental changes affecting the adolescent's capacity to mentalize and the role of such compromised mentalizing in the adolescent's vulnerability to adaptive breakdown and psychopathology, in general, and to emerging personality disorders, in particular. The principles, objectives, and core features of mentalizing-based treatment and its application to adolescents and families are discussed.