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Soto D, Salazar A, Elosegi P, Walter A, Mei N, Rodriguez E, Petrollini V, Vicente A. A novel image database for social concepts reveals preference biases in autistic spectrum in adults and children. Psychon Bull Rev 2024; 31:1690-1703. [PMID: 38238562 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-023-02443-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 12/16/2023] [Indexed: 08/29/2024]
Abstract
Human beings display the extraordinary ability of grasping and communicating abstract concepts. Yet, no standardized instruments exist to assess this ability. Developing these tools is paramount for understanding abstract representations such as social concepts, with ramifications in educational and clinical settings. Here, we developed an image database depicting abstract social concepts varying in social desirability. We first validated the image database in a sample of neurotypical participants. Then, we applied the database to test different hypotheses regarding how social concepts are represented across samples of adults and children with autism spectrum condition (ASC). Relative to the neurotypicals, we did not observe differences related to ASC in identification performance of the social desirability of the concepts, nor differences in metacognitive ability. However, we observed a preference bias away from prosocial concepts that was linked to individual autistic traits in the neurotypicals, and higher in ASC relative to the neurotypicals both in adults and children. These results indicate that abstract representations such as social concepts are dependent on individual neurodevelopmental traits. The image database thus provides a standardized assessment tool for investigating the representation of abstract social concepts in the fields of psycholinguistics, neuropsychology, neuropsychiatry, and cognitive neuroscience, across different cultures and languages.
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Affiliation(s)
- David Soto
- Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, San Sebastian, Spain.
- Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain.
| | - Amaia Salazar
- Department of Artistic Education, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - Patxi Elosegi
- Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, San Sebastian, Spain
- University of the Basque Country- UPV/EHU, Leioa, Spain
| | - Antje Walter
- Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, San Sebastian, Spain
- University of the Basque Country- UPV/EHU, Leioa, Spain
| | - Ning Mei
- Shenzhen University, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China
| | | | | | - Agustín Vicente
- Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain
- University of the Basque Country- UPV/EHU, Leioa, Spain
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Balgova E, Diveica V, Jackson RL, Binney RJ. Overlapping neural correlates underpin theory of mind and semantic cognition: Evidence from a meta-analysis of 344 functional neuroimaging studies. Neuropsychologia 2024; 200:108904. [PMID: 38759780 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2024.108904] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/14/2023] [Revised: 03/21/2024] [Accepted: 05/06/2024] [Indexed: 05/19/2024]
Abstract
Key unanswered questions for cognitive neuroscience include whether social cognition is underpinned by specialised brain regions and to what extent it simultaneously depends on more domain-general systems. Until we glean a better understanding of the full set of contributions made by various systems, theories of social cognition will remain fundamentally limited. In the present study, we evaluate a recent proposal that semantic cognition plays a crucial role in supporting social cognition. While previous brain-based investigations have focused on dissociating these two systems, our primary aim was to assess the degree to which the neural correlates are overlapping, particularly within two key regions, the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) and the temporoparietal junction (TPJ). We focus on activation associated with theory of mind (ToM) and adopt a meta-analytic activation likelihood approach to synthesise a large set of functional neuroimaging studies and compare their results with studies of semantic cognition. As a key consideration, we sought to account for methodological differences across the two sets of studies, including the fact that ToM studies tend to use nonverbal stimuli while the semantics literature is dominated by language-based tasks. Overall, we observed consistent overlap between the two sets of brain regions, especially in the ATL and TPJ. This supports the claim that tasks involving ToM draw upon more general semantic retrieval processes. We also identified activation specific to ToM in the right TPJ, bilateral anterior mPFC, and right precuneus. This is consistent with the view that, nested amongst more domain-general systems, there is specialised circuitry that is tuned to social processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eva Balgova
- Cognitive Neuroscience Institute, Department of Psychology, Bangor University, Gwynedd, Wales, UK; Department of Psychology, Aberystwyth University, Ceredigion, Wales, UK
| | - Veronica Diveica
- Cognitive Neuroscience Institute, Department of Psychology, Bangor University, Gwynedd, Wales, UK; Montreal Neurological Institute, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
| | - Rebecca L Jackson
- Department of Psychology & York Biomedical Research Institute, University of York, Heslington, York, UK
| | - Richard J Binney
- Cognitive Neuroscience Institute, Department of Psychology, Bangor University, Gwynedd, Wales, UK.
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Diveica V, Muraki EJ, Binney RJ, Pexman PM. Mapping semantic space: Exploring the higher-order structure of word meaning. Cognition 2024; 248:105794. [PMID: 38653181 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105794] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/15/2023] [Revised: 03/27/2024] [Accepted: 04/15/2024] [Indexed: 04/25/2024]
Abstract
Multiple representation theories posit that concepts are represented via a combination of properties derived from sensorimotor, affective, and linguistic experiences. Recently, it has been proposed that information derived from social experience, or socialness, represents another key aspect of conceptual representation. How these various dimensions interact to form a coherent conceptual space has yet to be fully explored. To address this, we capitalized on openly available word property norms for 6339 words and conducted a large-scale investigation into the relationships between 18 dimensions. An exploratory factor analysis reduced the dimensions to six higher-order factors: sub-lexical, distributional, visuotactile, body action, affective and social interaction. All these factors explained unique variance in performance on lexical and semantic tasks, demonstrating that they make important contributions to the representation of word meaning. An important and novel finding was that the socialness dimension clustered with the auditory modality and with mouth and head actions. We suggest this reflects experiential learning from verbal interpersonal interactions. Moreover, formally modelling the network structure of semantic space revealed pairwise partial correlations between most dimensions and highlighted the centrality of the interoception dimension. Altogether, these findings provide new insights into the architecture of conceptual space, including the importance of inner and social experience, and highlight promising avenues for future research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Veronica Diveica
- Cognitive Neuroscience Institute, Department of Psychology, Bangor University, Gwynedd LL57 2AS, UK; Montreal Neurological Institute, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2B4, Canada.
| | - Emiko J Muraki
- Department of Psychology and Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada.
| | - Richard J Binney
- Cognitive Neuroscience Institute, Department of Psychology, Bangor University, Gwynedd LL57 2AS, UK.
| | - Penny M Pexman
- Department of Psychology and Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada; Department of Psychology, Western University, London, Ontario N6A 5C2, Canada.
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Rouse MA, Binney RJ, Patterson K, Rowe JB, Lambon Ralph MA. A neuroanatomical and cognitive model of impaired social behaviour in frontotemporal dementia. Brain 2024; 147:1953-1966. [PMID: 38334506 PMCID: PMC11146431 DOI: 10.1093/brain/awae040] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2023] [Revised: 12/21/2023] [Accepted: 01/21/2024] [Indexed: 02/10/2024] Open
Abstract
Impaired social cognition is a core deficit in frontotemporal dementia (FTD). It is most commonly associated with the behavioural-variant of FTD, with atrophy of the orbitofrontal and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Social cognitive changes are also common in semantic dementia, with atrophy centred on the anterior temporal lobes. The impairment of social behaviour in FTD has typically been attributed to damage to the orbitofrontal cortex and/or temporal poles and/or the uncinate fasciculus that connects them. However, the relative contributions of each region are unresolved. In this review, we present a unified neurocognitive model of controlled social behaviour that not only explains the observed impairment of social behaviours in FTD, but also assimilates both consistent and potentially contradictory findings from other patient groups, comparative neurology and normative cognitive neuroscience. We propose that impaired social behaviour results from damage to two cognitively- and anatomically-distinct components. The first component is social-semantic knowledge, a part of the general semantic-conceptual system supported by the anterior temporal lobes bilaterally. The second component is social control, supported by the orbitofrontal cortex, medial frontal cortex and ventrolateral frontal cortex, which interacts with social-semantic knowledge to guide and shape social behaviour.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matthew A Rouse
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 7EF, UK
| | - Richard J Binney
- Cognitive Neuroscience Institute, Department of Psychology, School of Human and Behavioural Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor LL57 2AS, UK
| | - Karalyn Patterson
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 7EF, UK
- Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0SZ, UK
| | - James B Rowe
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 7EF, UK
- Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0SZ, UK
- Department of Neurology, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Cambridge CB2 0SZ, UK
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Zhang G, Xu Y, Wang X, Li J, Shi W, Bi Y, Lin N. A social-semantic working-memory account for two canonical language areas. Nat Hum Behav 2023; 7:1980-1997. [PMID: 37735521 DOI: 10.1038/s41562-023-01704-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/01/2023] [Accepted: 08/22/2023] [Indexed: 09/23/2023]
Abstract
Language and social cognition are traditionally studied as separate cognitive domains, yet accumulative studies reveal overlapping neural correlates at the left ventral temporoparietal junction (vTPJ) and the left lateral anterior temporal lobe (lATL), which have been attributed to sentence processing and social concept activation. We propose a common cognitive component underlying both effects: social-semantic working memory. We confirmed two key predictions of our hypothesis using functional MRI. First, the left vTPJ and lATL showed sensitivity to sentences only when the sentences conveyed social meaning; second, these regions showed persistent social-semantic-selective activity after the linguistic stimuli disappeared. We additionally found that both regions were sensitive to the socialness of non-linguistic stimuli and were more tightly connected with the social-semantic-processing areas than with the sentence-processing areas. The converging evidence indicates the social-semantic working-memory function of the left vTPJ and lATL and challenges the general-semantic and/or syntactic accounts for the neural activity of these regions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Guangyao Zhang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
- IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
- Beijing Key Laboratory of Brain Imaging and Connectomics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Yangwen Xu
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
| | - Xiuyi Wang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Jixing Li
- Department of Linguistics and Translation, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Weiting Shi
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Yanchao Bi
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
- IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
- Beijing Key Laboratory of Brain Imaging and Connectomics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
- Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing, China
| | - Nan Lin
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, China.
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
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Birba A, López-Pigüi J, León Santana I, García AM. Impaired social concept processing in persons with autistic-like traits. Sci Rep 2023; 13:15709. [PMID: 37735251 PMCID: PMC10514259 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-42889-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/23/2023] [Accepted: 09/15/2023] [Indexed: 09/23/2023] Open
Abstract
Situated models suggest that social concepts are grounded in interpersonal experience. However, few studies have tested this notion experimentally, and none has targeted individuals with reduced social interaction. Here, we assessed comprehension of text-level social and non-social concepts in persons with and without autistic-like traits. Participants read a social and a non-social text and answered questionnaires targeting social and non-social concepts, respectively. We compared behavioral outcomes, gauged their contribution to subject-level classification, and examined their association with validated measures of autism. Persons with autistic-like traits showed selective deficits in grasping text-level social concepts, even adjusting for intelligence, memory, and vocabulary. Also, social concept comprehension was the only variable that significantly classified between groups. Finally, social concept outcomes correlated negatively with measures of autism, including social interaction. Our results suggest that reduced interpersonal experience selectively compromises text-level social concept processing, offering empirical constraints for situated models of social semantics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Agustina Birba
- Cognitive Neuroscience Center, University of San Andrés, Vito Dumas 284, B1644BID, Victoria, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
| | - Joana López-Pigüi
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
- Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Hull, Kingston Upon Hull, UK
| | - Inmaculada León Santana
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
- Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
| | - Adolfo M García
- Cognitive Neuroscience Center, University of San Andrés, Vito Dumas 284, B1644BID, Victoria, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- Global Brain Health Institute, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, USA.
- Departamento de Lingüística y Literatura, Facultad de Humanidades, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
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Borghi AM, Osińska A, Roepstorff A, Raczaszek-Leonardi J. Editorial concepts in interaction: social engagement and inner experiences. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2023; 378:20210351. [PMID: 36571137 PMCID: PMC9791470 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0351] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/27/2022] Open
Abstract
This theme issue aims to view the literature on concepts through a novel lens, that of social interaction and its influence on inner experiences. It discusses unsolved problems in literature on concepts, emphasizing the distinction between concrete versus abstract concepts and external versus internal grounding. This introductory article reflects the two research streams that the theme aims to bridge-in this area, the dimension of embodied interaction with others and how this influences the interaction with ourselves is still underexplored. In the first part, we discuss recent trends in social cognition, showing how interacting with others influences our concepts. In the second part, we address how social interactions become part of our inner world in a Vygotskian fashion. First, we illustrate how interoception, emotion and metacognition are connected with concepts and knowledge. Second, we deal with how language, in both its outer and inner form, can empower cognition and concepts. We also briefly describe how novel experimental and computational methods contribute to investigating the online use of concepts. Overall, this introductory article outlines the potentialities of an integrated and interactive approach that can give new, fresh life to a topic, that of concepts, which lies at the root of human cognition. This article is part of the theme issue 'Concepts in interaction: social engagement and inner experiences'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna M. Borghi
- Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, and Health Studies, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Lazio, Italy,Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council, 00185 Rome, Lazio, Italy
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