Left inferior parietal lobe engagement in social cognition and language

PubMed Central

Bzdok, Danilo; Hartwigsen, Gesa; Reid, Andrew; Laird, Angela R.; Fox, Peter T.; Eickhoff, Simon B.

2017-01-01

Social cognition and language are two core features of the human species. Despite distributed recruitment of brain regions in each mental capacity, the left parietal lobe (LPL) represents a zone of topographical convergence. The present study quantitatively summarizes hundreds of neuroimaging studies on social cognition and language. Using connectivity-based parcellation on a meta-analytically defined volume of interest (VOI), regional coactivation patterns within this VOI allowed identifying distinct subregions. Across parcellation solutions, two clusters emerged consistently in rostro-ventral and caudo-ventral aspects of the parietal VOI. Both clusters were functionally significantly associated with social-cognitive and language processing. In particular, the rostro-ventral cluster was associated with lower-level processing facets, while the caudo-ventral cluster was associated with higher-level processing facets in both mental capacities. Contrarily, in the (less stable) dorsal parietal VOI, all clusters reflected computation of general-purpose processes, such as working memory and matching tasks, that are frequently co-recruited by social or language processes. Our results hence favour a rostro-caudal distinction of lower-versus higher-level processes underlying social cognition and language in the left inferior parietal lobe. PMID:27241201

The Structure of Social Cognition: In(ter)dependence of Sociocognitive Processes.

PubMed

Happé, Francesca; Cook, Jennifer L; Bird, Geoffrey

2017-01-03

Social cognition is a topic of enormous interest and much research, but we are far from having an agreed taxonomy or factor structure of relevant processes. The aim of this review is to outline briefly what is known about the structure of social cognition and to suggest how further progress can be made to delineate the in(ter)dependence of core sociocognitive processes. We focus in particular on several processes that have been discussed and tested together in typical and atypical (notably autism spectrum disorder) groups: imitation, biological motion, empathy, and theory of mind. We consider the domain specificity/generality of core processes in social learning, reward, and attention, and we highlight the potential relevance of dual-process theories that distinguish systems for fast/automatic and slow/effortful processing. We conclude with methodological and conceptual suggestions for future progress in uncovering the structure of social cognition.

Overview of Social Cognitive Dysfunctions in Rare Developmental Syndromes With Psychiatric Phenotype

PubMed Central

Morel, Aurore; Peyroux, Elodie; Leleu, Arnaud; Favre, Emilie; Franck, Nicolas; Demily, Caroline

2018-01-01

Rare neurodevelopmental syndromes often present social cognitive deficits that may underlie difficulties in social interactions and increase the risk of psychosis or autism spectrum disorders. However, little is known regarding the specificities of social cognitive impairment across syndromes while it remains a major challenge for the care. Our review provides an overview of social cognitive dysfunctions in rare diseases associated with psychiatric symptoms (with a prevalence estimated between 1 in 1,200 and 1 in 25,000 live births: 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, Angelman syndrome, Fragile X syndrome, Klinefelter syndrome, Prader–Willi syndrome, Rett syndrome, Smith–Magenis syndrome, Turner syndrome, and Williams syndrome) and shed some light on the specific mechanisms that may underlie these skills in each clinical presentation. We first detail the different processes included in the generic expression “social cognition” before summarizing the genotype, psychiatric phenotype, and non-social cognitive profile in each syndrome. Then, we offer a systematic review of the social cognitive abilities and the disturbed mechanisms they are likely associated with. We followed the PRISMA process, including the definition of the relevant search terms, the selection of studies based on clear inclusion, and exclusion criteria and the quality appraisal of papers. We finally provide insights that may have considerable influence on the development of adapted therapeutic interventions such as social cognitive training (SCT) therapies specifically designed to target the psychiatric phenotype. The results of this review suggest that social cognition impairments share some similarities across syndromes. We propose that social cognitive impairments are strongly involved in behavioral symptoms regardless of the overall cognitive level measured by intelligence quotient. Better understanding the mechanisms underlying impaired social cognition may lead to adapt therapeutic interventions. The studies targeting social cognition processes offer new thoughts about the development of specific cognitive training programs, as they highlight the importance of connecting neurocognitive and SCT techniques. PMID:29774207

Using cognitive architectures to study issues in team cognition in a complex task environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Smart, Paul R.; Sycara, Katia; Tang, Yuqing

2014-05-01

Cognitive social simulation is a computer simulation technique that aims to improve our understanding of the dynamics of socially-situated and socially-distributed cognition. This makes cognitive social simulation techniques particularly appealing as a means to undertake experiments into team cognition. The current paper reports on the results of an ongoing effort to develop a cognitive social simulation capability that can be used to undertake studies into team cognition using the ACT-R cognitive architecture. This capability is intended to support simulation experiments using a team-based problem solving task, which has been used to explore the effect of different organizational environments on collective problem solving performance. The functionality of the ACT-R-based cognitive social simulation capability is presented and a number of areas of future development work are outlined. The paper also describes the motivation for adopting cognitive architectures in the context of social simulation experiments and presents a number of research areas where cognitive social simulation may be useful in developing a better understanding of the dynamics of team cognition. These include the use of cognitive social simulation to study the role of cognitive processes in determining aspects of communicative behavior, as well as the impact of communicative behavior on the shaping of task-relevant cognitive processes (e.g., the social shaping of individual and collective memory as a result of communicative exchanges). We suggest that the ability to perform cognitive social simulation experiments in these areas will help to elucidate some of the complex interactions that exist between cognitive, social, technological and informational factors in the context of team-based problem-solving activities.

Social Cognition in Schizophrenia: From Social Stimuli Processing to Social Engagement

PubMed Central

Billeke, Pablo; Aboitiz, Francisco

2013-01-01

Social cognition consists of several skills which allow us to interact with other humans. These skills include social stimuli processing, drawing inferences about others’ mental states, and engaging in social interactions. In recent years, there has been growing evidence of social cognitive impairments in patients with schizophrenia. Apparently, these impairments are separable from general neurocognitive impairments, such as attention, memory, and executive functioning. Moreover, social cognition seems to be a main determinant of functional outcome and could be used as a guide to elaborate new pharmacological and psychological treatments. However, most of these studies focus on individual mechanisms and observational perspectives; only few of them study schizophrenic patients during interactive situations. We first review evidences of social cognitive impairments both in social stimuli processing and in mental state attribution. We focus on the relationship between these functions and both general cognitive impairments and functional outcome. We next review recent game theory approaches to the study of how social engagement occurs in schizophrenic patients. The advantage of using game theory is that game-oriented tasks can assess social decision making in an interactive everyday situation model. Finally, we review proposed theoretical models used to explain social alterations and their underlying biological mechanisms. Based on interactive studies, we propose a framework which takes into account the dynamic nature of social processes. Thus, understanding social skills as a result of dynamical systems could facilitate the development of both basic research and clinical applications oriented to psychiatric populations. PMID:23444313

[Sociophysiology: basic processes of empathy].

PubMed

Haker, Helene; Schimansky, Jenny; Rössler, Wulf

2010-01-01

The aim of this review is to describe sociophysiological and social cognitive processes that underlie the complex phenomenon of human empathy. Automatic reflexive processes such as physiological contagion and action mirroring are mediated by the mirror neuron system. They are a basis for further processing of social signals and a physiological link between two individuals. This link comprises simultaneous activation of shared motor representations. Shared representations lead implicitly via individual associations in the limbic and vegetative system to a shared affective state. These processes are called sociophysiology. Further controlled- reflective, self-referential processing of those social signals leads to explicit, conscious representations of others' minds. Those higher-order processes are called social cognition. The interaction of physiological and cognitive social processes lets arise the phenomenon of human empathy.

Social Information Processing as a Mediator between Cognitive Schemas and Aggressive Behavior in Adolescents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Calvete, Esther; Orue, Izaskun

2012-01-01

This longitudinal investigation assessed whether cognitive schemas of justification of violence, mistrust, and narcissism predicted social information processing (SIP), and SIP in turn predicted aggressive behavior in adolescents. A total of 650 adolescents completed measures of cognitive schemas at Time 1, SIP in ambiguous social scenarios at…

A Delineation of the Cognitive Processes Manifested in a Social Annotation Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Li, S. C.; Pow, J. W. C.; Cheung, W. C.

2015-01-01

This study aims to examine how students' learning trajectories progress in an online social annotation environment, and how their cognitive processes and levels of interaction correlate with their learning outcomes. Three different types of activities (cognitive, metacognitive and social) were identified in the online environment. The time…

Experimental Study of Middle-Term Training in Social Cognition in Preschoolers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Houssa, Marine; Nader-Grosbois, Nathalie

2016-01-01

In an experimental design, we examined the effects of middle-term training in social information processing (SIP) and in Theory of Mind (ToM) on preschoolers' social cognition and social adjustment. 48 preschoolers took part in a pre-test and post-test session involving cognitive, socio-cognitive and social adjustment (direct and indirect)…

Facial Affect Processing and Depression Susceptibility: Cognitive Biases and Cognitive Neuroscience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bistricky, Steven L.; Ingram, Rick E.; Atchley, Ruth Ann

2011-01-01

Facial affect processing is essential to social development and functioning and is particularly relevant to models of depression. Although cognitive and interpersonal theories have long described different pathways to depression, cognitive-interpersonal and evolutionary social risk models of depression focus on the interrelation of interpersonal…

Social cognition and functional capacity in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

PubMed

Thaler, Nicholas S; Sutton, Griffin P; Allen, Daniel N

2014-12-15

Social cognition is a functionally relevant predictor of capacity in schizophrenia (SZ), though research concerning its value for bipolar disorder (BD) is limited. The current investigation examined the relationship between two social cognitive factors and functional capacity in bipolar disorder. This study included 48 individuals with bipolar disorder (24 with psychotic features) and 30 patients with schizophrenia. Multiple regression controlling for estimated IQ scores was used to assess the predictive value of social cognitive factors on the UCSD Performance-Based Functional Skills Assessment (UPSA). Results found that for the bipolar with psychosis and schizophrenia groups, the social/emotion processing factor predicted the UPSA. The theory of mind factor only predicted the UPSA for the schizophrenia group.. Findings support the clinical utility of evaluating emotion processing in individuals with a history of psychosis. For BD, theory of mind may be better explained by a generalized cognitive deficit. In contrast, social/emotion processing may be linked to distinct neurobiological processes associated with psychosis. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Socialization of Newcomers into Organizations: Integrating Learning and Social Exchange Processes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Korte, Russell F.

2007-01-01

Traditional views of socialization focus primarily on the passive learning by the newcomer of the expectations of the organization. Theorizing and research on cognitive learning and social exchange indicate that the socialization process is vastly more complex. This paper views socialization through the lenses of cognitive learning and social…

Social cognition and neurocognition as independent domains in psychosis.

PubMed

van Hooren, S; Versmissen, D; Janssen, I; Myin-Germeys, I; à Campo, J; Mengelers, R; van Os, J; Krabbendam, L

2008-08-01

Patients with psychosis display alterations in social cognition as well as in the realm of neurocognition. It is unclear, however, to what degree these cognitive domains represent two separate dimensions of liability or the pleiotropic expression of a single deficit. The purpose of the present study was to investigate (i) to what extent alterations in social cognition represent an independent area of vulnerability to psychosis, separate from neurocognitive deficits and (ii) whether social cognition is one construct or can be divided into several subcomponents. Five social cognition and three neurocognitive tasks were completed by 186 participants with different levels of vulnerability for psychosis: 44 patients with psychotic disorder; 47 subjects at familial risk; 41 subjects at psychometric risk and 54 control subjects. The social cognition tasks covered important basic subcomponents of social cognition, i.e. mentalisation (or theory of mind), data gathering bias (jumping to conclusions), source monitoring and attribution style. Neurocognitive tasks assessed speed of information processing, inhibition, cognitive shifting and strategy-driven retrieval from semantic memory. The results of factor analysis suggested that neurocognition and social cognition are two separate areas of vulnerability in psychosis. Furthermore, the social cognition measures lacked significant overlap, suggesting a multidimensional construct. Cognitive liabilities to psychosis are manifold, and include key processes underlying basic person-environment interactions in daily life, independent of cognition quantified by neuropsychological tests.

Negative rumination in social anxiety: A randomised trial investigating the effects of a brief intervention on cognitive processes before, during and after a social situation.

PubMed

Modini, Matthew; Abbott, Maree J

2017-06-01

According to cognitive models of Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD), negative rumination is a key maintaining factor in the vicious cycle of social anxiety. However, there is a scarcity of research investigating treatment effects on rumination in social anxiety, as well as other key cognitive variables. The current study aimed to determine the effectiveness of a brief intervention on a range of cognitive processes, most notably negative rumination. Additionally, predictors of negative rumination and state anxiety are also investigated. Participants with a diagnosis of SAD were randomly allocated to an intervention (n = 24) or control group (n = 23). Participant's initially completed trait and state based measures with the intervention group also completing a brief cognitive intervention. One-week later participants completed state anxiety and cognitive measures before and after a speech task. Finally, one-week post-speech task participants completed further trait and state based measures. While the brief cognitive intervention had positive effects on some of the cognitive processes measured at different time points of the study, levels of negative rumination remained stable. Predictors of negative rumination and state anxiety were consistent with cognitive models of SAD. The brief nature of the intervention and temporal stance of the intervention (delivered one-week before the speech) may have impacted outcomes. Cognitive technique can potentially impact a range of key processes that maintain SAD, however, more powerful and tailored interventions are needed that address the different processes at play before, during and after a social situation for socially anxious individuals. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Predictors of post-event rumination related to social anxiety.

PubMed

Kocovski, Nancy L; Rector, Neil A

2007-01-01

Post-event processing is the cognitive rumination that follows social events in cognitive models of social anxiety. The aim of this study was to examine factors that may predict the extent to which individuals engage in post-event processing. Anxious rumination, social anxiety, anxiety sensitivity and post-event processing related to a recent anxiety-provoking social event were assessed in a college student sample (n = 439). Social anxiety and anxious rumination, but not anxiety sensitivity, significantly predicted the extent to which the participants engaged in post-event processing related to an anxiety-provoking social event. Factors that appear to impact on the post-event period include the nature of the social situation and the ethnicity of the participant. It appears that both general rumination over anxious symptoms, and specific rumination related to social events are relevant for cognitive models of social anxiety.

Social cognitive conflict resolution: Contributions of domain general and domain specific neural systems

PubMed Central

Zaki, Jamil; Hennigan, Kelly; Weber, Jochen; Ochsner, Kevin N.

2010-01-01

Cognitive control mechanisms allow individuals to behave adaptively in the face of complex and sometimes conflicting information. While the neural bases of these control mechanisms have been examined in many contexts, almost no attention has been paid to their role in resolving conflicts between competing social cues, which is surprising, given that cognitive conflicts are part of many social interactions. Evidence about the neural processing of social information suggests that two systems—the mirror neuron system (MNS) and mental state attribution system (MSAS)—are specialized for processing nonverbal and contextual social cues, respectively. This could support a model of social cognitive conflict resolution in which competition between social cues would recruit domain-general cognitive control mechanisms, which in turn would bias processing towards the MNS or MSAS. Such biasing could also alter social behaviors, such as inferences made about the internal states of others. We tested this model by scanning participants using fMRI while they drew inferences about social targets' emotional states based on congruent or incongruent nonverbal and contextual social cues. Conflicts between social cues recruited the anterior cingulate and lateral prefrontal cortex, brain areas associated with domain-general control processes. This activation was accompanied by biasing of neural activity towards areas in the MNS or MSAS, which tracked, respectively, with perceivers' behavioral reliance on nonverbal or contextual cues when drawing inferences about targets' emotions. Together, these data provide evidence about both domain general and domain specific mechanisms involved in resolving social cognitive conflicts. PMID:20573895

The Roles of Negative Career Thinking and Career Problem-Solving Self-Efficacy in Career Exploratory Behavior

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bullock-Yowell, Emily; Katz, Sheba P.; Reardon, Robert C.; Peterson, Gary W.

2012-01-01

The respective roles of social cognitive career theory and cognitive information processing in career exploratory behavior were analyzed. A verified path model shows cognitive information processing theory's negative career thoughts inversely predict social cognitive career theory's career problem-solving self-efficacy, which predicts career…

Social Cognition in Infancy.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moore, Chris

1998-01-01

Maintains that Carpenter, Nagell, and Tomasello's (1998) data reveal little definitive information on cognitive processes involved in infants' social interactive behaviors. Evaluates support for Carpenter et al.'s claims for infant social cognition and discusses the nature of infant cognition. Maintains that what is needed is experimental evidence…

Left inferior parietal lobe engagement in social cognition and language.

PubMed

Bzdok, Danilo; Hartwigsen, Gesa; Reid, Andrew; Laird, Angela R; Fox, Peter T; Eickhoff, Simon B

2016-09-01

Social cognition and language are two core features of the human species. Despite distributed recruitment of brain regions in each mental capacity, the left parietal lobe (LPL) represents a zone of topographical convergence. The present study quantitatively summarizes hundreds of neuroimaging studies on social cognition and language. Using connectivity-based parcellation on a meta-analytically defined volume of interest (VOI), regional coactivation patterns within this VOI allowed identifying distinct subregions. Across parcellation solutions, two clusters emerged consistently in rostro-ventral and caudo-ventral aspects of the parietal VOI. Both clusters were functionally significantly associated with social-cognitive and language processing. In particular, the rostro-ventral cluster was associated with lower-level processing facets, while the caudo-ventral cluster was associated with higher-level processing facets in both mental capacities. Contrarily, in the (less stable) dorsal parietal VOI, all clusters reflected computation of general-purpose processes, such as working memory and matching tasks, that are frequently co-recruited by social or language processes. Our results hence favour a rostro-caudal distinction of lower- versus higher-level processes underlying social cognition and language in the left inferior parietal lobe. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Response to an Abnormal Ovarian Cancer Screening Test Result: Test of the Social Cognitive Processing and Cognitive Social Health Information Processing Models

PubMed Central

Andrykowski, Michael A.; Pavlik, Edward J.

2009-01-01

All cancer screening tests produce a proportion of abnormal results requiring follow-up. Consequently, the cancer screening setting is a natural laboratory for examining psychological and behavioral response to a threatening health-related event. This study tested hypotheses derived from the Social Cognitive Processing and Cognitive-Social Health Information Processing models in trying to understand response to an abnormal ovarian cancer (OC) screening test result. Women (n=278) receiving an abnormal screening test result a mean of 7 weeks earlier were assessed prior to a repeat screening test intended to clarify their previous abnormal result. Measures of disposition (optimism, informational coping style), social environment (social support and constraint), emotional processing, distress, and benefit finding were obtained. Regression analyses indicated greater distress was associated with greater social constraint and emotional processing and a monitoring coping style in women with a family history of OC. Distress was unrelated to social support. Greater benefit finding was associated with both greater social constraint and support and greater distress. The primacy of social constraint in accounting for both benefit-finding and distress was noteworthy and warrants further research on the role of social constraint in adaptation to stressful events. PMID:20419561

Social cognition in a case of amnesia with neurodevelopmental mechanisms.

PubMed

Staniloiu, Angelica; Borsutzky, Sabine; Woermann, Friedrich G; Markowitsch, Hans J

2013-01-01

Episodic-autobiographical memory (EAM) is considered to emerge gradually in concert with the development of other cognitive abilities (such as executive functions, personal semantic knowledge, emotional knowledge, theory of mind (ToM) functions, language, and working memory). On the brain level its emergence is accompanied by structural and functional reorganization of different components of the so-called EAM network. This network includes the hippocampal formation, which is viewed as being vital for the acquisition of memories of personal events for long-term storage. Developmental studies have emphasized socio-cultural-linguistic mechanisms that may be unique to the development of EAM. Furthermore it was hypothesized that one of the main functions of EAM is the social one. In the research field, the link between EAM and social cognition remains however debated. Herein we aim to bring new insights into the relation between EAM and social information processing (including social cognition) by describing a young adult patient with amnesia with neurodevelopmental mechanisms due to perinatal complications accompanied by hypoxia. The patient was investigated medically, psychiatrically, and with neuropsychological and neuroimaging methods. Structural high resolution magnetic resonance imaging revealed significant bilateral hippocampal atrophy as well as indices for degeneration in the amygdalae, basal ganglia, and thalamus, when a less conservative threshold was applied. In addition to extensive memory investigations and testing other (non-social) cognitive functions, we employed a broad range of tests that assessed social information processing (social perception, social cognition, social regulation). Our results point to both preserved (empathy, core ToM functions, visual affect selection, and discrimination, affective prosody discrimination) and impaired domains of social information processing (incongruent affective prosody processing, complex social judgments). They support proposals for a role of the hippocampal formation in processing more complex social information that likely requires multimodal relational handling.

Social cognition in a case of amnesia with neurodevelopmental mechanisms

PubMed Central

Staniloiu, Angelica; Borsutzky, Sabine; Woermann, Friedrich G.; Markowitsch, Hans J.

2013-01-01

Episodic–autobiographical memory (EAM) is considered to emerge gradually in concert with the development of other cognitive abilities (such as executive functions, personal semantic knowledge, emotional knowledge, theory of mind (ToM) functions, language, and working memory). On the brain level its emergence is accompanied by structural and functional reorganization of different components of the so-called EAM network. This network includes the hippocampal formation, which is viewed as being vital for the acquisition of memories of personal events for long-term storage. Developmental studies have emphasized socio-cultural-linguistic mechanisms that may be unique to the development of EAM. Furthermore it was hypothesized that one of the main functions of EAM is the social one. In the research field, the link between EAM and social cognition remains however debated. Herein we aim to bring new insights into the relation between EAM and social information processing (including social cognition) by describing a young adult patient with amnesia with neurodevelopmental mechanisms due to perinatal complications accompanied by hypoxia. The patient was investigated medically, psychiatrically, and with neuropsychological and neuroimaging methods. Structural high resolution magnetic resonance imaging revealed significant bilateral hippocampal atrophy as well as indices for degeneration in the amygdalae, basal ganglia, and thalamus, when a less conservative threshold was applied. In addition to extensive memory investigations and testing other (non-social) cognitive functions, we employed a broad range of tests that assessed social information processing (social perception, social cognition, social regulation). Our results point to both preserved (empathy, core ToM functions, visual affect selection, and discrimination, affective prosody discrimination) and impaired domains of social information processing (incongruent affective prosody processing, complex social judgments). They support proposals for a role of the hippocampal formation in processing more complex social information that likely requires multimodal relational handling. PMID:23805111

Improving Social Cognition in People with Schizophrenia with RC2S: Two Single-Case Studies.

PubMed

Peyroux, Elodie; Franck, Nicolas

2016-01-01

Difficulties in social interactions are a central characteristic of people with schizophrenia, and can be partly explained by impairments of social cognitive processes. New strategies of cognitive remediation have been recently developed to target these deficits. The RC2S therapy is an individualized and partly computerized program through which patients practice social interactions and develop social cognitive abilities with simulation techniques in a realistic environment. Here, we present the results of two case-studies involving two patients with schizophrenia presenting with specific profiles of impaired social cognition. Each patient completed three baseline sessions, 14 treatment sessions, and 3 follow-up sessions at the end of the therapy - and for 1 patient, another 3 sessions 9 months later. We used a multiple baseline design to assess specific components of social cognition according to the patients' profiles. Functioning and symptomatology were also assessed at the end of the treatment and 6 months later. Results highlight significant improvements in the targeted social cognitive processes and positive changes in functioning in the long term. The RC2S program seems, thus, to be a new useful program for social cognitive remediation in schizophrenia.

Improving Social Cognition in People with Schizophrenia with RC2S: Two Single-Case Studies

PubMed Central

Peyroux, Elodie; Franck, Nicolas

2016-01-01

Difficulties in social interactions are a central characteristic of people with schizophrenia, and can be partly explained by impairments of social cognitive processes. New strategies of cognitive remediation have been recently developed to target these deficits. The RC2S therapy is an individualized and partly computerized program through which patients practice social interactions and develop social cognitive abilities with simulation techniques in a realistic environment. Here, we present the results of two case-studies involving two patients with schizophrenia presenting with specific profiles of impaired social cognition. Each patient completed three baseline sessions, 14 treatment sessions, and 3 follow-up sessions at the end of the therapy – and for 1 patient, another 3 sessions 9 months later. We used a multiple baseline design to assess specific components of social cognition according to the patients’ profiles. Functioning and symptomatology were also assessed at the end of the treatment and 6 months later. Results highlight significant improvements in the targeted social cognitive processes and positive changes in functioning in the long term. The RC2S program seems, thus, to be a new useful program for social cognitive remediation in schizophrenia. PMID:27199776

How social cognition can inform social decision making.

PubMed

Lee, Victoria K; Harris, Lasana T

2013-12-25

Social decision-making is often complex, requiring the decision-maker to make inferences of others' mental states in addition to engaging traditional decision-making processes like valuation and reward processing. A growing body of research in neuroeconomics has examined decision-making involving social and non-social stimuli to explore activity in brain regions such as the striatum and prefrontal cortex, largely ignoring the power of the social context. Perhaps more complex processes may influence decision-making in social vs. non-social contexts. Years of social psychology and social neuroscience research have documented a multitude of processes (e.g., mental state inferences, impression formation, spontaneous trait inferences) that occur upon viewing another person. These processes rely on a network of brain regions including medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), superior temporal sulcus (STS), temporal parietal junction, and precuneus among others. Undoubtedly, these social cognition processes affect social decision-making since mental state inferences occur spontaneously and automatically. Few studies have looked at how these social inference processes affect decision-making in a social context despite the capability of these inferences to serve as predictions that can guide future decision-making. Here we review and integrate the person perception and decision-making literatures to understand how social cognition can inform the study of social decision-making in a way that is consistent with both literatures. We identify gaps in both literatures-while behavioral economics largely ignores social processes that spontaneously occur upon viewing another person, social psychology has largely failed to talk about the implications of social cognition processes in an economic decision-making context-and examine the benefits of integrating social psychological theory with behavioral economic theory.

How social cognition can inform social decision making

PubMed Central

Lee, Victoria K.; Harris, Lasana T.

2013-01-01

Social decision-making is often complex, requiring the decision-maker to make inferences of others' mental states in addition to engaging traditional decision-making processes like valuation and reward processing. A growing body of research in neuroeconomics has examined decision-making involving social and non-social stimuli to explore activity in brain regions such as the striatum and prefrontal cortex, largely ignoring the power of the social context. Perhaps more complex processes may influence decision-making in social vs. non-social contexts. Years of social psychology and social neuroscience research have documented a multitude of processes (e.g., mental state inferences, impression formation, spontaneous trait inferences) that occur upon viewing another person. These processes rely on a network of brain regions including medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), superior temporal sulcus (STS), temporal parietal junction, and precuneus among others. Undoubtedly, these social cognition processes affect social decision-making since mental state inferences occur spontaneously and automatically. Few studies have looked at how these social inference processes affect decision-making in a social context despite the capability of these inferences to serve as predictions that can guide future decision-making. Here we review and integrate the person perception and decision-making literatures to understand how social cognition can inform the study of social decision-making in a way that is consistent with both literatures. We identify gaps in both literatures—while behavioral economics largely ignores social processes that spontaneously occur upon viewing another person, social psychology has largely failed to talk about the implications of social cognition processes in an economic decision-making context—and examine the benefits of integrating social psychological theory with behavioral economic theory. PMID:24399928

Effects of Social-Cognitive Processing Demands and Structural Importance on Narrative Recall: Differences between Children, Adolescents, and Adults

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pavias, Marcella; van den Broek, Paul; Hickendorff, Marian; Beker, Katinka; Van Leijenhorst, Linda

2016-01-01

This study examined the contributions of developmental changes in social-cognitive ability throughout adolescence to the development of narrative comprehension. We measured the effects of sensitivity to the causal structure of narratives and of sensitivity to differences in social-cognitive processing demands on narrative recall by children (8-10…

Gestural coupling and social cognition: Möbius Syndrome as a case study

PubMed Central

Krueger, Joel; Michael, John

2012-01-01

Social cognition researchers have become increasingly interested in the ways that behavioral, physiological, and neural coupling facilitate social interaction and interpersonal understanding. We distinguish two ways of conceptualizing the role of such coupling processes in social cognition: strong and moderate interactionism. According to strong interactionism (SI), low-level coupling processes are alternatives to higher-level individual cognitive processes; the former at least sometimes render the latter superfluous. Moderate interactionism (MI) on the other hand, is an integrative approach. Its guiding assumption is that higher-level cognitive processes are likely to have been shaped by the need to coordinate, modulate, and extract information from low-level coupling processes. In this paper, we present a case study on Möbius Syndrome (MS) in order to contrast SI and MI. We show how MS—a form of congenital bilateral facial paralysis—can be a fruitful source of insight for research exploring the relation between high-level cognition and low-level coupling. Lacking a capacity for facial expression, individuals with MS are deprived of a primary channel for gestural coupling. According to SI, they lack an essential enabling feature for social interaction and interpersonal understanding more generally and thus ought to exhibit severe deficits in these areas. We challenge SI's prediction and show how MS cases offer compelling reasons for instead adopting MI's pluralistic model of social interaction and interpersonal understanding. We conclude that investigations of coupling processes within social interaction should inform rather than marginalize or eliminate investigation of higher-level individual cognition. PMID:22514529

Differential impairment of social cognition factors in bipolar disorder with and without psychotic features and schizophrenia.

PubMed

Thaler, Nicholas S; Allen, Daniel N; Sutton, Griffin P; Vertinski, Mary; Ringdahl, Erik N

2013-12-01

While it is well-established that patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder exhibit deficits in social cognition, few studies have separately examined bipolar disorder with and without psychotic features. The current study addressed this gap by comparing patients with bipolar disorder with (BD+) and without (BD-) psychotic features, patients with schizophrenia (SZ), and healthy controls (NC) across social cognitive measures. Principal factor analysis on five social cognition tasks extracted a two-factor structure comprised of social/emotional processing and theory of mind. Factor scores were compared among the four groups. Results identified differential patterns of impairment between the BD+ and BD- group on the social/emotional processing factor while all clinical groups performed poorer than controls on the theory of mind factor. This provides evidence that a history of psychosis should be taken into account while evaluating social cognition in patients with bipolar disorder and also raises hypotheses about the relationship between social cognition and psychosis. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Toward a Two-Dimensional Model of Social Cognition in Clinical Neuropsychology: A Systematic Review of Factor Structure Studies.

PubMed

Etchepare, Aurore; Prouteau, Antoinette

2018-04-01

Social cognition has received growing interest in many conditions in recent years. However, this construct still suffers from a considerable lack of consensus, especially regarding the dimensions to be studied and the resulting methodology of clinical assessment. Our review aims to clarify the distinctiveness of the dimensions of social cognition. Based on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statements, a systematic review was conducted to explore the factor structure of social cognition in the adult general and clinical populations. The initial search provided 441 articles published between January 1982 and March 2017. Eleven studies were included, all conducted in psychiatric populations and/or healthy participants. Most studies were in favor of a two-factor solution. Four studies drew a distinction between low-level (e.g., facial emotion/prosody recognition) and high-level (e.g., theory of mind) information processing. Four others reported a distinction between affective (e.g., facial emotion/prosody recognition) and cognitive (e.g., false beliefs) information processing. Interestingly, attributional style was frequently reported as an additional separate factor of social cognition. Results of factor analyses add further support for the relevance of models differentiating level of information processing (low- vs. high-level) from nature of processed information (affective vs. cognitive). These results add to a significant body of empirical evidence from developmental, clinical research and neuroimaging studies. We argue the relevance of integrating low- versus high-level processing with affective and cognitive processing in a two-dimensional model of social cognition that would be useful for future research and clinical practice. (JINS, 2018, 24, 391-404).

Combining computerized social cognitive training with neuroplasticity-based auditory training in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Sacks, Stephanie; Fisher, Melissa; Garrett, Coleman; Alexander, Phillip; Holland, Christine; Rose, Demian; Hooker, Christine; Vinogradov, Sophia

2013-01-01

Social cognitive deficits are an important treatment target in schizophrenia, but it is unclear to what degree they require specialized interventions and which specific components of behavioral interventions are effective. In this pilot study, we explored the effects of a novel computerized neuroplasticity-based auditory training delivered in conjunction with computerized social cognition training (SCT) in patients with schizophrenia. Nineteen clinically stable schizophrenia subjects performed 50 hours of computerized exercises that place implicit, increasing demands on auditory perception, plus 12 hours of computerized training in emotion identification, social perception, and theory of mind tasks. All subjects were assessed with MATRICS-recommended measures of neurocognition and social cognition, plus a measure of self-referential source memory before and after the computerized training. Subjects showed significant improvements on multiple measures of neurocognition. Additionally, subjects showed significant gains on measures of social cognition, including the MSCEIT Perceiving Emotions, MSCEIT Managing Emotions, and self-referential source memory, plus a significant decrease in positive symptoms. Computerized training of auditory processing/verbal learning in schizophrenia results in significant basic neurocognitive gains. Further, addition of computerized social cognition training results in significant gains in several social cognitive outcome measures. Computerized cognitive training that directly targets social cognitive processes can drive improvements in these crucial functions.

An investigation into social information processing in young people with Asperger syndrome.

PubMed

Flood, Andrea Mary; Julian Hare, Dougal; Wallis, Paul

2011-09-01

Deficits in social functioning are a core feature of autistic spectrum disorders (ASD), being linked to various cognitive and developmental factors, but there has been little attempt to draw on normative models of social cognition to understand social behaviour in ASD. The current study explored the utility of Crick and Dodge's (1994) information processing model to studying social cognition in ASD, and examined associations between social information processing patterns, theory of mind skills and social functioning. A matched-group design compared young people with Asperger syndrome with typically developing peers, using a social information processing interview previously designed for this purpose. The Asperger syndrome group showed significantly different patterns of information processing at the intent attribution, response generation and response evaluation stages of the information processing model. Theory of mind skills were found to be significantly associated with parental ratings of peer problems in the Asperger syndrome group but not with parental ratings of pro-social behaviour, with only limited evidence of an association between social information processing and measures of theory of mind and social functioning. Overall, the study supports the use of normative social information processing approaches to understanding social functioning in ASD.

Systematic review of the neural basis of social cognition in patients with mood disorders.

PubMed

Cusi, Andrée M; Nazarov, Anthony; Holshausen, Katherine; Macqueen, Glenda M; McKinnon, Margaret C

2012-05-01

This review integrates neuroimaging studies of 2 domains of social cognition--emotion comprehension and theory of mind (ToM)--in patients with major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder. The influence of key clinical and method variables on patterns of neural activation during social cognitive processing is also examined. Studies were identified using PsycINFO and PubMed (January 1967 to May 2011). The search terms were "fMRI," "emotion comprehension," "emotion perception," "affect comprehension," "affect perception," "facial expression," "prosody," "theory of mind," "mentalizing" and "empathy" in combination with "major depressive disorder," "bipolar disorder," "major depression," "unipolar depression," "clinical depression" and "mania." Taken together, neuroimaging studies of social cognition in patients with mood disorders reveal enhanced activation in limbic and emotion-related structures and attenuated activity within frontal regions associated with emotion regulation and higher cognitive functions. These results reveal an overall lack of inhibition by higher-order cognitive structures on limbic and emotion-related structures during social cognitive processing in patients with mood disorders. Critically, key variables, including illness burden, symptom severity, comorbidity, medication status and cognitive load may moderate this pattern of neural activation. Studies that did not include control tasks or a comparator group were included in this review. Further work is needed to examine the contribution of key moderator variables and to further elucidate the neural networks underlying altered social cognition in patients with mood disorders. The neural networks under lying higher-order social cognitive processes, including empathy, remain unexplored in patients with mood disorders.

M69. Changes in Neural Measures of Emotion Processes Following Targeted Social Cognition Training

PubMed Central

Saxena, Abhishek; Guty, Erin; Dodell-Feder, David; Yin, Hong; Haut, Kristen; Nahum, Mor; Hooker, Christine

2017-01-01

Abstract Background: Research has shown that people who develop a psychotic disorder display observable decreases in cognitive abilities even before they begin to display overt symptoms of psychosis. Thus research has shown an increased interest in targeted cognitive training (TCT) as possible technique to deter or even stop cognitive deterioration in psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia. Although TCT has shown promising improvements in certain cognitive deficits, TCT research has largely ignored social cognition training. The current study investigates whether targeted social cognition training may be a viable method of improving social cognition in patient populations. Methods: To this end, 56 healthy adults from the community completed MRI scans before and after a 2-week period, where participants were randomized to complete either up to 10 hours of SocialVille, a computerized social cognition training program from PositScience Corporation, or up to 10 hours of common computer games. SocialVille consists of a variety of social cognition exercises, such as face emotion recognition, gaze tracking, and recognizing social incongruences. During the MRI scans, participants completed an emotion identification task (EmotID), consisting of object discrimination and emotion discrimination blocks. During the object discrimination blocks, participants where shown pictures of 2 cars and were asked to indicate whether the cars were the same or different, while in the emotion discrimination blocks, participants were shown 2 faces and were asked whether the faces displayed the same emotion. Results: Behavioral data indicated that controlling for initial performance, sex, age, and estimated IQ, being in the TCT group only predicted better performance during the emotion discrimination blocks after treatment compared to those who completed placebo computer games. Additionally, fMRI analyses indicate that brain regions central to the emotion processes (ie, amygdala) and the social processes (ie, MPFC), saw significant increases in connectivity to other regions of the brain associated with emotion processes during the emotion discrimination blocks after training among the participants randomized to the TCT group compared to those assigned to complete placebo computer games, and in comparison to connectivity between these regions prior to training and during the object discrimination blocks. Conclusion: These findings indicate that social cognition can be improved in healthy adults with varying ability at baseline. Furthermore, these results indicate that it is possible to target specific neural systems associated with emotion and social cognition and show a learning-induced neuroplastic response. Thus, programs, like SocialVille, may be useful tools for targeted treatment in psychiatric populations where social cognition deficits are prominent, specifically schizophrenia.

The busy social brain: evidence for automaticity and control in the neural systems supporting social cognition and action understanding.

PubMed

Spunt, Robert P; Lieberman, Matthew D

2013-01-01

Much social-cognitive processing is believed to occur automatically; however, the relative automaticity of the brain systems underlying social cognition remains largely undetermined. We used functional MRI to test for automaticity in the functioning of two brain systems that research has indicated are important for understanding other people's behavior: the mirror neuron system and the mentalizing system. Participants remembered either easy phone numbers (low cognitive load) or difficult phone numbers (high cognitive load) while observing actions after adopting one of four comprehension goals. For all four goals, mirror neuron system activation showed relatively little evidence of modulation by load; in contrast, the association of mentalizing system activation with the goal of inferring the actor's mental state was extinguished by increased cognitive load. These results support a dual-process model of the brain systems underlying action understanding and social cognition; the mirror neuron system supports automatic behavior identification, and the mentalizing system supports controlled social causal attribution.

Loss of white matter connections after severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and its relationship to social cognition.

PubMed

McDonald, Skye; Dalton, Katie I; Rushby, Jacqueline A; Landin-Romero, Ramon

2018-06-14

Adults with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) often suffer poor social cognition. Social cognition is complex, requiring verbal, non-verbal, auditory, visual and affective input and integration. While damage to focal temporal and frontal areas has been implicated in disorders of social cognition after TBI, the role of white matter pathology has not been examined. In this study 17 adults with chronic, severe TBI and 17 control participants underwent structural MRI scans and Diffusion Tensor Imaging. The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT) was used to assess their ability to understand emotional states, thoughts, intentions and conversational meaning in everyday exchanges. Track-based spatial statistics were used to perform voxelwise analysis of Fractional Anisotropy (FA) and Mean Diffusivity (MD) of white matter tracts associated with poor social cognitive performance. FA suggested a wide range of tracts were implicated in poor TASIT performance including tracts known to mediate, auditory localisation (planum temporale) communication between nonverbal and verbal processes in general (corpus callosum) and in memory in particular (fornix) as well as tracts and structures associated with semantics and verbal recall (left temporal lobe and hippocampus), multimodal processing and integration (thalamus, external capsule, cerebellum) and with social cognition (orbitofrontal cortex, frontopolar cortex, right temporal lobe). Even when controlling for non-social cognition, the corpus callosum, fornix, bilateral thalamus, right external capsule and right temporal lobe remained significant contributors to social cognitive performance. This study highlights the importance of loss of white matter connectivity in producing complex social information processing deficits after TBI.

Social cognitive interventions for people with schizophrenia: A systematic review.

PubMed

Tan, Bhing-Leet; Lee, Sara-Ann; Lee, Jimmy

2018-06-01

Social cognition is the mental process which underpins social interactions. Increasingly, it has been recognized to be impaired in people with schizophrenia, resulting in functional problems. Correspondingly, the past ten years have seen huge developments in the study of interventions to ameliorate social cognitive deficits among people with schizophrenia. In the present review, we systematically reviewed published studies on social cognitive interventions from 2005 to 2015. Of the 61 studies included in this review, 20 were on broad-based social cognitive interventions, which incorporated neurocognitive training, specialized learning technique or virtual reality social skills training. On the other hand, 31 studies on targeted interventions either focused on specific social cognitive domains, or a range of domains. Improvements in emotion processing and theory of mind were often reported, while social perception and attributional style were less frequently measured. Both broad-based and targeted interventions achieved gains in social functioning, albeit inconsistently. Lastly, nine studies on the use of oxytocin and one study on transcranial direct current stimulation reported positive preliminary results in higher-order cognition and facial affect recognition respectively. This review revealed that a wide range of social cognitive interventions is currently available and most have shown some promise in improving social cognition outcomes. However, there is a need to use a common battery of measurements for better comparisons across interventions. Future research should examine combination therapies and the sustainability of gains beyond the intervention period. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

(Social) Cognitive Skills and Social Information Processing in Children with Mild to Borderline Intellectual Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van Nieuwenhuijzen, M.; Vriens, A.

2012-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the unique contributions of (social) cognitive skills such as inhibition, working memory, perspective taking, facial emotion recognition, and interpretation of situations to the variance in social information processing in children with mild to borderline intellectual disabilities. Respondents were 79…

The effects of context processing on social cognition impairments in adults with Asperger's syndrome

PubMed Central

Baez, Sandra; Ibanez, Agustin

2014-01-01

Social cognition—the basis of all communicative and otherwise interpersonal relationships—is embedded in specific contextual circumstances which shape intrinsic meanings. This domain is compromised in the autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), including Asperger's syndrome (AS) (DSM-V). However, the few available reports of social cognition skills in adults with AS have largely neglected the effects of contextual factors. Moreover, previous studies on this population have also failed to simultaneously (a) assess multiple social cognition domains, (b) examine executive functions, (c) follow strict sample selection criteria, and (d) acknowledge the cognitive heterogeneity typical of the disorder. The study presently reviewed (Baez et al., 2012), addressed all these aspects in order to establish the basis of social cognition deficits in adult AS patients. Specifically, we assessed the performance of AS adults in multiple social cognition tasks with different context-processing requirements. The results suggest that social cognition deficits in AS imply a reduced ability to implicitly encode and integrate contextual cues needed to access social meaning. Nevertheless, the patients' performance was normal when explicit social information was presented or when the situation could be navigated with abstract rules. Here, we review the results of our study and other relevant data, and discuss their implications for the diagnosis and treatment of AS and other neuropsychiatric conditions (e.g., schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, frontotemporal dementia). Finally, we analyze previous results in the light of a current neurocognitive model of social-context processing. PMID:25232301

The Role of Cognitive Factors in Childhood Social Anxiety: Social Threat Thoughts and Social Skills Perception.

PubMed

van Niekerk, Rianne E; Klein, Anke M; Allart-van Dam, Esther; Hudson, Jennifer L; Rinck, Mike; Hutschemaekers, Giel J M; Becker, Eni S

2017-01-01

Models of cognitive processing in anxiety disorders state that socially anxious children display several distorted cognitive processes that maintain their anxiety. The present study investigated the role of social threat thoughts and social skills perception in relation to childhood trait and state social anxiety. In total, 141 children varying in their levels of social anxiety performed a short speech task in front of a camera and filled out self-reports about their trait social anxiety, state anxiety, social skills perception and social threat thoughts. Results showed that social threat thoughts mediated the relationship between trait social anxiety and state anxiety after the speech task, even when controlling for baseline state anxiety. Furthermore, we found that children with higher trait anxiety and more social threat thoughts had a lower perception of their social skills, but did not display a social skills deficit. These results provide evidence for the applicability of the cognitive social anxiety model to children.

Neural activity during emotion recognition after combined cognitive plus social cognitive training in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Hooker, Christine I; Bruce, Lori; Fisher, Melissa; Verosky, Sara C; Miyakawa, Asako; Vinogradov, Sophia

2012-08-01

Cognitive remediation training has been shown to improve both cognitive and social cognitive deficits in people with schizophrenia, but the mechanisms that support this behavioral improvement are largely unknown. One hypothesis is that intensive behavioral training in cognition and/or social cognition restores the underlying neural mechanisms that support targeted skills. However, there is little research on the neural effects of cognitive remediation training. This study investigated whether a 50 h (10-week) remediation intervention which included both cognitive and social cognitive training would influence neural function in regions that support social cognition. Twenty-two stable, outpatient schizophrenia participants were randomized to a treatment condition consisting of auditory-based cognitive training (AT) [Brain Fitness Program/auditory module ~60 min/day] plus social cognition training (SCT) which was focused on emotion recognition [~5-15 min per day] or a placebo condition of non-specific computer games (CG) for an equal amount of time. Pre and post intervention assessments included an fMRI task of positive and negative facial emotion recognition, and standard behavioral assessments of cognition, emotion processing, and functional outcome. There were no significant intervention-related improvements in general cognition or functional outcome. fMRI results showed the predicted group-by-time interaction. Specifically, in comparison to CG, AT+SCT participants had a greater pre-to-post intervention increase in postcentral gyrus activity during emotion recognition of both positive and negative emotions. Furthermore, among all participants, the increase in postcentral gyrus activity predicted behavioral improvement on a standardized test of emotion processing (MSCEIT: Perceiving Emotions). Results indicate that combined cognition and social cognition training impacts neural mechanisms that support social cognition skills. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Neural activity during emotion recognition after combined cognitive plus social-cognitive training in schizophrenia

PubMed Central

Hooker, Christine I.; Bruce, Lori; Fisher, Melissa; Verosky, Sara C.; Miyakawa, Asako; Vinogradov, Sophia

2012-01-01

Cognitive remediation training has been shown to improve both cognitive and social-cognitive deficits in people with schizophrenia, but the mechanisms that support this behavioral improvement are largely unknown. One hypothesis is that intensive behavioral training in cognition and/or social-cognition restores the underlying neural mechanisms that support targeted skills. However, there is little research on the neural effects of cognitive remediation training. This study investigated whether a 50 hour (10-week) remediation intervention which included both cognitive and social-cognitive training would influence neural function in regions that support social-cognition. Twenty-two stable, outpatient schizophrenia participants were randomized to a treatment condition consisting of auditory-based cognitive training (AT) [Brain Fitness Program/auditory module ~60 minutes/day] plus social-cognition training (SCT) which was focused on emotion recognition [~5–15 minutes per day] or a placebo condition of non-specific computer games (CG) for an equal amount of time. Pre and post intervention assessments included an fMRI task of positive and negative facial emotion recognition, and standard behavioral assessments of cognition, emotion processing, and functional outcome. There were no significant intervention-related improvements in general cognition or functional outcome. FMRI results showed the predicted group-by-time interaction. Specifically, in comparison to CG, AT+SCT participants had a greater pre-to-post intervention increase in postcentral gyrus activity during emotion recognition of both positive and negative emotions. Furthermore, among all participants, the increase in postcentral gyrus activity predicted behavioral improvement on a standardized test of emotion processing (MSCEIT: Perceiving Emotions). Results indicate that combined cognition and social-cognition training impacts neural mechanisms that support social-cognition skills. PMID:22695257

[Neural and cognitive correlates of social cognition: findings on neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies].

PubMed

Kobayakawa, Mutsutaka; Kawamura, Mitsuru

2011-12-01

Social cognition includes various components of information processing related to communication with other individuals. In this review, we have discussed 3 components of social cognitive function: face recognition, empathy, and decision making. Our social behavior involves recognition based on facial features and also involves empathizing with others; while making decisions, it is important to consider the social consequences of the course of action followed. Face recognition is divided into 2 routes for information processing: a route responsible for overt recognition of the face's identity and a route for emotional and orienting responses based on the face's personal affective significance. Two systems are possibly involved in empathy: a basic emotional contagion "mirroring" system and a more advanced "theory of mind" system that considers the cognitive perspective. Decision making is mediated by a widespread system that includes several cortical and subcortical components. Numerous lesion and neuroimaging studies have contributed to clarifying the neural correlates of social cognitive function, and greater information can be obtained on social cognitive function by combining these 2 approaches.

Social-Information-Processing Patterns Mediate the Impact of Preventive Intervention on Adolescent Antisocial Behavior

PubMed Central

Dodge, Kenneth A.; Godwin, Jennifer

2013-01-01

In the study reported here, we tested the hypothesis that the Fast Track preventive intervention’s positive impact on antisocial behavior in adolescence is mediated by its impact on social-cognitive processes during elementary school. Fast Track is the largest and longest federally funded preventive intervention trial for children showing aggressive behavior at an early age. Participants were 891 high-risk kindergarten children (69% male, 31% female; 49% ethnic minority, 51% ethnic majority) who were randomly assigned to an intervention or a control group by school cluster. Multiyear intervention addressed social-cognitive processes through social-skill training groups, parent groups, classroom curricula, peer coaching, and tutoring. Assigning children to the intervention decreased their mean antisocial-behavior score after Grade 9 by 0.16 standardized units (p < .01). Structural equation models indicated that 27% of the intervention’s impact on antisocial behavior was mediated by its impact on three social-cognitive processes: reducing hostile-attribution biases, increasing competent response generation to social problems, and devaluing aggression. These findings support a model of antisocial behavioral development mediated by social-cognitive processes, and they guide prevention planners to focus on these processes. PMID:23406610

Mind the fish: zebrafish as a model in cognitive social neuroscience

PubMed Central

Oliveira, Rui F.

2013-01-01

Understanding how the brain implements social behavior on one hand, and how social processes feedback on the brain to promote fine-tuning of behavioral output according to changes in the social environment is a major challenge in contemporary neuroscience. A critical step to take this challenge successfully is finding the appropriate level of analysis when relating social to biological phenomena. Given the enormous complexity of both the neural networks of the brain and social systems, the use of a cognitive level of analysis (in an information processing perspective) is proposed here as an explanatory interface between brain and behavior. A conceptual framework for a cognitive approach to comparative social neuroscience is proposed, consisting of the following steps to be taken across different species with varying social systems: (1) identification of the functional building blocks of social skills; (2) identification of the cognitive mechanisms underlying the previously identified social skills; and (3) mapping these information processing mechanisms onto the brain. Teleost fish are presented here as a group of choice to develop this approach, given the diversity of social systems present in closely related species that allows for planned phylogenetic comparisons, and the availability of neurogenetic tools that allows the visualization and manipulation of selected neural circuits in model species such as the zebrafish. Finally, the state-of-the art of zebrafish social cognition and of the tools available to map social cognitive abilities to neural circuits in zebrafish are reviewed. PMID:23964204

Mind the fish: zebrafish as a model in cognitive social neuroscience.

PubMed

Oliveira, Rui F

2013-01-01

Understanding how the brain implements social behavior on one hand, and how social processes feedback on the brain to promote fine-tuning of behavioral output according to changes in the social environment is a major challenge in contemporary neuroscience. A critical step to take this challenge successfully is finding the appropriate level of analysis when relating social to biological phenomena. Given the enormous complexity of both the neural networks of the brain and social systems, the use of a cognitive level of analysis (in an information processing perspective) is proposed here as an explanatory interface between brain and behavior. A conceptual framework for a cognitive approach to comparative social neuroscience is proposed, consisting of the following steps to be taken across different species with varying social systems: (1) identification of the functional building blocks of social skills; (2) identification of the cognitive mechanisms underlying the previously identified social skills; and (3) mapping these information processing mechanisms onto the brain. Teleost fish are presented here as a group of choice to develop this approach, given the diversity of social systems present in closely related species that allows for planned phylogenetic comparisons, and the availability of neurogenetic tools that allows the visualization and manipulation of selected neural circuits in model species such as the zebrafish. Finally, the state-of-the art of zebrafish social cognition and of the tools available to map social cognitive abilities to neural circuits in zebrafish are reviewed.

Impairments in social cognition following severe traumatic brain injury.

PubMed

McDonald, Skye

2013-03-01

Severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) leads to physical, neuropsychological, and emotional deficits that interfere with the individual’s capacity to return to his or her former lifestyle. This review focuses on social cognition, that is, the capacity to attend to, recognize and interpret interpersonal cues that guide social behavior. Social cognition entails ‘‘hot’’ processes, that is, emotion perception and emotional empathy and ‘‘cold’’ processes, that is, the ability to infer the beliefs, feelings, and intentions of others (theory of mind: ToM) to see their point of view (cognitive empathy) and what they mean when communicating (pragmatic inference). This review critically examines research attesting to deficits in each of these domains and also examines evidence for theorized mechanisms including specific neural networks, the role of simulation, and non-social cognition. Current research is hampered by small, heterogeneous samples and the inherent complexity of TBI pathology. Nevertheless, there is evidence that facets of social cognition are impaired in this population. New assessment tools to measure social cognition following TBI are required that predict everyday social functioning. In addition, research into remediation needs to be guided by the growing empirical base for understanding social cognition that may yet reveal how deficits dissociate following TBI.

The Representation of Self and Person Knowledge in the Medial Prefrontal Cortex

PubMed Central

Haxby, James V.; Heatherton, Todd F.

2012-01-01

Nearly forty years ago, social psychologists began applying the information processing framework of cognitive psychology to the question of how humans understand and represent knowledge about themselves and others. This approach gave rise to the immensely successful field of social cognition and fundamentally changed the way in which social psychological phenomena are studied. More recently, social scientists of many stripes have turned to the methods of cognitive neuroscience to understand the neural basis of social cognition. A pervasive finding from this research is that social knowledge, be it about one's self or of others, is represented in the medial prefrontal cortex. This review focuses on the social cognitive neuroscience of self and person knowledge in the medial prefrontal cortex. We begin with a brief historical overview of social cognition, followed by a review of recent and influential research on the brain basis of self and person knowledge. In the latter half of this review we discuss the role of familiarity and similarity in person perception and of spontaneous processes in self and other referential cognition. Throughout, we discuss the myriad ways in which the social cognitive neuroscience approach has provided new insights into the nature and structure of self and person knowledge. PMID:22712038

Development and validation of the social information processing application: a Web-based measure of social information processing patterns in elementary school-age boys.

PubMed

Kupersmidt, Janis B; Stelter, Rebecca; Dodge, Kenneth A

2011-12-01

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of an audio computer-assisted self-interviewing Web-based software application called the Social Information Processing Application (SIP-AP) that was designed to assess social information processing skills in boys in 3rd through 5th grades. This study included a racially and ethnically diverse sample of 244 boys ages 8 through 12 (M = 9.4) from public elementary schools in 3 states. The SIP-AP includes 8 videotaped vignettes, filmed from the first-person perspective, that depict common misunderstandings among boys. Each vignette shows a negative outcome for the victim and ambiguous intent on the part of the perpetrator. Boys responded to 16 Web-based questions representing the 5 social information processing mechanisms, after viewing each vignette. Parents and teachers completed measures assessing boys' antisocial behavior. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that a model positing the original 5 cognitive mechanisms fit the data well when the items representing prosocial cognitions were included on their own factor, creating a 6th factor. The internal consistencies for each of the 16 individual cognitions as well as for the 6 cognitive mechanism scales were excellent. Boys with elevated scores on 5 of the 6 cognitive mechanisms exhibited more antisocial behavior than boys whose scores were not elevated. These findings highlight the need for further research on the measurement of prosocial cognitions or cognitive strengths in boys in addition to assessing cognitive deficits. Findings suggest that the SIP-AP is a reliable and valid tool for use in future research of social information processing skills in boys.

Development and Validation of the Social Information Processing Application: A Web-Based Measure of Social Information Processing Patterns in Elementary School-Age Boys

PubMed Central

Kupersmidt, Janis B.; Stelter, Rebecca; Dodge, Kenneth A.

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of an audio computer-assisted self-interviewing Web-based software application called the Social Information Processing Application (SIP-AP) that was designed to assess social information processing skills in boys in 3rd through 5th grades. This study included a racially and ethnically diverse sample of 244 boys ages 8 through 12 (M = 9.4) from public elementary schools in 3 states. The SIP-AP includes 8 videotaped vignettes, filmed from the first-person perspective, that depict common misunderstandings among boys. Each vignette shows a negative outcome for the victim and ambiguous intent on the part of the perpetrator. Boys responded to 16 Web-based questions representing the 5 social information processing mechanisms, after viewing each vignette. Parents and teachers completed measures assessing boys’ antisocial behavior. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that a model positing the original 5 cognitive mechanisms fit the data well when the items representing prosocial cognitions were included on their own factor, creating a 6th factor. The internal consistencies for each of the 16 individual cognitions as well as for the 6 cognitive mechanism scales were excellent. Boys with elevated scores on 5 of the 6 cognitive mechanisms exhibited more antisocial behavior than boys whose scores were not elevated. These findings highlight the need for further research on the measurement of prosocial cognitions or cognitive strengths in boys in addition to assessing cognitive deficits. Findings suggest that the SIP-AP is a reliable and valid tool for use in future research of social information processing skills in boys. PMID:21534693

Neural Correlates of Explicit Social Judgments on Vocal Stimuli

PubMed Central

Hensel, Lukas; Bzdok, Danilo; Müller, Veronika I.; Zilles, Karl; Eickhoff, Simon B.

2015-01-01

Functional neuroimaging research on the neural basis of social evaluation has traditionally focused on face perception paradigms. Thus, little is known about the neurobiology of social evaluation processes based on auditory cues, such as voices. To investigate the top-down effects of social trait judgments on voices, hemodynamic responses of 44 healthy participants were measured during social trait (trustworthiness [TR] and attractiveness [AT]), emotional (happiness, HA), and cognitive (age, AG) voice judgments. Relative to HA and AG judgments, TR and AT judgments both engaged the bilateral inferior parietal cortex (IPC; area PGa) and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) extending into the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex. This dmPFC activation overlapped with previously reported areas specifically involved in social judgments on ‘faces.’ Moreover, social trait judgments were expected to share neural correlates with emotional HA and cognitive AG judgments. Comparison of effects pertaining to social, social–emotional, and social–cognitive appraisal processes revealed a dissociation of the left IPC into 3 functional subregions assigned to distinct cytoarchitectonic subdivisions. In total, the dmPFC is proposed to assume a central role in social attribution processes across sensory qualities. In social judgments on voices, IPC activity shifts from rostral processing of more emotional judgment facets to caudal processing of more cognitive judgment facets. PMID:24243619

Theory of mind, empathy and emotion perception in cortical and subcortical neurodegenerative diseases.

PubMed

Fortier, J; Besnard, J; Allain, P

2018-04-01

Although the impact of neurodegenerative diseases on everyday interactions is well known in the literature, their impact on social cognitive processes remains unclear. The concept of social cognition refers to a set of skills, all of which are essential for living in a community. It involves social knowledge, perception and processing of social cues, and representation of mental states. This report is a review of recent findings on the impact of cortical and subcortical neurodegenerative diseases on three social cognitive processes, namely, the theory of mind, empathy and processing emotions. The focus here is on a conceptual approach to each of these skills and their cerebral underpinnings. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

The Interplay between Emotion and Cognition in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Implications for Developmental Theory

PubMed Central

Gaigg, Sebastian B.

2012-01-01

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is clinically defined by abnormalities in reciprocal social and communicative behaviors and an inflexible adherence to routinised patterns of thought and behavior. Laboratory studies repeatedly demonstrate that autistic individuals experience difficulties in recognizing and understanding the emotional expressions of others and naturalistic observations show that they use such expressions infrequently and inappropriately to regulate social exchanges. Dominant theories attribute this facet of the ASD phenotype to abnormalities in a social brain network that mediates social-motivational and social-cognitive processes such as face processing, mental state understanding, and empathy. Such theories imply that only emotion related processes relevant to social cognition are compromised in ASD but accumulating evidence suggests that the disorder may be characterized by more widespread anomalies in the domain of emotions. In this review I summarize the relevant literature and argue that the social-emotional characteristics of ASD may be better understood in terms of a disruption in the domain-general interplay between emotion and cognition. More specifically I will suggest that ASD is the developmental consequence of early emerging anomalies in how emotional responses to the environment modulate a wide range of cognitive processes including those that are relevant to navigating the social world. PMID:23316143

The Interplay between Emotion and Cognition in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Implications for Developmental Theory.

PubMed

Gaigg, Sebastian B

2012-01-01

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is clinically defined by abnormalities in reciprocal social and communicative behaviors and an inflexible adherence to routinised patterns of thought and behavior. Laboratory studies repeatedly demonstrate that autistic individuals experience difficulties in recognizing and understanding the emotional expressions of others and naturalistic observations show that they use such expressions infrequently and inappropriately to regulate social exchanges. Dominant theories attribute this facet of the ASD phenotype to abnormalities in a social brain network that mediates social-motivational and social-cognitive processes such as face processing, mental state understanding, and empathy. Such theories imply that only emotion related processes relevant to social cognition are compromised in ASD but accumulating evidence suggests that the disorder may be characterized by more widespread anomalies in the domain of emotions. In this review I summarize the relevant literature and argue that the social-emotional characteristics of ASD may be better understood in terms of a disruption in the domain-general interplay between emotion and cognition. More specifically I will suggest that ASD is the developmental consequence of early emerging anomalies in how emotional responses to the environment modulate a wide range of cognitive processes including those that are relevant to navigating the social world.

The representation of self and person knowledge in the medial prefrontal cortex.

PubMed

Wagner, Dylan D; Haxby, James V; Heatherton, Todd F

2012-07-01

Nearly 40 years ago, social psychologists began applying the information processing framework of cognitive psychology to the question of how humans understand and represent knowledge about themselves and others. This approach gave rise to the immensely successful field of social cognition and fundamentally changed the way in which social psychological phenomena are studied. More recently, social scientists of many stripes have turned to the methods of cognitive neuroscience to understand the neural basis of social cognition. A pervasive finding from this research is that social knowledge, be it about one's self or of others, is represented in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). This review focuses on the social cognitive neuroscience of self and person knowledge in the MPFC. We begin with a brief historical overview of social cognition, followed by a review of recent and influential research on the brain basis of self and person knowledge. In the latter half of this review, we discuss the role of familiarity and similarity in person perception and of spontaneous processes in self and other-referential cognition. Throughout, we discuss the myriad ways in which the social cognitive neuroscience approach has provided new insights into the nature and structure of self and person knowledge. WIREs Cogn Sci 2012, 3:451-470. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1183 This article is categorized under: Neuroscience > Cognition. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

iGeneration: The Social Cognitive Effects of Digital Technology on Teenagers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ives, Eugenia A.

2012-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine and better understand the social cognitive effects of digital technology on teenagers' brains and their socialization processes, as well as to learn best practices with regard to digital technology consumption. An extensive literature review was conducted on the social cognitive effects of digital…

Prefrontal Cortex and Social Cognition in Mouse and Man

PubMed Central

Bicks, Lucy K.; Koike, Hiroyuki; Akbarian, Schahram; Morishita, Hirofumi

2015-01-01

Social cognition is a complex process that requires the integration of a wide variety of behaviors, including salience, reward-seeking, motivation, knowledge of self and others, and flexibly adjusting behavior in social groups. Not surprisingly, social cognition represents a sensitive domain commonly disrupted in the pathology of a variety of psychiatric disorders including Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Schizophrenia (SCZ). Here, we discuss convergent research from animal models to human disease that implicates the prefrontal cortex (PFC) as a key regulator in social cognition, suggesting that disruptions in prefrontal microcircuitry play an essential role in the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders with shared social deficits. We take a translational perspective of social cognition, and review three key behaviors that are essential to normal social processing in rodents and humans, including social motivation, social recognition, and dominance hierarchy. A shared prefrontal circuitry may underlie these behaviors. Social cognition deficits in animal models of neurodevelopmental disorders like ASD and SCZ have been linked to an altered balance of excitation and inhibition (E/I ratio) within the cortex generally, and PFC specifically. A clear picture of the mechanisms by which altered E/I ratio in the PFC might lead to disruptions of social cognition across a variety of behaviors is not well understood. Future studies should explore how disrupted developmental trajectory of prefrontal microcircuitry could lead to altered E/I balance and subsequent deficits in the social domain. PMID:26635701

Mothers' Early Depressive Symptoms Predict Children's Low Social Competence in First Grade: Mediation by Children's Social Cognition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Yiji; Dix, Theodore

2015-01-01

Background: This study examined whether social-cognitive processes in children mediate relations between mothers' depressive symptoms across the first 3 years and children's first-grade social competence. Three maladaptive cognitions were examined: self-perceived social inadequacy, hostile attribution, and aggressive response generation.…

Social Cognition in the Classroom.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weiner, Bernard; And Others

Social cognition is defined as a new field in psychology which emphasizes cognitive processes. It is concerned with how people interpret and construct their social environment. Selected aspects of this field are reviewed. These include perceptual salience, causal attributions, and indirect ability communications. Their pertinence to the…

Environmental risk, social cognition, and drug use among young men who have sex with men: longitudinal effects of minority status on health processes and outcomes.

PubMed

Traube, Dorian E; Schrager, Sheree M; Holloway, Ian W; Weiss, George; Kipke, Michele D

2013-01-01

Young men who have sex with men (YMSM) continue to be at elevated risk for substance use; however, models explaining this phenomenon have often focused on a limited array of explanatory constructs. This study examined the longitudinal relationship of contextual risk factors, social cognitive processes, mental health, and health protective behavior to identify key mechanisms of illicit drug use of YMSM as they aged through emerging adulthood. Our sample included an ethnically diverse cohort of 487 YMSM recruited through venue based probability sampling in Los Angeles. We used latent growth curve modeling to understand relationships between environmental risk factors, changing individual and social process variables, health protective behavior, psychological distress, and illicit drug use outcomes among YMSM. Age, ethnicity, violence and discrimination, depression, and previous histories of illicit drug use were key elements of risk for future illicit drug use among YMSM. During this theoretically distinct time period, health as a value, self-efficacy, and social support are vital social cognitive processes for promoting self-change among YMSM, and YMSM have independent growth within each process. Health as a value, self-efficacy, and social support were dynamic social cognitive processes, which served as key mechanisms by which risk factors were converted into health promotion strategies or psychological distress, and ultimately illicit drug use. The efficacy of prevention interventions aimed at reducing illicit drug use among YMSM can be enhanced by addressing social cognitive processes for this underserved portion of the male population. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Environmental risk, social cognition, and drug use among young men who have sex with men: Longitudinal effects of minority status on health processes and outcomes

PubMed Central

Traube, Dorian E.; Schrager, Sheree M.; Holloway, Ian W.; Weiss, George; Kipke, Michele D.

2012-01-01

BACKGROUND Young men who have sex with men (YMSM) continue to be at elevated risk for substance use; however, models explaining this phenomenon have often focused on a limited array of explanatory constructs. This study examined the longitudinal relationship of contextual risk factors, social cognitive processes, mental health, and health protective behavior to identify key mechanisms of illicit drug use of YMSM as they aged through emerging adulthood. METHODS Our sample included an ethnically diverse cohort of 487 YMSM recruited through venue based probability sampling in Los Angeles. We used latent growth curve modeling to understand relationships between environmental risk factors, changing individual and social process variables, health protective behavior, psychological distress, and illicit drug use outcomes among YMSM. RESULTS Age, ethnicity, violence and discrimination, depression, and previous histories of illicit drug use were key elements of risk for future illicit drug use among YMSM. During this theoretically distinct time period, health as a value, self-efficacy, and social support are vital social cognitive processes for promoting self-change among YMSM, and YMSM have independent growth within each process. Health as a value, self-efficacy, and social support were dynamic social cognitive processes, which served as key mechanisms by which risk factors were converted into health promotion strategies or psychological distress, and ultimately illicit drug use. CONCLUSIONS The efficacy of prevention interventions aimed at reducing illicit drug use among YMSM can be enhanced by addressing social cognitive processes for this underserved portion of the male population. PMID:22749680

Motivation and Social Cognition in Patients with Schizophrenia.

PubMed

Fervaha, Gagan; Siddiqui, Ishraq; Foussias, George; Agid, Ofer; Remington, Gary

2015-07-01

Social cognition, referring to one's ability to perceive and process social cues, is an important domain in schizophrenia. Numerous studies have demonstrated that patients with schizophrenia have poorer performance on tests assessing social cognition relative to healthy comparison participants. However, whether variables such as motivation are related to performance on these tests in patients with schizophrenia is unclear. One thousand three-hundred and seventy-eight patients with schizophrenia completed the Facial Emotion Discrimination Task as a measure of emotional processing, a key facet of social cognition. Level of motivation was also evaluated in these patients using a derived measure from the Quality of Life Scale. The relationship between motivation and task performance was examined using bivariate correlations and logistic regression modeling, controlling for the impact of age and overall severity of psychopathology, the latter evaluated using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. Motivation was positively related to performance on the social cognition test, and this relationship remained significant after controlling for potential confounding variables such as age and illness severity. Social cognition was also related to functioning, and the relationship was mediated by level of motivation. The present study found a significant relationship between motivation and performance on a test of social cognition in a large sample of patients with schizophrenia. These findings suggest that amotivation undermines task performance, or alternatively that poor social cognitive ability impedes motivation. Future studies evaluating social cognition in patients with schizophrenia should concurrently assess for variables such as effort and motivation.

From emotion resonance to empathic understanding: a social developmental neuroscience account.

PubMed

Decety, Jean; Meyer, Meghan

2008-01-01

The psychological construct of empathy refers to an intersubjective induction process by which positive and negative emotions are shared, without losing sight of whose feelings belong to whom. Empathy can lead to personal distress or to empathic concern (sympathy). The goal of this paper is to address the underlying cognitive processes and their neural underpinnings that constitute empathy within a developmental neuroscience perspective. In addition, we focus on how these processes go awry in developmental disorders marked by impairments in social cognition, such as autism spectrum disorder, and conduct disorder. We argue that empathy involves both bottom-up and top-down information processing, underpinned by specific and interacting neural systems. We discuss data from developmental psychology as well as cognitive neuroscience in support of such a model, and highlight the impact of neural dysfunctions on social cognitive developmental behavior. Altogether, bridging developmental science and cognitive neuroscience helps approach a more complete understanding of social cognition. Synthesizing these two domains also contributes to a better characterization of developmental psychopathologies that impacts the development of effective treatment strategies.

Measuring disorganized speech in schizophrenia: automated analysis explains variance in cognitive deficits beyond clinician-rated scales.

PubMed

Minor, K S; Willits, J A; Marggraf, M P; Jones, M N; Lysaker, P H

2018-04-25

Conveying information cohesively is an essential element of communication that is disrupted in schizophrenia. These disruptions are typically expressed through disorganized symptoms, which have been linked to neurocognitive, social cognitive, and metacognitive deficits. Automated analysis can objectively assess disorganization within sentences, between sentences, and across paragraphs by comparing explicit communication to a large text corpus. Little work in schizophrenia has tested: (1) links between disorganized symptoms measured via automated analysis and neurocognition, social cognition, or metacognition; and (2) if automated analysis explains incremental variance in cognitive processes beyond clinician-rated scales. Disorganization was measured in schizophrenia (n = 81) with Coh-Metrix 3.0, an automated program that calculates basic and complex language indices. Trained staff also assessed neurocognition, social cognition, metacognition, and clinician-rated disorganization. Findings showed that all three cognitive processes were significantly associated with at least one automated index of disorganization. When automated analysis was compared with a clinician-rated scale, it accounted for significant variance in neurocognition and metacognition beyond the clinician-rated measure. When combined, these two methods explained 28-31% of the variance in neurocognition, social cognition, and metacognition. This study illustrated how automated analysis can highlight the specific role of disorganization in neurocognition, social cognition, and metacognition. Generally, those with poor cognition also displayed more disorganization in their speech-making it difficult for listeners to process essential information needed to tie the speaker's ideas together. Our findings showcase how implementing a mixed-methods approach in schizophrenia can explain substantial variance in cognitive processes.

Socially Mediated Metacognition and Learning to Write

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Larkin, Shirley

2009-01-01

Writing can be viewed as a recursive process involving both cognitive and metacognitive processes. Task, environment, individual cognition and affective processes all impact on producing written text. Recent research on the development of metacognition in young children has highlighted social constructivist and socio-cultural factors.…

Theory of mind, facial recognition and emotional processing in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Rodríguez Sosa, Juana Teresa; Acosta Ojeda, Miguel; Rodríguez Del Rosario, Luciano

2011-01-01

Social cognition can be understood as "the mental operations underlying social interactions, which include the human ability to perceive the intentions and dispositions of others" (Brothers, 1990). Theory of mind, atributtional style, social perception are involved in social cognition. It is wellknown that social cognition is impaired in individuals with schizophrenia. Recent investigations for social cognition in schizophrenia has showed that there is a relationship among social cognition, neurocognition and psychosocial functioning. The purpose of this article is to provide a review of social cognition in schizophrenia focusing on the deficit in Theory of mind described by Frith and recent neuroimaging studies. In fact neuroimaging research has demonstrated specific brain regions consistently engaged during theory of mind tasks.We also present some of the instruments avalaible to evaluate social cognition and to review and improve the main intervention programs. Social cognition may be an important target for pharmacological and psychosocial treatments in the future. Copyright © 2010 SEP y SEPB. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

Interaction vs. observation: distinctive modes of social cognition in human brain and behavior? A combined fMRI and eye-tracking study.

PubMed

Tylén, Kristian; Allen, Micah; Hunter, Bjørk K; Roepstorff, Andreas

2012-01-01

Human cognition has usually been approached on the level of individual minds and brains, but social interaction is a challenging case. Is it best thought of as a self-contained individual cognitive process aiming at an "understanding of the other," or should it rather be approached as an collective, inter-personal process where individual cognitive components interact on a moment-to-moment basis to form coupled dynamics? In a combined fMRI and eye-tracking study we directly contrasted these models of social cognition. We found that the perception of situations affording social contingent responsiveness (e.g., someone offering or showing you an object) elicited activations in regions of the right posterior temporal sulcus and yielded greater pupil dilation corresponding to a model of coupled dynamics (joint action). In contrast, the social-cognitive perception of someone "privately" manipulating an object elicited activation in medial prefrontal cortex, the right inferior frontal gyrus and right inferior parietal lobus, regions normally associated with Theory of Mind and with the mirror neuron system. Our findings support a distinction in social cognition between social observation and social interaction, and demonstrate that simple ostensive cues may shift participants' experience, behavior, and brain activity between these modes. The identification of a distinct, interactive mode has implications for research on social cognition, both in everyday life and in clinical conditions.

Cognitive Performance and Long-Term Social Functioning in Psychotic Disorder: A Three-Year Follow-Up Study

PubMed Central

Simons, Claudia J. P.; Bartels-Velthuis, Agna A.; Pijnenborg, Gerdina H. M.

2016-01-01

Objective Studies have linked cognitive functioning to everyday social functioning in psychotic disorders, but the nature of the relationships between cognition, social cognition, symptoms, and social functioning remains unestablished. Modelling the contributions of non-social and social cognitive ability in the prediction of social functioning may help in more clearly defining therapeutic targets to improve functioning. Method In a sample of 745 patients with a non-affective psychotic disorder, the associations between cognition and social cognition at baseline on the one hand, and self-reported social functioning three years later on the other, were analysed. First, case-control comparisons were conducted; associations were subsequently further explored in patients, investigating the potential mediating role of symptoms. Analyses were repeated in a subsample of 233 patients with recent-onset psychosis. Results Information processing speed and immediate verbal memory were stronger associated with social functioning in patients than in healthy controls. Most cognition variables significantly predicted social functioning at follow-up, whereas social cognition was not associated with social functioning. Symptoms were robustly associated with follow-up social functioning, with negative symptoms fully mediating most associations between cognition and follow-up social functioning. Illness duration did not moderate the strength of the association between cognitive functioning and follow-up social functioning. No associations were found between (social) cognition and follow-up social functioning in patients with recent-onset psychosis. Conclusions Although cognitive functioning is associated with later social functioning in psychotic disorder, its role in explaining social functioning outcome above negative symptoms appears only modest. In recent-onset psychosis, cognition may have a negligible role in predicting later social functioning. Moreover, social cognition tasks may not predict self-reported social functioning. PMID:27082629

Social cognition and the brain: a meta-analysis.

PubMed

Van Overwalle, Frank

2009-03-01

This meta-analysis explores the location and function of brain areas involved in social cognition, or the capacity to understand people's behavioral intentions, social beliefs, and personality traits. On the basis of over 200 fMRI studies, it tests alternative theoretical proposals that attempt to explain how several brain areas process information relevant for social cognition. The results suggest that inferring temporary states such as goals, intentions, and desires of other people-even when they are false and unjust from our own perspective--strongly engages the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ). Inferring more enduring dispositions of others and the self, or interpersonal norms and scripts, engages the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), although temporal states can also activate the mPFC. Other candidate tasks reflecting general-purpose brain processes that may potentially subserve social cognition are briefly reviewed, such as sequence learning, causality detection, emotion processing, and executive functioning (action monitoring, attention, dual task monitoring, episodic memory retrieval), but none of them overlaps uniquely with the regions activated during social cognition. Hence, it appears that social cognition particularly engages the TPJ and mPFC regions. The available evidence is consistent with the role of a TPJ-related mirror system for inferring temporary goals and intentions at a relatively perceptual level of representation, and the mPFC as a module that integrates social information across time and allows reflection and representation of traits and norms, and presumably also of intentionality, at a more abstract cognitive level.

Social cognition intervention in schizophrenia: Description of the training of affect recognition program - Indian version.

PubMed

Thonse, Umesh; Behere, Rishikesh V; Frommann, Nicole; Sharma, Psvn

2018-01-01

Social cognition refers to mental operations involved in processing of social cues and includes the domains of emotion processing, Theory of Mind (ToM), social perception, social knowledge and attributional bias. Significant deficits in ToM, emotion perception and social perception have been demonstrated in schizophrenia which can have an impact on socio-occupational functioning. Intervention modules for social cognition have demonstrated moderate effect sizes for improving emotion identification and discrimination. We describe the Indian version of the Training of Affect Recognition (TAR) program and a pilot study to demonstrate the feasibility of administering this intervention program in the Indian population. We also discuss the cultural sensibilities in adopting an intervention program for the Indian setting. To the best of our knowledge this is the first intervention program for social cognition for use in persons with schizophrenia in India. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Social anhedonia associated with poor evaluative processing but not with poor cognitive control.

PubMed

Martin, Elizabeth A; Kerns, John G

2010-07-30

Emotion researchers have distinguished between automatic vs. controlled processing of evaluative information. There is suggestive evidence that social anhedonia might be associated with problems in controlled evaluative processing. The current study examined whether college students with elevated social anhedonia would exhibit an increased processing effect on tasks involving either evaluative processing or cognitive control. On an evaluative processing task, affective primes and targets could be either congruent or incongruent and participants judged the valence of targets. On a cognitive control task, participants completed the color-naming Stroop task. Compared to control participants (n=47), people with elevated social anhedonia (n=27) exhibited an increased evaluative processing effect as they were slower and made more errors for incongruent than for congruent trials on the evaluative processing task. In contrast, there were no group differences on the Stroop task or on a semantic priming task. Overall, these results suggest that people with elevated social anhedonia might have problems with some aspects of evaluative processing. Copyright 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Deficits in Domains of Social Cognition in Schizophrenia: A Meta-Analysis of the Empirical Evidence

PubMed Central

Savla, Gauri N.

2013-01-01

Objective: Social cognition is strongly associated with functional outcome in schizophrenia, making it an important target for treatment. Our goal was to examine the average magnitude of differences between schizophrenia patients (SCs) and normal comparison (NCs) patients across multiple domains of social cognition recognized by the recent NIMH consensus statement: theory of mind (ToM), social perception, social knowledge, attributional bias, emotion perception, and emotion processing. Method: We conducted a meta-analysis of peer-reviewed studies of social cognition in schizophrenia, published between 1980 and November, 2011. Results: 112 studies reporting results from 3908 SCs and 3570 NCs met our inclusion criteria. SCs performed worse than NCs across all domains, with large effects for social perception (g = 1.04), ToM (g = 0.96), emotion perception (g = 0.89), and emotion processing (g = 0.88). Regression analyses showed that statistically significant heterogeneity in effects within domains was not explained by age, education, or gender. Greater deficits in social and emotion perception were associated with inpatient status, and greater deficits in emotion processing were associated with longer illness duration. Conclusions: Despite the limitations of existing studies, including lack of standardization or psychometric validation of measures, the evidence for deficits across multiple social cognitive domains in schizophrenia is clear. Future research should examine the role of neurobiological and psychosocial factors in models linking various aspects of deficit in schizophrenia, including social cognition, in order to identify targets for intervention. PMID:22949733

Neural responses to maternal criticism in healthy youth

PubMed Central

Siegle, Greg J.; Dahl, Ronald E.; Hooley, Jill M.; Silk, Jennifer S.

2015-01-01

Parental criticism can have positive and negative effects on children’s and adolescents’ behavior; yet, it is unclear how youth react to, understand and process parental criticism. We proposed that youth would engage three sets of neural processes in response to parental criticism including the following: (i) activating emotional reactions, (ii) regulating those reactions and (iii) social cognitive processing (e.g. understanding the parent’s mental state). To examine neural processes associated with both emotional and social processing of parental criticism in personally relevant and ecologically valid social contexts, typically developing youth were scanned while they listened to their mother providing critical, praising and neutral statements. In response to maternal criticism, youth showed increased brain activity in affective networks (e.g. subcortical–limbic regions including lentiform nucleus and posterior insula), but decreased activity in cognitive control networks (e.g. dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and caudal anterior cingulate cortex) and social cognitive networks (e.g. temporoparietal junction and posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus). These results suggest that youth may respond to maternal criticism with increased emotional reactivity but decreased cognitive control and social cognitive processing. A better understanding of children’s responses to parental criticism may provide insights into the ways that parental feedback can be modified to be more helpful to behavior and development in youth. PMID:25338632

Neural bases of eye and gaze processing: The core of social cognition

PubMed Central

Itier, Roxane J.; Batty, Magali

2014-01-01

Eyes and gaze are very important stimuli for human social interactions. Recent studies suggest that impairments in recognizing face identity, facial emotions or in inferring attention and intentions of others could be linked to difficulties in extracting the relevant information from the eye region including gaze direction. In this review, we address the central role of eyes and gaze in social cognition. We start with behavioral data demonstrating the importance of the eye region and the impact of gaze on the most significant aspects of face processing. We review neuropsychological cases and data from various imaging techniques such as fMRI/PET and ERP/MEG, in an attempt to best describe the spatio-temporal networks underlying these processes. The existence of a neuronal eye detector mechanism is discussed as well as the links between eye gaze and social cognition impairments in autism. We suggest impairments in processing eyes and gaze may represent a core deficiency in several other brain pathologies and may be central to abnormal social cognition. PMID:19428496

Systematic review of the neural basis of social cognition in patients with mood disorders

PubMed Central

Cusi, Andrée M.; Nazarov, Anthony; Holshausen, Katherine; MacQueen, Glenda M.; McKinnon, Margaret C.

2012-01-01

Background This review integrates neuroimaging studies of 2 domains of social cognition — emotion comprehension and theory of mind (ToM) — in patients with major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder. The influence of key clinical and method variables on patterns of neural activation during social cognitive processing is also examined. Methods Studies were identified using PsycINFO and PubMed (January 1967 to May 2011). The search terms were “fMRI,” “emotion comprehension,” “emotion perception,” “affect comprehension,” “affect perception,” “facial expression,” “prosody,” “theory of mind,” “mentalizing” and “empathy” in combination with “major depressive disorder,” “bipolar disorder,” “major depression,” “unipolar depression,” “clinical depression” and “mania.” Results Taken together, neuroimaging studies of social cognition in patients with mood disorders reveal enhanced activation in limbic and emotion-related structures and attenuated activity within frontal regions associated with emotion regulation and higher cognitive functions. These results reveal an overall lack of inhibition by higher-order cognitive structures on limbic and emotion-related structures during social cognitive processing in patients with mood disorders. Critically, key variables, including illness burden, symptom severity, comorbidity, medication status and cognitive load may moderate this pattern of neural activation. Limitations Studies that did not include control tasks or a comparator group were included in this review. Conclusion Further work is needed to examine the contribution of key moderator variables and to further elucidate the neural networks underlying altered social cognition in patients with mood disorders. The neural networks underlying higher-order social cognitive processes, including empathy, remain unexplored in patients with mood disorders. PMID:22297065

Social cognition and neural substrates of face perception: implications for neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders.

PubMed

Lazar, Steven M; Evans, David W; Myers, Scott M; Moreno-De Luca, Andres; Moore, Gregory J

2014-04-15

Social cognition is an important aspect of social behavior in humans. Social cognitive deficits are associated with neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders. In this study we examine the neural substrates of social cognition and face processing in a group of healthy young adults to examine the neural substrates of social cognition. Fifty-seven undergraduates completed a battery of social cognition tasks and were assessed with electroencephalography (EEG) during a face-perception task. A subset (N=22) were administered a face-perception task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Variance in the N170 EEG was predicted by social attribution performance and by a quantitative measure of empathy. Neurally, face processing was more bilateral in females than in males. Variance in fMRI voxel count in the face-sensitive fusiform gyrus was predicted by quantitative measures of social behavior, including the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) and the Empathizing Quotient. When measured as a quantitative trait, social behaviors in typical and pathological populations share common neural pathways. The results highlight the importance of viewing neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders as spectrum phenomena that may be informed by studies of the normal distribution of relevant traits in the general population. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Social cognition, social skill, and the broad autism phenotype.

PubMed

Sasson, Noah J; Nowlin, Rachel B; Pinkham, Amy E

2013-11-01

Social-cognitive deficits differentiate parents with the "broad autism phenotype" from non-broad autism phenotype parents more robustly than other neuropsychological features of autism, suggesting that this domain may be particularly informative for identifying genetic and brain processes associated with the phenotype. The current study examined whether the social-cognitive deficits associated with the broad autism phenotype extend to the general population and relate to reduced social skill. A total of 74 undergraduates completed the Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire, three standardized social-cognitive tasks, and a live social interaction with an unfamiliar research assistant. Social broad autism phenotype traits were significantly associated with deficits in social cognition and reduced social skill. In addition, the relationship between social broad autism phenotype traits and social skill was partially mediated by social cognition, suggesting that the reduced interpersonal ability associated with the broad autism phenotype occurs in part because of poorer social-cognitive ability. Together, these findings indicate that the impairments in social cognition and social skill that characterize autism spectrum disorder extend in milder forms to the broad autism phenotype in the general population and suggest a framework for understanding how social broad autism phenotype traits may manifest in diminished social ability.

Cognitive deficits in individuals with methamphetamine use disorder: A meta-analysis.

PubMed

Potvin, Stéphane; Pelletier, Julie; Grot, Stéphanie; Hébert, Catherine; Barr, Alasdair M; Lecomte, Tania

2018-05-01

Methamphetamine has long been considered as a neurotoxic substance causing cognitive deficits. Recently, however, the magnitude and the clinical significance of the cognitive effects associated with methamphetamine use disorder (MUD) have been debated. To help clarify this controversy, we performed a meta-analysis of the cognitive deficits associated with MUD. A literature search yielded 44 studies that assessed cognitive dysfunction in 1592 subjects with MUD and 1820 healthy controls. Effect size estimates were calculated using the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis, for the following 12 cognitive domains: attention, executive functions, impulsivity/reward processing, social cognition, speed of processing, verbal fluency/language, verbal learning and memory, visual learning and memory, visuo-spatial abilities and working memory. Findings revealed moderate impairment across most cognitive domains, including attention, executive functions, language/verbal fluency, verbal learning and memory, visual memory and working memory. Deficits in impulsivity/reward processing and social cognition were more prominent, whereas visual learning and visuo-spatial abilities were relatively spared cognitive domains. A publication bias was observed. These results show that MUD is associated with broad cognitive deficits that are in the same range as those associated with alcohol and cocaine use disorder, as recently shown by way of meta-analysis. The prominent effects of MUD on social cognition and impulsivity/reward processing are based on a small number of studies, and as such, these results will need to be replicated. The functional consequences (social and occupational) of the cognitive deficits of methamphetamine will also need to be determined. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Social cognition in patients with schizophrenia, their unaffected first degree relatives and healthy controls. Comparison between groups and analysis of associated clinical and sociodemographic variables.

PubMed

Rodríguez Sosa, Juana Teresa; Gil Santiago, Hiurma; Trujillo Cubas, Angel; Winter Navarro, Marta; León Pérez, Petra; Guerra Cazorla, Luz Marina; Martín Jiménez, José María

2013-01-01

To evaluate and compare the social cognition in patients with schizophrenia, healthy first-degree relatives and controls, by studying the relationship between social cognition and nonsocial cognition, psychopathology, and other clinical and sociodemographic variables. The total sample was comprised of patients diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia (N = 29), healthy first-degree relatives (N = 21) and controls (N = 28). All groups were assessed with an ad hoc questionnaire and a Social Cognition Scale, which assessed the domains: emotional processing, social perception and attributional style in a Spanish population. The patient group was also assessed with the Scale for the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale and the Mini-mental state examination. Statistical analyses were performed with SPSS version 15.0. Patients scored significantly worse in all domains of social cognition assessed, compared with controls, and mastery attributional style, compared with relatives. The type of psychopathology correlated negatively and statistically significantly with different domains of social cognition: negative symptoms with emotional processing and attributional style, and positive symptoms with social perception. Basic cognition scores correlated positively and statistically significantly with the domains social perception and attributional style. Social cognition has become an interesting object of study, especially in how it relates to non-social cognition, psychopathology and global functioning of patients, bringing new elements to be considered in the early detection, comprehensive treatment and psychosocial rehabilitation of patients. Its conceptualization as trait variable, the consideration of the existence of a continuum between patients and relatives are plausible hypotheses that require further research. Copyright © 2012 SEP y SEPB. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

Social cognition in schizophrenia: cognitive and affective factors.

PubMed

Ziv, Ido; Leiser, David; Levine, Joseph

2011-01-01

Social cognition refers to how people conceive, perceive, and draw inferences about mental and emotional states of others in the social world. Previous studies suggest that the concept of social cognition involves several abilities, including those related to affect and cognition. The present study analyses the deficits of individuals with schizophrenia in two areas of social cognition: Theory of Mind (ToM) and emotion recognition and processing. Examining the impairment of these abilities in patients with schizophrenia has the potential to elucidate the neurophysiological regions involved in social cognition and may also have the potential to aid rehabilitation. Two experiments were conducted. Both included the same five tasks: first- and second-level false-belief ToM tasks, emotion inferencing, understanding of irony, and matrix reasoning (a WAIS-R subtest). The matrix reasoning task was administered to evaluate and control for the association of the other tasks with analytic reasoning skills. Experiment 1 involved factor analysis of the task performance of 75 healthy participants. Experiment 2 compared 30 patients with schizophrenia to an equal number of matched controls. Results. (1) The five tasks were clearly divided into two factors corresponding to the two areas of social cognition, ToM and emotion recognition and processing. (2) Schizophrenics' performance was impaired on all tasks, particularly on those loading heavily on the analytic component (matrix reasoning and second-order ToM). (3) Matrix reasoning, second-level ToM (ToM2), and irony were found to distinguish patients from controls, even when all other tasks that revealed significant impairment in the patients' performance were taken into account. The two areas of social cognition examined are related to distinct factors. The mechanism for answering ToM questions (especially ToM2) depends on analytic reasoning capabilities, but the difficulties they present to individuals with schizophrenia are due to other components as well. The impairment in social cognition in schizophrenia stems from deficiencies in several mechanisms, including the ability to think analytically and to process emotion information and cues.

Implications for neurobiological research of cognitive models of psychosis: a theoretical paper.

PubMed

Garety, Philippa A; Bebbington, Paul; Fowler, David; Freeman, Daniel; Kuipers, Elizabeth

2007-10-01

Cognitive models of the positive symptoms of psychosis specify the cognitive, social and emotional processes hypothesized to contribute to their occurrence and persistence, and propose that vulnerable individuals make characteristic appraisals that result in specific positive symptoms. We describe cognitive models of positive psychotic symptoms and use this as the basis of discussing recent relevant empirical investigations and reviews that integrate cognitive approaches into neurobiological frameworks. Evidence increasingly supports a number of the hypotheses proposed by cognitive models. These are that: psychosis is on a continuum; specific cognitive processes are risk factors for the transition from subclinical experiences to clinical disorder; social adversity and trauma are associated with psychosis and with negative emotional processes; and these emotional processes contribute to the occurrence and persistence of psychotic symptoms. There is also evidence that reasoning biases contribute to the occurrence of delusions. The benefits of incorporating cognitive processes into neurobiological research include more sophisticated, bidirectional and interactive causal models, the amplification of phenotypes in neurobiological investigations by including emotional processes, and the adoption of more specific clinical phenotypes. For example, there is potential value in studying gene x environment x cognition/emotion interactions. Cognitive models and their derived phenotypes constitute the missing link in the chain between genetic or acquired biological vulnerability, the social environment and the expression of individual positive symptoms.

Assessing Personal Constructs of Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Person-Centered Measure of Social Cognition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hess, Sean; Self, Trisha; DiLollo, Anthony

2018-01-01

Many protocols assessing social communication skills of adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are based on behavioral observations. It has been suggested, however, that social cognition encompasses processes underlying observable behaviors. Such processes include personal constructs, which can be assessed using repertory grids. Personal…

SupportNet for Frontline Behavioral Health Providers

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-06-30

social -cognitive theory perspective ( Bandura , 1997), the proposed website and integrated treatment would enhance the perceived social environmental...Objective 2: We will evaluate the utility of social cognitive theory as a framework for understanding the stress process for military mental health...healthcare providers. SupportNet, based on the theoretical framework of social cognitive theory , utilizes web-based support system with coaching to

Representing Trust in Cognitive Social Simulations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pollock, Shawn S.; Alt, Jonathan K.; Darken, Christian J.

Trust plays a critical role in communications, strength of relationships, and information processing at the individual and group level. Cognitive social simulations show promise in providing an experimental platform for the examination of social phenomena such as trust formation. This paper describes the initial attempts at representation of trust in a cognitive social simulation using reinforcement learning algorithms centered around a cooperative Public Commodity game within a dynamic social network.

Neuroimaging studies of social cognition in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Fujiwara, Hironobu; Yassin, Walid; Murai, Toshiya

2015-05-01

Impaired social cognition is considered a core contributor to unfavorable psychosocial functioning in schizophrenia. Rather than being a unitary process, social cognition is a collection of multifaceted processes that recruit multiple brain structures, thus structural and functional neuroimaging techniques are ideal methodologies for revealing the underlying pathophysiology of impaired social cognition. Many neuroimaging studies have suggested that in addition to white-matter deficits, schizophrenia is associated with decreased gray-matter volume in multiple brain areas, especially fronto-temporal and limbic regions. However, few schizophrenia studies have examined associations between brain abnormalities and social cognitive disabilities. During the last decade, we have investigated structural brain abnormalities in schizophrenia using high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging, and our findings have been confirmed by us and others. By assessing different types of social cognitive abilities, structural abnormalities in multiple brain regions have been found to be associated with disabilities in social cognition, such as recognition of facial emotion, theory of mind, and empathy. These structural deficits have also been associated with alexithymia and quality of life in ways that are closely related to the social cognitive disabilities found in schizophrenia. Here, we overview a series of neuroimaging studies from our laboratory that exemplify current research into this topic, and discuss how it can be further tackled using recent advances in neuroimaging technology. © 2014 The Authors. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences © 2014 Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology.

The role of social and cognitive processes in the relationship between fear network and psychological distress among parents of children undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

PubMed

Virtue, Shannon Myers; Manne, Sharon; Mee, Laura; Bartell, Abraham; Sands, Stephen; Ohman-Strickland, Pamela; Gajda, Tina Marie

2014-09-01

The current study examined whether cognitive and social processing variables mediated the relationship between fear network and depression among parents of children undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT). Parents whose children were initiating HSCT (N = 179) completed survey measures including fear network, Beck Depression Inventory, cognitive processing variables (positive reappraisal and self-blame) and social processing variables (emotional support and holding back from sharing concerns). Fear network was positively correlated with depression (p < .001). Self-blame and holding back emerged as individual partial mediators in the relationship between fear network and depression. Together they accounted for 34.3% of the variance in the relationship between fear network and depression. Positive reappraisal and emotional support did not have significant mediating effects. Social and cognitive processes, specifically self-blame and holding back from sharing concerns, play a negative role in parents' psychological adaptation to fears surrounding a child's HSCT.

The Role of Social and Cognitive Processes in the Relationship between Fear Network and Psychological Distress among Parents of Children Undergoing Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation

PubMed Central

Virtue, Shannon Myers; Manne, Sharon; Mee, Laura; Bartell, Abraham; Sands, Stephen; Ohman-Strickland, Pamela; Gajda, Tina Marie

2014-01-01

The current study examined whether cognitive and social processing variables mediated the relationship between fear network and depression among parents of children undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT). Parents whose children were initiating HSCT (N = 179) completed survey measures including fear network, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), cognitive processing variables (positive reappraisal and self-blame) and social processing variables (emotional support and holding back from sharing concerns). Fear network was positively correlated with depression (p < .001). Self-blame and holding back emerged as individual partial mediators in the relationship between fear network and depression. Together they accounted for 34.3% of the variance in the relationship between fear network and depression. Positive reappraisal and emotional support did not have significant mediating effects. Social and cognitive processes, specifically self-blame and holding back from sharing concerns, play a negative role in parents’ psychological adaptation to fears surrounding a child’s HSCT. PMID:25081956

Connectionism, parallel constraint satisfaction processes, and gestalt principles: (re) introducing cognitive dynamics to social psychology.

PubMed

Read, S J; Vanman, E J; Miller, L C

1997-01-01

We argue that recent work in connectionist modeling, in particular the parallel constraint satisfaction processes that are central to many of these models, has great importance for understanding issues of both historical and current concern for social psychologists. We first provide a brief description of connectionist modeling, with particular emphasis on parallel constraint satisfaction processes. Second, we examine the tremendous similarities between parallel constraint satisfaction processes and the Gestalt principles that were the foundation for much of modem social psychology. We propose that parallel constraint satisfaction processes provide a computational implementation of the principles of Gestalt psychology that were central to the work of such seminal social psychologists as Asch, Festinger, Heider, and Lewin. Third, we then describe how parallel constraint satisfaction processes have been applied to three areas that were key to the beginnings of modern social psychology and remain central today: impression formation and causal reasoning, cognitive consistency (balance and cognitive dissonance), and goal-directed behavior. We conclude by discussing implications of parallel constraint satisfaction principles for a number of broader issues in social psychology, such as the dynamics of social thought and the integration of social information within the narrow time frame of social interaction.

On cognitive ecology and the environmental factors that promote Alzheimer disease: lessons from Octodon degus (Rodentia: Octodontidae).

PubMed

Rivera, Daniela S; Inestrosa, Nibaldo C; Bozinovic, Francisco

2016-02-20

Cognitive ecologist posits that the more efficiently an animal uses information from the biotic and abiotic environment, the more adaptive are its cognitive abilities. Nevertheless, this approach does not test for natural neurodegenerative processes under field or experimental conditions, which may recover animals information processing and decision making and may explain, mechanistically, maladaptive behaviors. Here, we call for integrative approaches to explain the relationship between ultimate and proximate mechanisms behind social behavior. We highlight the importance of using the endemic caviomorph rodent Octodon degus as a valuable natural model for mechanistic studies of social behavior and to explain how physical environments can shape social experiences that might influence impaired cognitive abilities and the onset and progression of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer disease. We consequently suggest neuroecological approaches to examine how key elements of the environment may affect neural and cognitive mechanisms associated with learning, memory processes and brain structures involved in social behavior. We propose the following three core objectives of a program comprising interdisciplinary research in O. degus, namely: (1) to determine whether diet types provided after weaning can lead to cognitive impairment associated with spatial memory, learning and predisposing to develop Alzheimer disease in younger ages; (2) to examine if early life social experience has long term effects on behavior and cognitive responses and risk for development Alzheimer disease in later life and (3) To determine if an increase of social interactions in adult degu reared in different degree of social stressful conditions alter their behavior and cognitive responses.

What Does God Know? Supernatural Agents' Access to Socially Strategic and Non-Strategic Information

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Purzycki, Benjamin G.; Finkel, Daniel N.; Shaver, John; Wales, Nathan; Cohen, Adam B.; Sosis, Richard

2012-01-01

Current evolutionary and cognitive theories of religion posit that supernatural agent concepts emerge from cognitive systems such as theory of mind and social cognition. Some argue that these concepts evolved to maintain social order by minimizing antisocial behavior. If these theories are correct, then people should process information about…

Effects of peer social interaction on performance during computerized cognitive remediation therapy in patients with early course schizophrenia: A pilot study.

PubMed

Sandoval, Luis R; González, Betzamel López; Stone, William S; Guimond, Synthia; Rivas, Cristina Torres; Sheynberg, David; Kuo, Susan S; Eack, Shaun; Keshavan, Matcheri S

2017-09-04

Recent studies show that computer-based training enhances cognition in schizophrenia; furthermore, socialization has also been found to improve cognitive functions. It is generally believed that non-social cognitive remediation using computer exercises would be a pre-requisite for therapeutic benefits from social cognitive training. However, it is also possible that social interaction by itself enhances non-social cognitive functions; this possibility has scarcely been explored in schizophrenia patients. This pilot study examined the effects of computer-based neurocognitive training, along with social interaction either with a peer (PSI) or without one (N-PSI). We hypothesized that PSI will enhance cognitive performance during computerized exercises in schizophrenia, as compared with N-PSI. Sixteen adult participants diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder participating in an ongoing trial of Cognitive Enhancement Therapy completed several computerized neurocognitive remediation training sessions (the Orientation Remedial Module©, or ORM), either with a peer or without a peer. We observed a significant interaction between the effect of PSI and performance on the different cognitive exercises (p<0.05). More precisely, when patients performed the session with PSI, they demonstrated better cognitive performances than with N-PSI in the ORM exercise that provides training in processing speed, alertness, and reaction time (the standard Attention Reaction Conditioner, or ARC) (p<0.01, corrected). PSI did not significantly affect other cognitive domains such as target detection and spatial attention. Our findings suggest that PSI could improve cognitive performance, such as processing speed, during computerized cognitive training in schizophrenia. Additional studies investigating the effect of PSI during cognitive remediation are needed to further evaluate this hypothesis. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Face puzzle—two new video-based tasks for measuring explicit and implicit aspects of facial emotion recognition

PubMed Central

Kliemann, Dorit; Rosenblau, Gabriela; Bölte, Sven; Heekeren, Hauke R.; Dziobek, Isabel

2013-01-01

Recognizing others' emotional states is crucial for effective social interaction. While most facial emotion recognition tasks use explicit prompts that trigger consciously controlled processing, emotional faces are almost exclusively processed implicitly in real life. Recent attempts in social cognition suggest a dual process perspective, whereby explicit and implicit processes largely operate independently. However, due to differences in methodology the direct comparison of implicit and explicit social cognition has remained a challenge. Here, we introduce a new tool to comparably measure implicit and explicit processing aspects comprising basic and complex emotions in facial expressions. We developed two video-based tasks with similar answer formats to assess performance in respective facial emotion recognition processes: Face Puzzle, implicit and explicit. To assess the tasks' sensitivity to atypical social cognition and to infer interrelationship patterns between explicit and implicit processes in typical and atypical development, we included healthy adults (NT, n = 24) and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD, n = 24). Item analyses yielded good reliability of the new tasks. Group-specific results indicated sensitivity to subtle social impairments in high-functioning ASD. Correlation analyses with established implicit and explicit socio-cognitive measures were further in favor of the tasks' external validity. Between group comparisons provide first hints of differential relations between implicit and explicit aspects of facial emotion recognition processes in healthy compared to ASD participants. In addition, an increased magnitude of between group differences in the implicit task was found for a speed-accuracy composite measure. The new Face Puzzle tool thus provides two new tasks to separately assess explicit and implicit social functioning, for instance, to measure subtle impairments as well as potential improvements due to social cognitive interventions. PMID:23805122

Co-Segregation of Social Cognition, Executive Function and Local Processing Style in Children with ASD, Their Siblings and Normal Controls

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oerlemans, Anoek M.; Droste, Katharina; van Steijn, Daphne J.; de Sonneville, Leo M. J.; Buitelaar, Jan K.; Rommelse, Nanda N.

2013-01-01

Cognitive research proposes that social cognition (SC), executive functions (EF) and local processing style (weak CC) may be fruitful areas for research into the familial-genetic underpinnings of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The performance of 140 children with ASD, 172 siblings and 127 controls on tasks measuring SC (face recognition,…

Promoting Cognitive and Social Aspects of Inquiry through Classroom Discourse

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jin, Hui; Wei, Xin; Duan, Peiran; Guo, Yuying; Wang, Wenxia

2016-01-01

We investigated how Chinese physics teachers structured classroom discourse to support the cognitive and social aspects of inquiry-based science learning. Regarding the cognitive aspect, we examined to what extent the cognitive processes underlying the scientific skills and the disciplinary reasoning behind the content knowledge were taught.…

Interaction vs. observation: distinctive modes of social cognition in human brain and behavior? A combined fMRI and eye-tracking study

PubMed Central

Tylén, Kristian; Allen, Micah; Hunter, Bjørk K.; Roepstorff, Andreas

2012-01-01

Human cognition has usually been approached on the level of individual minds and brains, but social interaction is a challenging case. Is it best thought of as a self-contained individual cognitive process aiming at an “understanding of the other,” or should it rather be approached as an collective, inter-personal process where individual cognitive components interact on a moment-to-moment basis to form coupled dynamics? In a combined fMRI and eye-tracking study we directly contrasted these models of social cognition. We found that the perception of situations affording social contingent responsiveness (e.g., someone offering or showing you an object) elicited activations in regions of the right posterior temporal sulcus and yielded greater pupil dilation corresponding to a model of coupled dynamics (joint action). In contrast, the social-cognitive perception of someone “privately” manipulating an object elicited activation in medial prefrontal cortex, the right inferior frontal gyrus and right inferior parietal lobus, regions normally associated with Theory of Mind and with the mirror neuron system. Our findings support a distinction in social cognition between social observation and social interaction, and demonstrate that simple ostensive cues may shift participants' experience, behavior, and brain activity between these modes. The identification of a distinct, interactive mode has implications for research on social cognition, both in everyday life and in clinical conditions. PMID:23267322

Emotional influence in groups: the dynamic nexus of affect, cognition, and behavior.

PubMed

van Kleef, Gerben A; Heerdink, Marc W; Homan, Astrid C

2017-10-01

Groups are a natural breeding ground for emotions. Group life affords unique opportunities but also poses critical challenges that may arouse emotional reactions in group members. Social-functional approaches hold that these emotions in turn contribute to group functioning by prompting group members to address concerns that are relevant to the group's success. Guided by Emotions as Social Information (EASI) theory, this paper reviews research on the affective, cognitive, and behavioral consequences of emotional expressions in groups. Affective processes include emotional contagion and affective convergence, and resulting states such as group affective tone and affective diversity. Cognitive processes include inferences group members draw from each other's emotional expressions. We discuss how these affective and cognitive processes shape behavior and group functioning. We conclude that the traditional (over)emphasis on affective processes must be complemented with a focus on cognitive processes to develop a more complete understanding of the social dynamics of emotions in groups. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Resting-state fMRI and social cognition: An opportunity to connect.

PubMed

Doruyter, Alex; Groenewold, Nynke A; Dupont, Patrick; Stein, Dan J; Warwick, James M

2017-09-01

Many psychiatric disorders are characterized by altered social cognition. The importance of social cognition has previously been recognized by the National Institute of Mental Health Research Domain Criteria project, in which it features as a core domain. Social task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) currently offers the most direct insight into how the brain processes social information; however, resting-state fMRI may be just as important in understanding the biology and network nature of social processing. Resting-state fMRI allows researchers to investigate the functional relationships between brain regions in a neutral state: so-called resting functional connectivity (RFC). There is evidence that RFC is predictive of how the brain processes information during social tasks. This is important because it shifts the focus from possibly context-dependent aberrations to context-independent aberrations in functional network architecture. Rather than being analysed in isolation, the study of resting-state brain networks shows promise in linking results of task-based fMRI results, structural connectivity, molecular imaging findings, and performance measures of social cognition-which may prove crucial in furthering our understanding of the social brain. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Concept of Information Redundancy in Social Cognition.

DTIC Science & Technology

1983-12-20

Craik , F. I* No, & Lockhart , R. S. Levels of processing : A framework for memory research. ffnxna±I U1...34 , . .. • _. .. . .. . . . . , ,,,. . . . . .. • .’ .’..’. -.. Social Cognition 18 1981). This sort of analysis is at the heart of *depth of processing * notions ( Craik & Lockhart , 19721 Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker...psychologists have developed an interest in examining the structures people use in processing social information. Many of the conceptual models used in

Individual differences in perceiving and recognizing faces-One element of social cognition.

PubMed

Wilhelm, Oliver; Herzmann, Grit; Kunina, Olga; Danthiir, Vanessa; Schacht, Annekathrin; Sommer, Werner

2010-09-01

Recognizing faces swiftly and accurately is of paramount importance to humans as a social species. Individual differences in the ability to perform these tasks may therefore reflect important aspects of social or emotional intelligence. Although functional models of face cognition based on group and single case studies postulate multiple component processes, little is known about the ability structure underlying individual differences in face cognition. In 2 large individual differences experiments (N = 151 and N = 209), a broad variety of face-cognition tasks were tested and the component abilities of face cognition-face perception, face memory, and the speed of face cognition-were identified and then replicated. Experiment 2 also showed that the 3 face-cognition abilities are clearly distinct from immediate and delayed memory, mental speed, general cognitive ability, and object cognition. These results converge with functional and neuroanatomical models of face cognition by demonstrating the difference between face perception and face memory. The results also underline the importance of distinguishing between speed and accuracy of face cognition. Together our results provide a first step toward establishing face-processing abilities as an independent ability reflecting elements of social intelligence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

Face perception in women with Turner syndrome and its underlying factors.

PubMed

Anaki, David; Zadikov Mor, Tal; Gepstein, Vardit; Hochberg, Ze'ev

2016-09-01

Turner syndrome (TS) is a chromosomal condition that affects development in females. It is characterized by short stature, ovarian failure and other congenital malformations, due to a partial or complete absence of the sex chromosome. Women with TS frequently suffer from various physical and hormonal dysfunctions, along with impairments in visual-spatial processing and social cognition difficulties. Previous research has also shown difficulties in face and emotion perception. In the current study we examined two questions: First, whether women with TS, that are impaired in face perception, also suffer from deficits in face-specific processes. The second question was whether these face impairments in TS are related to visual-spatial perceptual dysfunctions exhibited by TS individuals, or to impaired social cognition skills. Twenty-six women with TS and 26 control participants were tested on various cognitive and psychological tests to assess visual-spatial perception, face and facial expression perception, and social cognition skills. Results show that women with TS were less accurate in face perception and facial expression processing, yet they exhibited normal face-specific processes (configural and holistic processing). They also showed difficulties in spatial perception and social cognition capacities. Additional analyses revealed that their face perception impairments were related to their deficits in visual-spatial processing. Thus, our results do not support the claim that the impairments in face processing observed in TS are related to difficulties in social cognition. Rather, our data point to the possibility that face perception difficulties in TS stem from visual-spatial impairments and may not be specific to faces. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Personal Contextual Characteristics and Cognitions: Predicting Child Abuse Potential and Disciplinary Style

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rodriguez, Christina M.

2010-01-01

According to Social Information Processing theory, parents' cognitive processes influence their decisions to engage in physical maltreatment, although cognitions occur in the context of other aspects of the parents' life. The present study investigated whether cognitive processes (external locus of control, inappropriate developmental…

Emotion Discourse, Social Cognition, and Social Skills in Children with and without Developmental Delays

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fenning, Rachel M.; Baker, Bruce L.; Juvonen, Jaana

2011-01-01

This study examined parent-child emotion discourse, children's independent social information processing, and social skills outcomes in 146 families of 8-year-olds with and without developmental delays. Children's emergent social-cognitive understanding (internal state understanding, perspective taking, and causal reasoning and problem solving)…

Creative Cognition in Social Innovation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jiang, Mingming; Thagard, Paul

2014-01-01

Social innovations are creative products and changes that are motivated by social needs and bring value to society by meeting those needs. This article uses case studies to investigate the cognitive and social processes that contribute to creativity in social innovation. The cases are: Wendy Kopp with Teach For America in education, Cicely…

Social Cognition, Emotions, and the Psychology of Writing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brand, Alice G.

Interest in social construction has coincided with a widespread movement to situate the composing process in a social-cognitive paradigm. Because social and emotional themes overlap, writing specialists assume that the emotional components of writing have been taken care of. However, by being absorbed into social themes, the emotional experience…

Deficits in implicit attention to social signals in schizophrenia and high risk groups: behavioural evidence from a new illusion.

PubMed

van 't Wout, Mascha; van Rijn, Sophie; Jellema, Tjeerd; Kahn, René S; Aleman, André

2009-01-01

An increasing body of evidence suggests that the apparent social impairments observed in schizophrenia may arise from deficits in social cognitive processing capacities. The ability to process basic social cues, such as gaze direction and biological motion, effortlessly and implicitly is thought to be a prerequisite for establishing successful social interactions and for construing a sense of "social intuition." However, studies that address the ability to effortlessly process basic social cues in schizophrenia are lacking. Because social cognitive processing deficits may be part of the genetic vulnerability for schizophrenia, we also investigated two groups that have been shown to be at increased risk of developing schizophrenia-spectrum pathology: first-degree relatives of schizophrenia patients and men with Klinefelter syndrome (47,XXY). We compared 28 patients with schizophrenia, 29 siblings of patients with schizophrenia, and 29 individuals with Klinefelter syndrome with 46 matched healthy control subjects on a new paradigm. This paradigm measures one's susceptibility for a bias in distance estimation between two agents that is induced by the implicit processing of gaze direction and biological motion conveyed by these agents. Compared to control subjects, patients with schizophrenia, as well as siblings of patients and Klinefelter men, showed a lack of influence of social cues on their distance judgments. We suggest that the insensitivity for social cues is a cognitive aspect of schizophrenia that may be seen as an endophenotype as it appears to be present both in relatives who are at increased genetic risk and in a genetic disorder at risk for schizophrenia-spectrum psychopathology. These social cue-processing deficits could contribute, in part, to the difficulties in higher order social cognitive tasks and, hence, to decreased social competence that has been observed in these groups.

SU33. Load-Sensitive Impairment of Working Memory for Biological Motion in Schizophrenia

PubMed Central

Lee, Hannah; Kim, Jejoong

2017-01-01

Abstract Background: Patients with schizophrenia (SZ) exhibit various deficits that may affect social functioning. The impairments in perceptual processing (eg, motion perception) and in higher cognitive processing such as working memory (WM), as well as deficits in social cognition, need to be closely examined in order to understand dysfunctions in social environments. However, comprehensive research conducted to date that takes these aspects into consideration all together is limited. Biological motion (BM) is a unique motion stimulus containing rich social information. Therefore, BM is optimal for our aim in this study to scrutinize how the dysfunctions in the cognitive processing of aforementioned 3 aspects (motion perception, WM, and social cognition) would be manifested in SZ, in a single experimental design. Methods: In the present study, we used BM in a delayed-response task for measuring WM. Non-BM motion stimulus (pairwise-shuffled motion or PSM) and polygons were also used for comparisons. One of the 3 types of stimuli was presented in each trial. After 12-second delays, 2 probes were shown, and the participants were asked to indicate whether one of them was identical to the memory item or whether both were novel. The number of memory items was either one (low load) or 2 (high load). Results: Overall, SZ performed worse than healthy controls (CO) regardless of the type of stimuli and memory loads, which is consistent with previous WM research. Across the low and high load conditions, CO were more accurate in recognizing BM than PSM, indicating that BM may have a facilitating effect for the encoding process involved in WM. Interestingly, SZ had similar accuracy patterns to that of CO in the low load condition. The BM facilitation effect, however, disappeared in the high load condition, yielding a significant interaction among group, stimulus type, and memory loads. These results suggest that BM, as a socially relevant stimulus, can facilitate encoding and/or maintenance to benefit WM performance in CO and that his effect is also partially valid among SZ. That is, SZ seem to successfully process the meaning of the stimulus when memory load is low. However, the ability is vulnerable to the increase of cognitive load in SZ, implying the presence of inefficiencies in the connections between perceptual and cognitive processes and/or limits in the capacity to process social information. Conclusion: The present study suggests that the intricate interaction among perceptual, cognitive, and social processes needs to be considered to explain cognitive deficits related with social dysfunction in schizophrenia. This study was supported by National Research Foundation of Korea.

Exploring social cognition in patients with apathy following acquired brain damage.

PubMed

Njomboro, Progress; Humphreys, Glyn W; Deb, Shoumitro

2014-01-23

Research on cognition in apathy has largely focused on executive functions. To the best of our knowledge, no studies have investigated the relationship between apathy symptoms and processes involved in social cognition. Apathy symptoms include attenuated emotional behaviour, low social engagement and social withdrawal, all of which may be linked to underlying socio-cognitive deficits. We compared patients with brain damage who also had apathy symptoms against similar patients with brain damage but without apathy symptoms. Both patient groups were also compared against normal controls on key socio-cognitive measures involving moral reasoning, social awareness related to making judgements between normative and non-normative behaviour, Theory of Mind processing, and the perception of facial expressions of emotion. We also controlled for the likely effects of executive deficits and depressive symptoms on these comparisons. Our results indicated that patients with apathy were distinctively impaired in making moral reasoning decisions and in judging the social appropriateness of behaviour. Deficits in Theory of Mind and perception of facial expressions of emotion did not distinguish patients with apathy from those without apathy. Our findings point to a possible socio-cognitive profile for apathy symptoms and provide initial insights into how socio-cognitive deficits in patients with apathy may affect social functioning.

Neural Bases of Social Anxiety Disorder: Emotional Reactivity and Cognitive Regulation During Social and Physical Threat

PubMed Central

Goldin, Philippe R.; Manber, Tali; Hakimi, Shabnam; Canli, Turhan; Gross, James J.

2014-01-01

Context Social anxiety disorder is thought to involve emotional hyper-reactivity, cognitive distortions, and ineffective emotion regulation. While the neural bases of emotional reactivity to social stimuli have been described, the neural bases of emotional reactivity and cognitive regulation during social and physical threat, and their relationship to social anxiety symptom severity, have yet to be investigated. Objective This study investigated behavioral and neural correlates of emotional reactivity and cognitive regulation in patients and controls during processing of social and physical threat stimuli. Design Participants were trained to implement cognitive-linguistic regulation of emotional reactivity induced by social (harsh facial expressions) and physical (violent scenes) threat while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging and providing behavioral ratings of negative emotion experience. Setting Academic psychology department. Participants 15 adults with social anxiety disorder and 17 demographically-matched healthy controls. Main Outcome Measures Blood oxygen level dependent signal and negative emotion ratings. Results Behaviorally, patients reported greater negative emotion than controls during social and physical threat, but showed equivalent reduction in negative emotion following cognitive regulation. Neurally, viewing social threat resulted in greater emotion-related neural responses in patients than controls, with social anxiety symptom severity related to activity in a network of emotion and attention processing regions in patients only. Viewing physical threat produced no between-group differences. Regulation during social threat resulted in greater cognitive and attention regulation-related brain activation in controls compared to patients. Regulation during physical threat produced greater cognitive control-related response (i.e., right DLPFC) in patients compared to controls. Conclusions Compared to controls, patients demonstrated exaggerated negative emotion reactivity and reduced cognitive regulation related neural activation, specifically for social threat stimuli. These findings help to elucidate potential neural mechanisms of emotion regulation that might serve as biomarkers for interventions for social anxiety disorder. PMID:19188539

Dual-processing accounts of reasoning, judgment, and social cognition.

PubMed

Evans, Jonathan St B T

2008-01-01

This article reviews a diverse set of proposals for dual processing in higher cognition within largely disconnected literatures in cognitive and social psychology. All these theories have in common the distinction between cognitive processes that are fast, automatic, and unconscious and those that are slow, deliberative, and conscious. A number of authors have recently suggested that there may be two architecturally (and evolutionarily) distinct cognitive systems underlying these dual-process accounts. However, it emerges that (a) there are multiple kinds of implicit processes described by different theorists and (b) not all of the proposed attributes of the two kinds of processing can be sensibly mapped on to two systems as currently conceived. It is suggested that while some dual-process theories are concerned with parallel competing processes involving explicit and implicit knowledge systems, others are concerned with the influence of preconscious processes that contextualize and shape deliberative reasoning and decision-making.

The Cognitive as the Social: An Ethnomethodological Approach to Writing Process Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brandt, Deborah

1992-01-01

Uses ethnomethodological perspectives to translate the language of Flower and Hayes's cognitive theory of writing into a more thoroughly social vocabulary as a way of articulating the role of social context and social structure in individual acts of writing. (SR)

Cultural differences in human brain activity: a quantitative meta-analysis.

PubMed

Han, Shihui; Ma, Yina

2014-10-01

Psychologists have been trying to understand differences in cognition and behavior between East Asian and Western cultures within a single cognitive framework such as holistic versus analytic or interdependent versus independent processes. However, it remains unclear whether cultural differences in multiple psychological processes correspond to the same or different neural networks. We conducted a quantitative meta-analysis of 35 functional MRI studies to examine cultural differences in brain activity engaged in social and non-social processes. We showed that social cognitive processes are characterized by stronger activity in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, lateral frontal cortex and temporoparietal junction in East Asians but stronger activity in the anterior cingulate, ventral medial prefrontal cortex and bilateral insula in Westerners. Social affective processes are associated with stronger activity in the right dorsal lateral frontal cortex in East Asians but greater activity in the left insula and right temporal pole in Westerners. Non-social processes induce stronger activity in the left inferior parietal cortex, left middle occipital and left superior parietal cortex in East Asians but greater activations in the right lingual gyrus, right inferior parietal cortex and precuneus in Westerners. The results suggest that cultural differences in social and non-social processes are mediated by distinct neural networks. Moreover, East Asian cultures are associated with increased neural activity in the brain regions related to inference of others' mind and emotion regulation whereas Western cultures are associated with enhanced neural activity in the brain areas related to self-relevance encoding and emotional responses during social cognitive/affective processes. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Social Cognition in Psychosis: Multidimensional Structure, Clinical Correlates, and Relationship With Functional Outcome

PubMed Central

Mancuso, Francesco; Horan, William P.; Kern, Robert S.; Green, Michael F.

2010-01-01

Social cognitive impairments are common, detectable across a wide range of tasks, and appear to play a key role in explaining poor outcome in schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders. However, little is known about the underlying factor structure of social cognition in people with psychotic disorders due to a lack of exploratory factor analyses using a relatively comprehensive social cognitive assessment battery. In a sample of 85 outpatients with psychosis, we examined the factor structure and clinical/functional correlates of eight indexes derived from five social cognition tasks that span the domains of emotional processing, social perception, attributional style, and Theory of Mind. Exploratory factor analysis revealed three factors with relatively low inter-correlations that explained a total of 54% of the variance: (1) Hostile attributional style, (2) Lower-level social cue detection, and (3) Higher-level inferential and regulatory processes. None of the factors showed significant correlations with negative symptoms. Factor 1 significantly correlated with clinical symptoms (positive, depression-anxiety, agitation) but not functional outcome, whereas Factors 2 and 3 significantly correlated with functional outcome (functional capacity and real-world social and work functioning) but not clinical symptoms. Furthermore, Factor 2 accounted for unique incremental variance in functional capacity, above and beyond non-social neurocognition (measured with MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery) and negative symptoms. Results suggest that multiple separable dimensions of social cognition can be identified in psychosis, and these factors show distinct patterns of correlation with clinical features and functional outcome. PMID:21112743

Contextual Social Cognition Impairments in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder

PubMed Central

Villarin, Lilian; Theil, Donna; Gonzalez-Gadea, María Luz; Gomez, Pedro; Mosquera, Marcela; Huepe, David; Strejilevich, Sergio; Vigliecca, Nora Silvana; Matthäus, Franziska; Decety, Jean; Manes, Facundo; Ibañez, Agustín M.

2013-01-01

Background The ability to integrate contextual information with social cues to generate social meaning is a key aspect of social cognition. It is widely accepted that patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders have deficits in social cognition; however, previous studies on these disorders did not use tasks that replicate everyday situations. Methodology/Principal Findings This study evaluates the performance of patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders on social cognition tasks (emotional processing, empathy, and social norms knowledge) that incorporate different levels of contextual dependence and involvement of real-life scenarios. Furthermore, we explored the association between social cognition measures, clinical symptoms and executive functions. Using a logistic regression analysis, we explored whether the involvement of more basic skills in emotional processing predicted performance on empathy tasks. The results showed that both patient groups exhibited deficits in social cognition tasks with greater context sensitivity and involvement of real-life scenarios. These deficits were more severe in schizophrenic than in bipolar patients. Patients did not differ from controls in tasks involving explicit knowledge. Moreover, schizophrenic patients’ depression levels were negatively correlated with performance on empathy tasks. Conclusions/Significance Overall performance on emotion recognition predicted performance on intentionality attribution during the more ambiguous situations of the empathy task. These results suggest that social cognition deficits could be related to a general impairment in the capacity to implicitly integrate contextual cues. Important implications for the assessment and treatment of individuals with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders, as well as for neurocognitive models of these pathologies are discussed. PMID:23520477

Common social cognitive impairments do not mean common causes: A commentary on Cotter et al. (2018).

PubMed

Dodell-Feder, David; Germine, Laura T

2018-06-06

Many clinical conditions, ranging from psychiatric to neurodegenerative illnesses, are associated with impairments in the processes by which we perceive, interpret, and respond to social information; a suite of abilities known as social cognition. Through a systematic review of meta-analyses, Cotter et al. (2018) present a compelling view of social cognitive deficits as a core phenotype of many clinical conditions. However, we caution against one potential interpretation of their findings, namely, that similar social cognitive outcomes are produced by similar causes. Specifically, we argue that while the outcome may look similar across clinical conditions (i.e., global social cognitive deficits), the cause and nature of those impairments are likely to differ, and, as a consequence, so too will its remediation. We advocate for the development of better methods for assessing social cognition, which may speak to the varying nature of social cognitive impairment across conditions. Ultimately, a better understanding of how social cognition is impaired will facilitate the development of more targeted, more effective treatments, that will improve patient care. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Research on Motivation in Collaborative Learning: Moving beyond the Cognitive-Situative Divide and Combining Individual and Social Processes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jarvela, Sanna; Volet, Simone; Jarvenoja, Hanna

2010-01-01

In this article we propose that in order to advance our understanding of motivation in collaborative learning we should move beyond the cognitive-situative epistemological divide and combine individual and social processes. Our claim is that although recent research has recognized the importance of social aspects in emerging and sustained…

Performance in multiple domains of social cognition in parents of patients with schizophrenia.

PubMed

Lavoie, Marie-Audrey; Plana, India; Jackson, Philip L; Godmaire-Duhaime, Florence; Bédard Lacroix, Jacinthe; Achim, Amélie M

2014-12-15

Social cognition refers to a set of cognitive abilities that allow us to perceive and interpret social stimuli. Social cognition is affected in schizophrenia and impairments have also been documented in unaffected relatives, suggesting that social cognition may be related to a genetic vulnerability to the disease. This study aims to investigate potential impairments in four domains of social cognition (mentalizing, emotion recognition, social knowledge and empathy) in the same group of relatives in order to gather a more complete picture of social cognition difficulties in this population. The Batterie Intégrée de Cognition Sociale (BICS) (mentalizing, emotion recognition, and social knowledge) and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) (empathy) were administered to 31 parents of patients with a psychotic disorder and 38 healthy controls. Parents of patients performed significantly worse than controls on the mentalizing test but significantly better on the social knowledge test. No significant between-group differences were observed for emotion recognition and empathy. This study is the first to evaluate four social cognition domains in this population. The results precise which social cognition processes may be impaired or preserved in unaffected relatives of patients and lead us to propose an hypothesis about a mechanism that could underlie the mentalizing difficulties observed in this population. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

More than a face: a unified theoretical perspective on nonverbal social cue processing in social anxiety

PubMed Central

Gilboa-Schechtman, Eva; Shachar-Lavie, Iris

2013-01-01

Processing of nonverbal social cues (NVSCs) is essential to interpersonal functioning and is particularly relevant to models of social anxiety. This article provides a review of the literature on NVSC processing from the perspective of social rank and affiliation biobehavioral systems (ABSs), based on functional analysis of human sociality. We examine the potential of this framework for integrating cognitive, interpersonal, and evolutionary accounts of social anxiety. We argue that NVSCs are uniquely suited to rapid and effective conveyance of emotional, motivational, and trait information and that various channels are differentially effective in transmitting such information. First, we review studies on perception of NVSCs through face, voice, and body. We begin with studies that utilized information processing or imaging paradigms to assess NVSC perception. This research demonstrated that social anxiety is associated with biased attention to, and interpretation of, emotional facial expressions (EFEs) and emotional prosody. Findings regarding body and posture remain scarce. Next, we review studies on NVSC expression, which pinpointed links between social anxiety and disturbances in eye gaze, facial expressivity, and vocal properties of spontaneous and planned speech. Again, links between social anxiety and posture were understudied. Although cognitive, interpersonal, and evolutionary theories have described different pathways to social anxiety, all three models focus on interrelations among cognition, subjective experience, and social behavior. NVSC processing and production comprise the juncture where these theories intersect. In light of the conceptualizations emerging from the review, we highlight several directions for future research including focus on NVSCs as indexing reactions to changes in belongingness and social rank, the moderating role of gender, and the therapeutic opportunities offered by embodied cognition to treat social anxiety. PMID:24427129

Auditory verbal hallucinations: Social, but how?

PubMed Central

Alderson-Day, Ben; Fernyhough, Charles

2017-01-01

Summary Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) are experiences of hearing voices in the absence of an external speaker. Standard explanatory models propose that AVH arise from misattributed verbal cognitions (i.e. inner speech), but provide little account of how heard voices often have a distinct persona and agency. Here we review the argument that AVH have important social and agent-like properties and consider how different neurocognitive approaches to AVH can account for these elements, focusing on inner speech, memory, and predictive processing. We then evaluate the possible role of separate social-cognitive processes in the development of AVH, before outlining three ways in which speech and language processes already involve socially important information, such as cues to interact with others. We propose that when these are taken into account, the social characteristics of AVH can be explained without an appeal to separate social-cognitive systems. PMID:29238264

Social attribution processes and comorbid psychiatric symptoms in children with Asperger syndrome

PubMed Central

Meyer, Jessica A.; Mundy, Peter C.; Van Hecke, Amy Vaughan; Durocher, Jennifer Stella

2009-01-01

The factors that place children with Asperger syndrome at risk for comorbid psychiatric symptoms, such as anxiety and depression, remain poorly understood. We investigated the possibility that the children’s emotional and behavioral difficulties are associated with social information and attribution processing. Participants were children with either Asperger syndrome (n = 31) or typical development (n = 33).To assess social information and attribution processing, children responded to hypothetical social vignettes.They also completed self-report measures of social difficulties and psychological functioning. Their parents provided information on social competence and clinical presentation. Children with Asperger syndrome showed poor psychosocial adjustment, which was related to their social information and attribution processing patterns. Cognitive and social-cognitive abilities were associated with aspects of social information processing tendencies, but not with emotional and behavioral difficulties. Results suggest that the comorbid symptoms of children with Asperger syndrome may be associated with their social perception, understanding, and experience. PMID:16908481

Social Cognition Deficits: Current Position and Future Directions for Neuropsychological Interventions in Cerebrovascular Disease.

PubMed

Njomboro, Progress

2017-01-01

Neuropsychological assessments of cognitive dysfunction in cerebrovascular illness commonly target basic cognitive functions involving aspects of memory, attention, language, praxis, and number processing. Here, I highlight the clinical importance of often-neglected social cognition functions. These functions recruit a widely distributed neural network, making them vulnerable in most cerebrovascular diseases. Sociocognitive deficits underlie most of the problematic social conduct observed in patients and are associated with more negative clinical outcomes (compared to nonsocial cognitive deficits). In clinical settings, social cognition deficits are normally gleaned from collateral information from caregivers or from indirect inferences made from patients' performance on standard nonsocial cognitive tests. Information from these sources is however inadequate. I discuss key social cognition functions, focusing initially on deficits in emotion perception and theory of mind, two areas that have gained sizeable attention in neuroscientific research, and then extend the discussion into relatively new, less covered but crucial functions involving empathic behaviour, social awareness, social judgements, and social decision making. These functions are frequently impaired following neurological change. At present, a wide range of psychometrically robust social cognition tests is available, and this review also makes the case for their inclusion in neuropsychological assessments.

Social Cognition Deficits: Current Position and Future Directions for Neuropsychological Interventions in Cerebrovascular Disease

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

Neuropsychological assessments of cognitive dysfunction in cerebrovascular illness commonly target basic cognitive functions involving aspects of memory, attention, language, praxis, and number processing. Here, I highlight the clinical importance of often-neglected social cognition functions. These functions recruit a widely distributed neural network, making them vulnerable in most cerebrovascular diseases. Sociocognitive deficits underlie most of the problematic social conduct observed in patients and are associated with more negative clinical outcomes (compared to nonsocial cognitive deficits). In clinical settings, social cognition deficits are normally gleaned from collateral information from caregivers or from indirect inferences made from patients' performance on standard nonsocial cognitive tests. Information from these sources is however inadequate. I discuss key social cognition functions, focusing initially on deficits in emotion perception and theory of mind, two areas that have gained sizeable attention in neuroscientific research, and then extend the discussion into relatively new, less covered but crucial functions involving empathic behaviour, social awareness, social judgements, and social decision making. These functions are frequently impaired following neurological change. At present, a wide range of psychometrically robust social cognition tests is available, and this review also makes the case for their inclusion in neuropsychological assessments. PMID:28729755

Testing the metacognitive model against the benchmark CBT model of social anxiety disorder: Is it time to move beyond cognition?

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

The recommended treatment for Social Phobia is individual Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT). CBT-treatments emphasize social self-beliefs (schemas) as the core underlying factor for maladaptive self-processing and social anxiety symptoms. However, the need for such beliefs in models of psychopathology has recently been questioned. Specifically, the metacognitive model of psychological disorders asserts that particular beliefs about thinking (metacognitive beliefs) are involved in most disorders, including social anxiety, and are a more important factor underlying pathology. Comparing the relative importance of these disparate underlying belief systems has the potential to advance conceptualization and treatment for SAD. In the cognitive model, unhelpful self-regulatory processes (self-attention and safety behaviours) arise from (e.g. correlate with) cognitive beliefs (schemas) whilst the metacognitive model proposes that such processes arise from metacognitive beliefs. In the present study we therefore set out to evaluate the absolute and relative fit of the cognitive and metacognitive models in a longitudinal data-set, using structural equation modelling. Five-hundred and five (505) participants completed a battery of self-report questionnaires at two time points approximately 8 weeks apart. We found that both models fitted the data, but that the metacognitive model was a better fit to the data than the cognitive model. Further, a specified metacognitive model, emphasising negative metacognitive beliefs about the uncontrollability and danger of thoughts and cognitive confidence improved the model fit further and was significantly better than the cognitive model. It would seem that advances in understanding and treating social anxiety could benefit from moving to a full metacognitive theory that includes negative metacognitive beliefs about the uncontrollability and danger of thoughts, and judgements of cognitive confidence. These findings challenge a core assumption of the cognitive model and treatment of social phobia and offer further support to the metacognitive model. PMID:28472176

Testing the metacognitive model against the benchmark CBT model of social anxiety disorder: Is it time to move beyond cognition?

PubMed

Nordahl, Henrik; Wells, Adrian

2017-01-01

The recommended treatment for Social Phobia is individual Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT). CBT-treatments emphasize social self-beliefs (schemas) as the core underlying factor for maladaptive self-processing and social anxiety symptoms. However, the need for such beliefs in models of psychopathology has recently been questioned. Specifically, the metacognitive model of psychological disorders asserts that particular beliefs about thinking (metacognitive beliefs) are involved in most disorders, including social anxiety, and are a more important factor underlying pathology. Comparing the relative importance of these disparate underlying belief systems has the potential to advance conceptualization and treatment for SAD. In the cognitive model, unhelpful self-regulatory processes (self-attention and safety behaviours) arise from (e.g. correlate with) cognitive beliefs (schemas) whilst the metacognitive model proposes that such processes arise from metacognitive beliefs. In the present study we therefore set out to evaluate the absolute and relative fit of the cognitive and metacognitive models in a longitudinal data-set, using structural equation modelling. Five-hundred and five (505) participants completed a battery of self-report questionnaires at two time points approximately 8 weeks apart. We found that both models fitted the data, but that the metacognitive model was a better fit to the data than the cognitive model. Further, a specified metacognitive model, emphasising negative metacognitive beliefs about the uncontrollability and danger of thoughts and cognitive confidence improved the model fit further and was significantly better than the cognitive model. It would seem that advances in understanding and treating social anxiety could benefit from moving to a full metacognitive theory that includes negative metacognitive beliefs about the uncontrollability and danger of thoughts, and judgements of cognitive confidence. These findings challenge a core assumption of the cognitive model and treatment of social phobia and offer further support to the metacognitive model.

A new computerized cognitive and social cognition training specifically designed for patients with schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder in early stages of illness: A pilot study.

PubMed

Fernandez-Gonzalo, Sol; Turon, Marc; Jodar, Merce; Pousa, Esther; Hernandez Rambla, Carla; García, Rebeca; Palao, Diego

2015-08-30

People with schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorders at early stages of the illness present cognitive and social cognition deficits that have a great impact in functional outcomes. Cognitive Remediation Therapy (CRT) has demonstrated consistent effect in cognitive performance, symptoms and psychosocial functioning. However, any CRT intervention or social cognition training have been specifically designed for patients in the early stages of psychosis. The aim of this pilot study is to assess the efficacy of a new computerized cognitive and social cognition program for patients with schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder with recent diagnosis. A comprehensive assessment of clinical, social and non-social cognitive and functional measures was carried out in 53 randomized participants before and after the 4-months treatment. Significant results were observed in Spatial Span Forwards, Immediate Logical Memory and Pictures of Facial Affect (POFA) total score. None of these results were explained by medication, premorbid social functioning or psychopathological symptoms. No impact of the intervention was observed in other cognitive and social cognition outcome neither in clinical and functional outcomes. This new computerized intervention may result effective ameliorating visual attention, logical memory and emotional processing in patients in the early stages of schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Captured by motion: dance, action understanding, and social cognition.

PubMed

Sevdalis, Vassilis; Keller, Peter E

2011-11-01

In this review article, we summarize the main findings from empirical studies that used dance-related forms of rhythmical full body movement as a research tool for investigating action understanding and social cognition. This work has proven to be informative about behavioral and brain mechanisms that mediate links between perceptual and motor processes invoked during the observation and execution of spatially-temporally coordinated action and interpersonal interaction. The review focuses specifically on processes related to (a) motor experience and expertise, (b) learning and memory, (c) action, intention, and emotion understanding, and (d) audio-visual synchrony and timing. Consideration is given to the relationship between research on dance and more general embodied cognition accounts of action understanding and social cognition. Finally, open questions and issues concerning experimental design are discussed with a view to stimulating future research on social-cognitive aspects of dance. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Social Context Network Model in Psychiatric and Neurological Diseases.

PubMed

Baez, Sandra; García, Adolfo M; Ibanez, Agustín

2017-01-01

The role of contextual modulations has been extensively studied in basic sensory and cognitive processes. However, little is known about their impact on social cognition, let alone their disruption in disorders compromising such a domain. In this chapter, we flesh out the social context network model (SCNM), a neuroscientific proposal devised to address the issue. In SCNM terms, social context effects rely on a fronto-temporo-insular network in charge of (a) updating context cues to make predictions, (b) consolidating context-target associative learning, and (c) coordinating internal and external milieus. First, we characterize various social cognition domains as context-dependent phenomena. Then, we review behavioral and neural evidence of social context impairments in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), highlighting their relation with key SCNM hubs. Next, we show that other psychiatric and neurological conditions involve context-processing impairments following damage to the brain regions included in the model. Finally, we call for an ecological approach to social cognition assessment, moving beyond widespread abstract and decontextualized methods.

Adolescents’ risky decision-making activates neural networks related to social cognition and cognitive control processes

PubMed Central

Rodrigo, María José; Padrón, Iván; de Vega, Manuel; Ferstl, Evelyn C.

2014-01-01

This study examines by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging the neural mechanisms underlying adolescents’ risk decision-making in social contexts. We hypothesize that the social context could engage brain regions associated with social cognition processes and developmental changes are also expected. Sixty participants (adolescents: 17–18, and young adults: 21–22 years old) read narratives describing typical situations of decision-making in the presence of peers. They were asked to make choices in risky situations (e.g., taking or refusing a drug) or ambiguous situations (e.g., eating a hamburger or a hotdog). Risky as compared to ambiguous scenarios activated bilateral temporoparietal junction (TPJ), bilateral middle temporal gyrus (MTG), right medial prefrontal cortex, and the precuneus bilaterally; i.e., brain regions related to social cognition processes, such as self-reflection and theory of mind (ToM). In addition, brain structures related to cognitive control were active [right anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), bilateral orbitofrontal cortex], whereas no significant clusters were obtained in the reward system (ventral striatum). Choosing the dangerous option involved a further activation of control areas (ACC) and emotional and social cognition areas (temporal pole). Adolescents employed more neural resources than young adults in the right DLPFC and the right TPJ in risk situations. When choosing the dangerous option, young adults showed a further engagement in ToM related regions (bilateral MTG) and in motor control regions related to the planning of actions (pre-supplementary motor area). Finally, the right insula and the right superior temporal gyrus were more activated in women than in men, suggesting more emotional involvement and more intensive modeling of the others’ perspective in the risky conditions. These findings call for more comprehensive developmental accounts of decision-making in social contexts that incorporate the role of emotional and social cognition processes. PMID:24592227

Applying Social Cognitive Theory in Coaching Athletes: The Power of Positive Role Models

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Connolly, Graeme J.

2017-01-01

The purpose of this article is to help coaches apply specific principles of psychology to the coaching process. More specifically, the work of Albert Bandura and his social cognitive theory form the basis for the article. This article begins with a brief overview of Bandura's social cognitive theory. It then examines four types of behaviors worthy…

An uncontrolled trial of multi-component care for first-episode psychosis: Effects on social cognition.

PubMed

Breitborde, Nicholas J K; Moe, Aubrey M; Woolverton, Cindy; Harrison-Monroe, Patricia; Bell, Emily K

2018-06-01

Growing evidence suggests that specialized, multi-component treatment programmes produce improvements in numerous outcomes among individuals with first-episode psychosis. However, these programmes often lack interventions specifically designed to address deficits in social cognition. This raises questions about the effectiveness of such programmes in addressing deficits in social cognition that accompany psychotic disorders. We investigated the effect of participation in a multi-component treatment programme on social cognition among 71 individuals with first-episode psychosis. Participants experienced gains in emotion processing, social knowledge, social perception and theory of mind. However, after controlling for multiple comparisons, these improvements were limited to theory of mind and recognition of social cues in low emotion interactions. Although our findings should be interpreted cautiously, they raise the possibility that individuals participating in multi-component treatment programmes for first-episode psychosis without interventions specifically targeting social cognition may still experience gains in social cognition. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

PARANOID INDIVIDUALS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA SHOW GREATER SOCIAL COGNITIVE BIAS AND WORSE SOCIAL FUNCTIONING THAN NON-PARANOID INDIVIDUALS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA.

PubMed

Pinkham, Amy E; Harvey, Philip D; Penn, David L

2016-03-01

Paranoia is a common symptom of schizophrenia that may be related to how individuals process and respond to social stimuli. Previous investigations support a link between increased paranoia and greater social cognitive impairments, but these studies have been limited to single domains of social cognition, and no studies have examined how paranoia may influence functional outcome. Data from 147 individuals with schizophrenia were used to examine whether actively paranoid and non-paranoid individuals with schizophrenia differ in social cognition and functional outcomes. On measures assessing social cognitive bias, paranoid individuals endorsed more hostile and blaming attributions and identified more faces as untrustworthy; however, paranoid and non-paranoid individuals did not differ on emotion recognition and theory of mind tasks assessing social cognitive ability. Likewise, paranoid individuals showed greater impairments in real-world interpersonal relationships and social acceptability as compared to non-paranoid patients, but these differences did not extend to performance based tasks assessing functional capacity and social competence. These findings isolate specific social cognitive disparities between paranoid and non-paranoid subgroups and suggest that paranoia may exacerbate the social dysfunction that is commonly experienced by individuals with schizophrenia.

The fear of others: a pilot study of social anxiety processes in paranoia.

PubMed

Newman Taylor, Katherine; Stopa, Luisa

2013-01-01

There is good reason to consider the role of social anxiety processes in paranoia; both the research and clinical literature indicate significant overlap between the two presentations. The aim of this study was to explore cognition and behaviour that are typically associated with social phobia, in people with paranoia, and then to draw out theoretical and clinical implications. We used a cross-sectional between-subjects design to compare participants with persecutory delusions (without social phobia), social phobia, a clinical control group with panic disorder, and a non-clinical control group. Ten to 15 people were recruited to each of four groups, with a final total of 48 participants. Each person completed measures of automatic thoughts, underlying assumptions, core beliefs and behaviour, and took part in a semi-structured interview designed to assess process (self-consciousness and attentional focus) and metacognitive beliefs. Surprisingly, measures of cognition and behaviour yielded no systematic differences between people with persecutory delusions and social phobia. People with persecutory delusions may experience overt and underlying cognition typically associated with social phobia, and behave in similar ways in response to perceived social threat. These initial results indicate: (i) that larger scale research is now warranted in order to draw firm conclusions about social anxiety processes in paranoia; (ii) more specific hypotheses to be tested; and (iii) a clinical model of paranoia, based on the cognitive model of social phobia, which might now usefully be validated.

A Community of One: Social Cognition and Auditory Verbal Hallucinations

PubMed Central

Bell, Vaughan

2013-01-01

Auditory verbal hallucinations have attracted a great deal of scientific interest, but despite the fact that they are fundamentally a social experience—in essence, a form of hallucinated communication—current theories remain firmly rooted in an individualistic account and have largely avoided engagement with social cognition. Nevertheless, there is mounting evidence for the role of social cognitive and social neurocognitive processes in auditory verbal hallucinations, and, consequently, it is proposed that problems with the internalisation of social models may be key to the experience. PMID:24311984

The Gendered Family Process Model: An Integrative Framework of Gender in the Family.

PubMed

Endendijk, Joyce J; Groeneveld, Marleen G; Mesman, Judi

2018-05-01

This article reviews and integrates research on gender-related biological, cognitive, and social processes that take place in or between family members, resulting in a newly developed gendered family process (GFP) model. The GFP model serves as a guiding framework for research on gender in the family context, calling for the integration of biological, social, and cognitive factors. Biological factors in the model are prenatal, postnatal, and pubertal androgen levels of children and parents, and genetic effects on parent and child gendered behavior. Social factors are family sex composition (i.e., parent sex, sexual orientation, marriage status, sibling sex composition) and parental gender socialization, such as modeling, gender-differentiated parenting, and gender talk. Cognitive factors are implicit and explicit gender-role cognitions of parents and children. Our review and the GFP model confirm that gender is an important organizer of family processes, but also highlight that much is still unclear about the mechanisms underlying gender-related processes within the family context. Therefore, we stress the need for (1) longitudinal studies that take into account the complex bidirectional relationship between parent and child gendered behavior and cognitions, in which within-family comparisons (comparing behavior of parents toward a boy and a girl in the same family) are made instead of between-family comparisons (comparing parenting between all-boy families and all-girl families, or between mixed-gender families and same-gender families), (2) experimental studies on the influence of testosterone on human gender development, (3) studies examining the interplay between biology with gender socialization and gender-role cognitions in humans.

Social cognition in schizophrenia: factor structure, clinical and functional correlates.

PubMed

Buck, Benjamin E; Healey, Kristin M; Gagen, Emily C; Roberts, David L; Penn, David L

2016-08-01

Social cognition is consistently impaired in people with schizophrenia, separable from general neurocognition, predictive of real-world functioning and amenable to psychosocial treatment. Few studies have empirically examined its underlying factor structure. This study (1) examines the factor structure of social cognition in both a sample of individuals with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders and non-clinical controls and (2) explores relationships of factors to neurocognition, symptoms and functioning. A factor analysis was conducted on social cognition measures in a sample of 65 individuals with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, and 50 control participants. The resulting factors were examined for their relationships to symptoms and functioning. Results suggested a two-factor structure in the schizophrenia sample (social cognition skill and hostile attributional style) and a three-factor structure in the non-clinical sample (hostile attributional style, higher-level inferential processing and lower-level cue detection). In the schizophrenia sample, the social cognition skill factor was significantly related to negative symptoms and social functioning, whereas hostile attributional style predicted positive and general psychopathology symptoms. The factor structure of social cognition in schizophrenia separates hostile attributional style and social cognition skill, and each show differential relationships to relevant clinical variables in schizophrenia.

Validation of the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition in Adolescents with ASD: Fixation Duration and Pupil Dilation as Predictors of Performance.

PubMed

Müller, Nico; Baumeister, Sarah; Dziobek, Isabel; Banaschewski, Tobias; Poustka, Luise

2016-09-01

Impaired social cognition is one of the core characteristics of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Appropriate measures of social cognition for high-functioning adolescents with ASD are, however, lacking. The Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC) uses dynamic social stimuli, ensuring ecological validity, and has proven to be a sensitive measure in adulthood. In the current study, 33 adolescents with ASD and 23 controls were administered the MASC, while concurrent eye tracking was used to relate gaze behavior to performance levels. The ASD group exhibited reduced MASC scores, with social cognition performance being explained by shorter fixation duration on eyes and decreased pupil dilation. These potential diagnostic markers are discussed as indicators of different processing of social information in ASD.

Social Perception Training: Improving Social Competence by Reducing Cognitive Distortions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Finne, Johannes N.; Svartdal, Frode

2017-01-01

Social Perception Training (SPT) is a program focused on changing the perceptual and cognitive processes involved in suboptimal social interactions. It is administered with whole class of pupils over ten weeks. No previous studies have evaluated its efficacy. The present study investigated the outcome benefit of the program in 18 primary and…

Social cognition in schizophrenia: Factor structure of emotion processing and theory of mind.

PubMed

Browne, Julia; Penn, David L; Raykov, Tenko; Pinkham, Amy E; Kelsven, Skylar; Buck, Benjamin; Harvey, Philip D

2016-08-30

Factor analytic studies examining social cognition in schizophrenia have yielded inconsistent results most likely due to the varying number and quality of measures. With the recent conclusion of Phase 3 of the Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation (SCOPE) Study, the most psychometrically sound measures of social cognition have been identified. Therefore, the aims of the present study were to: 1) examine the factor structure of social cognition in schizophrenia through the utilization of psychometrically sound measures, 2) examine the stability of the factor structure across two study visits, 3) compare the factor structure of social cognition in schizophrenia to that in healthy controls, and 4) examine the relationship between the factors and relevant outcome measures including social functioning and symptoms. Results supported a one-factor model for the patient and healthy control samples at both visits. This single factor was significantly associated with negative symptoms in the schizophrenia sample and with social functioning in both groups at both study visits. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Social cognition in schizophrenia: Factor structure of emotion processing and theory of mind

PubMed Central

Browne, Julia; Penn, David L.; Raykov, Tenko; Pinkham, Amy E.; Kelsven, Skylar; Buck, Benjamin; Harvey, Philip D.

2018-01-01

Factor analytic studies examining social cognition in schizophrenia have yielded inconsistent results most likely due to the varying number and quality of measures. With the recent conclusion of Phase 3 of the Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation (SCOPE) Study, the most psychometrically sound measures of social cognition have been identified. Therefore, the aims of the present study were to: 1) examine the factor structure of social cognition in schizophrenia through the utilization of psychometrically sound measures, 2) examine the stability of the factor structure across two study visits, 3) compare the factor structure of social cognition in schizophrenia to that in healthy controls, and 4) examine the relationship between the factors and relevant outcome measures including social functioning and symptoms. Results supported a one-factor model for the patient and healthy control samples at both visits. This single factor was significantly associated with negative symptoms in the schizophrenia sample and with social functioning in both groups at both study visits. PMID:27280525

Clinical assessment of social cognitive function in neurological disorders.

PubMed

Henry, Julie D; von Hippel, William; Molenberghs, Pascal; Lee, Teresa; Sachdev, Perminder S

2016-01-01

Social cognition broadly refers to the processing of social information in the brain that underlies abilities such as the detection of others' emotions and responding appropriately to these emotions. Social cognitive skills are critical for successful communication and, consequently, mental health and wellbeing. Disturbances of social cognition are early and salient features of many neuropsychiatric, neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders, and often occur after acute brain injury. Its assessment in the clinic is, therefore, of paramount importance. Indeed, the most recent edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-5) introduced social cognition as one of six core components of neurocognitive function, alongside memory and executive control. Failures of social cognition most often present as poor theory of mind, reduced affective empathy, impaired social perception or abnormal social behaviour. Standard neuropsychological assessments lack the precision and sensitivity needed to adequately inform treatment of these failures. In this Review, we present appropriate methods of assessment for each of the four domains, using an example disorder to illustrate the value of these approaches. We discuss the clinical applications of testing for social cognitive function, and finally suggest a five-step algorithm for the evaluation and treatment of impairments, providing quantitative evidence to guide the selection of social cognitive measures in clinical practice.

A social-cognitive framework of multidisciplinary team innovation.

PubMed

Paletz, Susannah B F; Schunn, Christian D

2010-01-01

The psychology of science typically lacks integration between cognitive and social variables. We present a new framework of team innovation in multidisciplinary science and engineering groups that ties factors from both literatures together. We focus on the effects of a particularly challenging social factor, knowledge diversity, which has a history of mixed effects on creativity, most likely because those effects are mediated and moderated by cognitive and additional social variables. In addition, we highlight the distinction between team innovative processes that are primarily divergent versus convergent; we propose that the social and cognitive implications are different for each, providing a possible explanation for knowledge diversity's mixed results on team outcomes. Social variables mapped out include formal roles, communication norms, sufficient participation and information sharing, and task conflict; cognitive variables include analogy, information search, and evaluation. This framework provides a roadmap for research that aims to harness the power of multidisciplinary teams. Copyright © 2009 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Cognitive Task Demands and Discourse Performance after Traumatic Brain Injury

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Byom, Lindsey; Turkstra, Lyn S.

2017-01-01

Background: Social communication problems are common in adults with traumatic brain injury (TBI), particularly problems in spoken discourse. Social communication problems are thought to reflect underlying cognitive impairments. Aims: To measure the contribution of two cognitive processes, executive functioning (EF) and theory of mind (ToM), to the…

The role of prediction in social neuroscience

PubMed Central

Brown, Elliot C.; Brüne, Martin

2012-01-01

Research has shown that the brain is constantly making predictions about future events. Theories of prediction in perception, action and learning suggest that the brain serves to reduce the discrepancies between expectation and actual experience, i.e., by reducing the prediction error. Forward models of action and perception propose the generation of a predictive internal representation of the expected sensory outcome, which is matched to the actual sensory feedback. Shared neural representations have been found when experiencing one's own and observing other's actions, rewards, errors, and emotions such as fear and pain. These general principles of the “predictive brain” are well established and have already begun to be applied to social aspects of cognition. The application and relevance of these predictive principles to social cognition are discussed in this article. Evidence is presented to argue that simple non-social cognitive processes can be extended to explain complex cognitive processes required for social interaction, with common neural activity seen for both social and non-social cognitions. A number of studies are included which demonstrate that bottom-up sensory input and top-down expectancies can be modulated by social information. The concept of competing social forward models and a partially distinct category of social prediction errors are introduced. The evolutionary implications of a “social predictive brain” are also mentioned, along with the implications on psychopathology. The review presents a number of testable hypotheses and novel comparisons that aim to stimulate further discussion and integration between currently disparate fields of research, with regard to computational models, behavioral and neurophysiological data. This promotes a relatively new platform for inquiry in social neuroscience with implications in social learning, theory of mind, empathy, the evolution of the social brain, and potential strategies for treating social cognitive deficits. PMID:22654749

Educational-Cognitive Barriers in the Preparation of Future Social Pedagogues for the Prevention of Social Dependencies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Neskoromnykh, Nataliya I.; Chernenko, Nataliya V.; Mamadaliev, Anvar M.; Vorozhbitova, Aleksandra A.

2017-01-01

This paper brings to light the essence, characteristics, and role of educational-cognitive barriers in the preparation of college-attending future social pedagogues that may arise in the process of their mastering social-pedagogical skills related to the prevention of social dependencies. The authors share the findings of their study of a typology…

Information Processing Versus Social Cognitive Mediators of Weight Loss in a Podcast-Delivered Health Intervention

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ko, Linda K.; Turner-McGrievy, Gabrielle M.; Campbell, Marci K.

2014-01-01

Podcasting is an emerging technology, and previous interventions have shown promising results using theory-based podcast for weight loss among overweight and obese individuals. This study investigated whether constructs of social cognitive theory and information processing theories (IPTs) mediate the effect of a podcast intervention on weight loss…

Eye Contact Modulates Cognitive Processing Differently in Children with Autism

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Falck-Ytter, Terje; Carlström, Christoffer; Johansson, Martin

2015-01-01

In humans, effortful cognitive processing frequently takes place during social interaction, with eye contact being an important component. This study shows that the effect of eye contact on memory for nonsocial information is different in children with typical development than in children with autism, a disorder of social communication. Direct…

Introspective Minds: Using ALE Meta-Analyses to Study Commonalities in the Neural Correlates of Emotional Processing, Social & Unconstrained Cognition

PubMed Central

Schilbach, Leonhard; Bzdok, Danilo; Timmermans, Bert; Fox, Peter T.; Laird, Angela R.; Vogeley, Kai; Eickhoff, Simon B.

2012-01-01

Previous research suggests overlap between brain regions that show task-induced deactivations and those activated during the performance of social-cognitive tasks. Here, we present results of quantitative meta-analyses of neuroimaging studies, which confirm a statistical convergence in the neural correlates of social and resting state cognition. Based on the idea that both social and unconstrained cognition might be characterized by introspective processes, which are also thought to be highly relevant for emotional experiences, a third meta-analysis was performed investigating studies on emotional processing. By using conjunction analyses across all three sets of studies, we can demonstrate significant overlap of task-related signal change in dorso-medial prefrontal and medial parietal cortex, brain regions that have, indeed, recently been linked to introspective abilities. Our findings, therefore, provide evidence for the existence of a core neural network, which shows task-related signal change during socio-emotional tasks and during resting states. PMID:22319593

A single dose of oxytocin nasal spray improves higher-order social cognition in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Guastella, Adam J; Ward, Philip B; Hickie, Ian B; Shahrestani, Sara; Hodge, Marie Antoinette Redoblado; Scott, Elizabeth M; Langdon, Robyn

2015-11-01

Schizophrenia is associated with significant impairments in both higher and lower order social cognitive performance and these impairments contribute to poor social functioning. People with schizophrenia report poor social functioning to be one of their greatest unmet treatment needs. Recent studies have suggested the potential of oxytocin as such a treatment, but mixed results render it uncertain what aspects of social cognition are improved by oxytocin and, subsequently, how oxytocin might best be applied as a therapeutic. The aim of this study was to determine whether a single dose of oxytocin improved higher-order and lower-order social cognition performance for patients with schizophrenia across a well-established battery of social cognition tests. Twenty-one male patients received both a single dose of oxytocin nasal spray (24IU) and a placebo, two weeks apart in a randomized within-subjects placebo controlled design. Following each administration, participants completed the social cognition tasks, as well as a test of general neurocognition. Results revealed that oxytocin particularly enhanced performance on higher order social cognition tasks, with no effects on general neurocognition. Results for individual tasks showed most improvement on tests measuring appreciation of indirect hints and recognition of social faux pas. These results suggest that oxytocin, if combined to enhance social cognition learning, may be beneficial when targeted at higher order social cognition domains. This study also suggests that these higher order tasks, which assess social cognitive processing in a social communication context, may provide useful markers of response to oxytocin in schizophrenia. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Beyond arousal and valence: the importance of the biological versus social relevance of emotional stimuli.

PubMed

Sakaki, Michiko; Niki, Kazuhisa; Mather, Mara

2012-03-01

The present study addressed the hypothesis that emotional stimuli relevant to survival or reproduction (biologically emotional stimuli) automatically affect cognitive processing (e.g., attention, memory), while those relevant to social life (socially emotional stimuli) require elaborative processing to modulate attention and memory. Results of our behavioral studies showed that (1) biologically emotional images hold attention more strongly than do socially emotional images, (2) memory for biologically emotional images was enhanced even with limited cognitive resources, but (3) memory for socially emotional images was enhanced only when people had sufficient cognitive resources at encoding. Neither images' subjective arousal nor their valence modulated these patterns. A subsequent functional magnetic resonance imaging study revealed that biologically emotional images induced stronger activity in the visual cortex and greater functional connectivity between the amygdala and visual cortex than did socially emotional images. These results suggest that the interconnection between the amygdala and visual cortex supports enhanced attention allocation to biological stimuli. In contrast, socially emotional images evoked greater activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and yielded stronger functional connectivity between the amygdala and MPFC than did biological images. Thus, it appears that emotional processing of social stimuli involves elaborative processing requiring frontal lobe activity.

Beyond arousal and valence: The importance of the biological versus social relevance of emotional stimuli

PubMed Central

Sakaki, Michiko; Niki, Kazuhisa; Mather, Mara

2012-01-01

The present study addressed the hypothesis that emotional stimuli relevant to survival or reproduction (biologically emotional stimuli) automatically affect cognitive processing (e.g., attention; memory), while those relevant to social life (socially emotional stimuli) require elaborative processing to modulate attention and memory. Results of our behavioral studies showed that: a) biologically emotional images hold attention more strongly than socially emotional images, b) memory for biologically emotional images was enhanced even with limited cognitive resources, but c) memory for socially emotional images was enhanced only when people had sufficient cognitive resources at encoding. Neither images’ subjective arousal nor their valence modulated these patterns. A subsequent functional magnetic resonance imaging study revealed that biologically emotional images induced stronger activity in visual cortex and greater functional connectivity between amygdala and visual cortex than did socially emotional images. These results suggest that the interconnection between the amygdala and visual cortex supports enhanced attention allocation to biological stimuli. In contrast, socially emotional images evoked greater activity in medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and yielded stronger functional connectivity between amygdala and MPFC than biological images. Thus, it appears that emotional processing of social stimuli involves elaborative processing requiring frontal lobe activity. PMID:21964552

Emotion and Cognition Processes in Preschool Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leerkes, Esther M.; Paradise, Matthew; O'Brien, Marion; Calkins, Susan D.; Lange, Garrett

2008-01-01

The core processes of emotion understanding, emotion control, cognitive understanding, and cognitive control and their association with early indicators of social and academic success were examined in a sample of 141 3-year-old children. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the hypothesized four-factor model of emotion and cognition in early…

Research on cognitive, social and cultural processes of written communication.

PubMed

Arroyo González, Rosario; Salvador Mata, Francisco

2009-08-01

This article compiles the investigations carried out by a Research Group of the University of Granada, Spain. Its different projects on writing's cognitive social and cultural processes have been supported by the Spanish Government. This line of research joined together linguistic, psychological, social and cultural contributions to the development of writing from the 1970s. Currently, this line of research develops in collaboration with other European Universities: (a) Interuniversity Centre for Research On Cognitive Processing in Natural and Artificial Systems (ECONA), "La Sapienza" University of Rome (Italy); (b) Anadolu University, (Eskisehir, Turkey); (c) Coimbra University (Portugal); (d) University of Zaragoza (Spain); (e) the Institute of Education of the University of London (United Kingdom). The aforementioned collaboration is materializing into projects like the International Master on Multilingual Writing: Cognitive, Intercultural and Technological Processes of Written Communication ( http://www.multilingualwriting.com ) and the International Congress: Writing in the twenty-first Century: Cognition, Multilinguisim and Technologies, held in Granada ( http://www.asprogrades.org ). This research line is focussed on the development of strategies in writing development, basic to train twenty-first century societies' citizens. In these societies, participation in production media, social exchange and the development of multilingual written communication skills through new computer technologies spread multicultural values. In order to fulfil the social exigencies, it is needed to have the collaboration of research groups for designing and applying international research projects.

Social Cognition, Social Skill, and the Broad Autism Phenotype

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sasson, Noah J.; Nowlin, Rachel B.; Pinkham, Amy E.

2013-01-01

Social-cognitive deficits differentiate parents with the "broad autism phenotype" from non-broad autism phenotype parents more robustly than other neuropsychological features of autism, suggesting that this domain may be particularly informative for identifying genetic and brain processes associated with the phenotype. The current study…

Maintenance of Social Anxiety in Stuttering: A Cognitive-Behavioral Model.

PubMed

Iverach, Lisa; Rapee, Ronald M; Wong, Quincy J J; Lowe, Robyn

2017-05-17

Stuttering is a speech disorder frequently accompanied by anxiety in social-evaluative situations. A growing body of research has confirmed a significant rate of social anxiety disorder among adults who stutter. Social anxiety disorder is a chronic and disabling anxiety disorder associated with substantial life impairment. Several influential models have described cognitive-behavioral factors that contribute to the maintenance of social anxiety in nonstuttering populations. The purpose of the present article is to apply these leading models to the experience of social anxiety for people who stutter. Components from existing models were applied to stuttering in order to determine cognitive-behavioral processes that occur before, during, and after social-evaluative situations, which may increase the likelihood of stuttering-related social fears persisting. Maintenance of social anxiety in stuttering may be influenced by a host of interrelated factors, including fear of negative evaluation, negative social-evaluative cognitions, attentional biases, self-focused attention, safety behaviors, and anticipatory and postevent processing. Given the chronic nature of social anxiety disorder, identifying factors that contribute to the persistence of stuttering-related social fears has the potential to inform clinical practice and the development of psychological treatment programs to address the speech and psychological needs of people who stutter with social anxiety.

Social cognitive functioning in prodromal psychosis: A meta-analysis.

PubMed

Lee, Tae Young; Hong, Sang Bin; Shin, Na Young; Kwon, Jun Soo

2015-05-01

There is substantial evidence regarding a social cognitive deficit in schizophrenia, and it has been suggested to be a trait-marker of this disorder. However, a domain-by-domain analysis of social cognitive deficits in individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis has not been performed. Electronic databases were searched for studies regarding social cognitive performance in individuals at CHR. The included social cognitive domains, which were classified based on the Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation (SCOPE) initiative of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), were as follows: theory of mind (ToM), social perception (SP), attributional bias (AB), and emotion processing (EP). Twenty studies that included 1229 individuals at CHR and 825 healthy controls met the inclusion criteria. The overall effect size for social cognition was medium (g=-0.477). The largest effect size was identified for AB (g=-0.708). A medium effect size was identified for EP (g=-0.446) and ToM (g=-0.425), and small effects were identified for SP (g=-0.383). This is the first quantitative domain-by-domain social cognitive meta-analysis regarding CHR individuals. The present study indicated that individuals at CHR exhibited significant impairments in all domains of social cognition compared with healthy controls, with the largest effect size identified for AB. The identification of social cognitive domains that reflect an increased risk for impending psychosis and of predictors of the conversion to psychosis via a longitudinal follow-up study is required. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cognitive Reserve and Social Capital Accrued in Early and Midlife Moderate the Relation of Psychological Stress to Cognitive Performance in Old Age.

PubMed

Ihle, Andreas; Oris, Michel; Sauter, Julia; Rimmele, Ulrike; Kliegel, Matthias

2018-06-05

The present study set out to investigate the relation of psychological stress to cognitive performance and its interplay with key life course markers of cognitive reserve and social capital in a large sample of older adults. We assessed cognitive performance (verbal abilities and processing speed) and psychological stress in 2,812 older adults. The Participants reported information on education, occupation, leisure activities, family, and close friends. Greater psychological stress was significantly related to lower performance in verbal abilities and processing speed. Moderation analyses suggested that the relations of psychological stress to cognitive performance were reduced in individuals with higher education, a higher cognitive level of the first profession practiced after education, a larger number of midlife leisure activities, a larger number of significant family members, and a larger number of close friends. Cognitive reserve and social capital accrued in early and midlife may reduce the detrimental influences of psychological stress on cognitive functioning in old age. © 2018 S. Karger AG, Basel.

The role of social cognition in parasite and pathogen avoidance.

PubMed

Kavaliers, Martin; Choleris, Elena

2018-07-19

The acquisition and use of social information are integral to social behaviour and parasite/pathogen avoidance. This involves social cognition which encompasses mechanisms for acquiring, processing, retaining and acting on social information. Social cognition entails the acquisition of social information about others (i.e. social recognition) and from others (i.e. social learning). Social cognition involves assessing other individuals and their infection status and the pathogen and parasite threat they pose and deciding about when and how to interact with them. Social cognition provides a framework for examining pathogen and parasite avoidance behaviours and their associated neurobiological mechanisms. Here, we briefly consider the relationships between social cognition and olfactory-mediated pathogen and parasite avoidance behaviours. We briefly discuss aspects of (i) social recognition of actual and potentially infected individuals and the impact of parasite/pathogen threat on mate and social partner choice; (ii) the roles of 'out-groups' (strangers, unfamiliar individuals) and 'in-groups' (familiar individuals) in the expression of parasite/pathogen avoidance behaviours; (iii) individual and social learning, i.e. the utilization of the pathogen recognition and avoidance responses of others; and (iv) the neurobiological mechanisms, in particular the roles of the nonapeptide, oxytocin and steroid hormones (oestrogens) associated with social cognition and parasite/pathogen avoidance.This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue 'Evolution of pathogen and parasite avoidance behaviours'. © 2018 The Author(s).

An Investigation into Social Information Processing in Young People with Asperger Syndrome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Flood, Andrea Mary; Hare, Dougal Julian; Wallis, Paul

2011-01-01

Deficits in social functioning are a core feature of autistic spectrum disorders (ASD), being linked to various cognitive and developmental factors, but there has been little attempt to draw on normative models of social cognition to understand social behaviour in ASD. The current study explored the utility of Crick and Dodge's (1994) information…

Does Higher-Order Thinking Impinge on Learner-Centric Digital Approach?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mathew, Bincy; Raja, B. William Dharma

2015-01-01

Humans are social beings and the social cognition focuses on how one form impressions of other people, interpret the meaning of other people's behaviour and how people's behaviour is affected by our attitudes. The school provides complex social situations and in order to thrive, students must possess social cognition, the process of thinking about…

Experimental Study of Short-Term Training in Social Cognition in Pre-Schoolers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Houssa, Marine; Nader-Grosbois, Nathalie; Jacobs, Emilie

2014-01-01

Using an experimental approach, our study examined the differentiated effects on pre-schoolers' social cognition of two short-term social information processing (SIP) and Theory of Mind (ToM) training sessions dealing with emotions and beliefs. The links between ToM, SIP, and social adjustment or externalizing behavior were examined. 47…

It is all in their mind: A review on information processing bias in lonely individuals.

PubMed

Spithoven, Annette W M; Bijttebier, Patricia; Goossens, Luc

2017-12-01

Loneliness is a distressing emotional state that motivates individuals to renew and maintain social contact. It has been suggested that lonely individuals suffer from a cognitive bias towards social threatening stimuli. However, current models of loneliness remain vague on how this cognitive bias is expressed in lonely individuals. The current review provides an up-to-date overview of studies examining loneliness in relation to various aspects of cognitive functioning. These studies are interpreted in light of the Social Information Processing (SIP) model. A wide range of studies indicate that lonely individuals have a negative cognitive bias in all stages of SIP. More specifically, lonely individuals have an increased attention for social threatening stimuli, hold negative and hostile intent attributions, expect rejection, evaluate themselves and others negatively, endorse less promotion- and more prevention-oriented goals, and have a low self-efficacy. This negative cognitive bias seems specific to the social context. Avenues for future research and implications for clinical practice are discussed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Face Patch Resting State Networks Link Face Processing to Social Cognition

PubMed Central

Schwiedrzik, Caspar M.; Zarco, Wilbert; Everling, Stefan; Freiwald, Winrich A.

2015-01-01

Faces transmit a wealth of social information. How this information is exchanged between face-processing centers and brain areas supporting social cognition remains largely unclear. Here we identify these routes using resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging in macaque monkeys. We find that face areas functionally connect to specific regions within frontal, temporal, and parietal cortices, as well as subcortical structures supporting emotive, mnemonic, and cognitive functions. This establishes the existence of an extended face-recognition system in the macaque. Furthermore, the face patch resting state networks and the default mode network in monkeys show a pattern of overlap akin to that between the social brain and the default mode network in humans: this overlap specifically includes the posterior superior temporal sulcus, medial parietal, and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, areas supporting high-level social cognition in humans. Together, these results reveal the embedding of face areas into larger brain networks and suggest that the resting state networks of the face patch system offer a new, easily accessible venue into the functional organization of the social brain and into the evolution of possibly uniquely human social skills. PMID:26348613

White matter pathways and social cognition.

PubMed

Wang, Yin; Metoki, Athanasia; Alm, Kylie H; Olson, Ingrid R

2018-04-20

There is a growing consensus that social cognition and behavior emerge from interactions across distributed regions of the "social brain". Researchers have traditionally focused their attention on functional response properties of these gray matter networks and neglected the vital role of white matter connections in establishing such networks and their functions. In this article, we conduct a comprehensive review of prior research on structural connectivity in social neuroscience and highlight the importance of this literature in clarifying brain mechanisms of social cognition. We pay particular attention to three key social processes: face processing, embodied cognition, and theory of mind, and their respective underlying neural networks. To fully identify and characterize the anatomical architecture of these networks, we further implement probabilistic tractography on a large sample of diffusion-weighted imaging data. The combination of an in-depth literature review and the empirical investigation gives us an unprecedented, well-defined landscape of white matter pathways underlying major social brain networks. Finally, we discuss current problems in the field, outline suggestions for best practice in diffusion-imaging data collection and analysis, and offer new directions for future research. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Scientific thinking in elementary school: Children's social cognition and their epistemological understanding promote experimentation skills.

PubMed

Osterhaus, Christopher; Koerber, Susanne; Sodian, Beate

2017-03-01

Do social cognition and epistemological understanding promote elementary school children's experimentation skills? To investigate this question, 402 children (ages 8, 9, and 10) in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades were assessed for their experimentation skills, social cognition (advanced theory of mind [AToM]), epistemological understanding (understanding the nature of science), and general information-processing skills (inhibition, intelligence, and language abilities) in a whole-class testing procedure. A multiple indicators multiple causes model revealed a significant influence of social cognition (AToM) on epistemological understanding, and a McNemar test suggested that children's development of AToM is an important precursor for the emergence of an advanced, mature epistemological understanding. Children's epistemological understanding, in turn, predicted their experimentation skills. Importantly, this relation was independent of the common influences of general information processing. Significant relations between experimentation skills and inhibition, and between epistemological understanding, intelligence, and language abilities emerged, suggesting that general information processing contributes to the conceptual development that is involved in scientific thinking. The model of scientific thinking that was tested in this study (social cognition and epistemological understanding promote experimentation skills) fitted the data significantly better than 2 alternative models, which assumed nonspecific, equally strong relations between all constructs under investigation. Our results support the conclusion that social cognition plays a foundational role in the emergence of children's epistemological understanding, which in turn is closely related to the development of experimentation skills. Our findings have significant implications for the teaching of scientific thinking in elementary school and they stress the importance of children's epistemological understanding in scientific-thinking processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Social activity, cognitive decline and dementia risk: a 20-year prospective cohort study.

PubMed

Marioni, Riccardo E; Proust-Lima, Cecile; Amieva, Helene; Brayne, Carol; Matthews, Fiona E; Dartigues, Jean-Francois; Jacqmin-Gadda, Helene

2015-10-24

Identifying modifiable lifestyle correlates of cognitive decline and risk of dementia is complex, particularly as few population-based longitudinal studies jointly model these interlinked processes. Recent methodological developments allow us to examine statistically defined sub-populations with separate cognitive trajectories and dementia risks. Engagement in social, physical, or intellectual pursuits, social network size, self-perception of feeling well understood, and degree of satisfaction with social relationships were assessed in 2854 participants from the Paquid cohort (mean baseline age 77 years) and related to incident dementia and cognitive change over 20-years of follow-up. Multivariate repeated cognitive information was exploited by defining the global cognitive functioning as the latent common factor underlying the tests. In addition, three latent homogeneous sub-populations of cognitive change and dementia were identified and contrasted according to social environment variables. In the whole population, we found associations between increased engagement in social, physical, or intellectual pursuits and increased cognitive ability (but not decline) and decreased risk of incident dementia, and between feeling understood and slower cognitive decline. There was evidence for three sub-populations of cognitive aging: fast, medium, and no cognitive decline. The social-environment measures at baseline did not help explain the heterogeneity of cognitive decline and incident dementia diagnosis between these sub-populations. We observed a complex series of relationships between social-environment variables and cognitive decline and dementia. In the whole population, factors such as increased engagement in social, physical, or intellectual pursuits were related to a decreased risk of dementia. However, in a sub-population analysis, the social-environment variables were not linked to the heterogeneous patterns of cognitive decline and dementia risk that defined the sub-groups.

Connecting the Dots: Social Network Structure, Conflict, and Group Cognitive Complexity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Curseu, Petru L.; Janssen, Steffie E. A.; Raab, Jorg

2012-01-01

The current paper combines arguments from the social capital and group cognition literature to explain two different processes through which communication network structures and intra group conflict influence groups' cognitive complexity (GCC). We test in a sample of 44 groups the mediating role of intra group conflict in the relationship between…

Cognitive Enhancement Therapy for Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Results of an 18-Month Feasibility Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eack, Shaun M.; Greenwald, Deborah P.; Hogarty, Susan S.; Bahorik, Amber L.; Litschge, Maralee Y.; Mazefsky, Carla A.; Minshew, Nancy J.

2013-01-01

Adults with autism experience significant impairments in social and non-social information processing for which few treatments have been developed. This study conducted an 18-month uncontrolled trial of Cognitive Enhancement Therapy (CET), a comprehensive cognitive rehabilitation intervention, in 14 verbal adults with autism spectrum disorder to…

A Model of Young Children's Social Cognition: Linkages Between Latent Structures and Discrete Processing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Meece, Darrell

1999-01-01

This study proposes a model of associations between young children's social cognition and their social behavior with peers. In this model, two latent structures -children's representations of peer relationships and emotion regulation -- predict children's competent, prosocial, withdrawn, and aggressive behavior. Moreover, the model proposes that…

Psychosocial functioning in first-episode psychosis and associations with neurocognition, social cognition, psychotic and affective symptoms.

PubMed

Stouten, Luyken H; Veling, Wim; Laan, Winfried; van der Helm, Mischa; van der Gaag, Mark

2017-02-01

Most studies on the determinants of psychosocial functioning in first-episode psychosis used few predictors. This study examines the effects of multiple cognitive domains and multiple symptoms on psychosocial functioning. A total of 162 patients with a first-episode psychosis were assessed within 3 months after referral to an early psychosis treatment department. Four psychopathological subdomains (positive and negative symptoms, depression and anxiety) and five subdomains of psychosocial functioning (work/study, relationships, self-care, disturbing behaviour and general psychosocial functioning) were measured. Neurocognitive and social cognitive factors were identified through principal component analyses (PCA) of a 15-measure cognitive battery. Stepwise backward regression models were computed to identify the determinants of psychosocial functioning. The three neurocognitive and four social cognitive factors identified through PCA were largely independent of psychopathology. The strongest associations were between cognitive factors and anxiety. Higher levels of negative symptoms, poor general neurocognition and poor general social cognition showed strongest associations with impaired psychosocial functioning, followed by low verbal processing speed and low emotion processing speed. Together, these factors accounted for 39.4% of the variance in psychosocial functioning. The results suggest that negative symptoms, impaired neurocognition and poor social cognition are related to psychosocial problems in patients with first-episode psychosis. None of the affective or positive symptoms had a marked impact on psychosocial functioning. © 2015 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

The effects of acute inflammation on cognitive functioning and emotional processing in humans: A systematic review of experimental studies.

PubMed

Bollen, Jessica; Trick, Leanne; Llewellyn, David; Dickens, Chris

2017-03-01

The cognitive neuropsychological model of depression proposes that negative biases in the processing of emotionally salient information have a central role in the development and maintenance of depression. We have conducted a systematic review to determine whether acute experimental inflammation is associated with changes to cognitive and emotional processing that are thought to cause and maintain depression. We identified experimental studies in which healthy individuals were administered an acute inflammatory challenge (bacterial endotoxin/vaccination) and standardised tests of cognitive function were performed. Fourteen references were identified, reporting findings from 12 independent studies on 345 participants. Methodological quality was rated strong or moderate for 11 studies. Acute experimental inflammation was triggered using a variety of agents (including endotoxin from E. coli, S. typhi, S. abortus Equi and Hepatitis B vaccine) and cognition was assessed over hours to months, using cognitive tests of i) attention/executive functioning, ii) memory and iii) social/emotional processing. Studies found mixed evidence that acute experimental inflammation caused changes to attention/executive functioning (2 of 6 studies showed improvements in attention executive function compared to control), changes in memory (3 of 5 studies; improved reaction time: reduced memory for object proximity: poorer immediate and delayed memory) and changes to social/emotional processing (4 of 5 studies; reduced perception of emotions, increased avoidance of punishment/loss experiences, and increased social disconnectedness). Acute experimental inflammation causes negative biases in social and emotional processing that could explain observed associations between inflammation and depression. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Cognitive Enhancement Therapy for Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Results of an 18-Month Feasibility Study

PubMed Central

Eack, Shaun M.; Greenwald, Deborah P.; Hogarty, Susan S.; Bahorik, Amber L.; Litschge, Maralee Y.; Mazefsky, Carla A.; Minshew, Nancy J.

2013-01-01

Adults with autism experience significant impairments in social and non-social information processing for which few treatments have been developed. This study conducted an 18-month uncontrolled trial of Cognitive Enhancement Therapy (CET), a comprehensive cognitive rehabilitation intervention, in 14 verbal adults with autism spectrum disorder to investigate its feasibility, acceptability, and initial efficacy in treating these impairments. Results indicated that CET was satisfying to participants, with high treatment attendance and retention. Effects on cognitive deficits and social behavior were also large (d = 1.40 to 2.29) and statistically significant (all p < .001). These findings suggest that CET is a feasible, acceptable, and potentially effective intervention for remediating the social and non-social cognitive impairments in verbal adults with autism. PMID:23619953

The association between ruminative thinking and negative interpretation bias in social anxiety.

PubMed

Badra, Marcel; Schulze, Lars; Becker, Eni S; Vrijsen, Janna Nonja; Renneberg, Babette; Zetsche, Ulrike

2017-09-01

Cognitive models propose that both, negative interpretations of ambiguous social situations and ruminative thoughts about social events contribute to the maintenance of social anxiety disorder. It has further been postulated that ruminative thoughts fuel biased negative interpretations, however, evidence is rare. The present study used a multi-method approach to assess ruminative processing following a social interaction (post-event processing by self-report questionnaire and social rumination by experience sampling method) and negative interpretation bias (via two separate tasks) in a student sample (n = 51) screened for high (HSA) and low social anxiety (LSA). Results support the hypothesis that group differences in negative interpretations of ambiguous social situations in HSAs vs. LSAs are mediated by higher levels of post-event processing assessed in the questionnaire. Exploratory analyses highlight the potential role of comorbid depressive symptoms. The current findings help to advance the understanding of the association between two cognitive processes involved in social anxiety and stress the importance of ruminative post-event processing.

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

PubMed

Wiltshire, Travis J; Lobato, Emilio J C; McConnell, Daniel S; Fiore, Stephen M

2014-01-01

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.

Social cognition in schizophrenia: Factor structure, clinical and functional correlates

PubMed Central

Buck, Benjamin E.; Healey, Kristin M.; Gagen, Emily C.; Roberts, David L.; Penn, David L.

2016-01-01

Background Social cognition is consistently impaired in people with schizophrenia, separable from general neurocognition, predictive of real-world functioning, and amenable to psychosocial treatment. Few studies have empirically examined its underlying factor structure. Aims The present study (1) examines the factor structure of social cognition in both a sample of individuals with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders and non-clinical controls, and (2) explores relationships of factors to neurocognition, symptoms and functioning. Method A factor analysis was conducted on social cognition measures in a sample of sixty-five individuals with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, and fifty control participants. The resulting factors were examined for their relationships to symptoms and functioning. Results Results suggested a two-factor structure in the schizophrenia sample (social cognition skill and hostile attributional style) and a three-factor structure in the non-clinical sample (hostile attributional style, higher-level inferential processing, and lower-level cue detection). In the schizophrenia sample, the social cognition skill factor was significantly related to negative symptoms and social functioning, while hostile attributional style predicted positive and general psychopathology symptoms. Conclusions The factor structure of social cognition in schizophrenia separates hostile attributional style and social cognition skill, and each show differential relationships to relevant clinical variables in schizophrenia. PMID:26747063

Beyond Event Segmentation: Spatial- and Social-Cognitive Processes in Verb-to-Action Mapping

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Friend, Margaret; Pace, Amy

2011-01-01

The present article investigates spatial- and social-cognitive processes in toddlers' mapping of concepts to real-world events. In 2 studies we explore how event segmentation might lay the groundwork for extracting actions from the event stream and conceptually mapping novel verbs to these actions. In Study 1, toddlers demonstrated the ability to…

Age-Related Changes in Cognitive Processing of Moral and Social Conventional Violations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lahat, Ayelet; Helwig, Charles C.; Zelazo, Philip David

2012-01-01

Moral and conventional violations are usually judged differently: Only moral violations are treated as independent of social rules. To investigate the cognitive processing involved in the development of this distinction, undergraduates (N = 34), adolescents (N = 34), and children (N = 14) read scenarios presented on a computer that had 1 of 3…

The Cognitive, Social and Emotional Processes of Teacher Identity Construction in a Pre-Service Teacher Education Programme

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yuan, Rui; Lee, Icy

2015-01-01

This research investigates how three Government-funded Normal Students constructed and reconstructed their identities in a pre-service teacher education programme in China. Drawing upon data from interviews, field observation and the pre-service teachers' written reflections, the study explores the cognitive, social and emotional processes of…

Social Cognition in Williams Syndrome: Relations between Performance on the Social Attribution Task and Cognitive and Behavioral Characteristics.

PubMed

van der Fluit, Faye; Gaffrey, Michael S; Klein-Tasman, Bonita P

2012-01-01

Williams syndrome (WS) is a developmental disorder of genetic origin, with characteristic cognitive and personality profiles. Studies of WS point to an outgoing and gregarious personality style, often contrasted with autism spectrum disorders; however, recent research has uncovered underlying social reciprocity difficulties in people with WS. Social information processing difficulties that underlie these social reciprocity difficulties have been sparsely examined. Participants in the current study included 24 children with WS ages 8 through 15. A lab-based measure of social perception and social cognition was administered (Social Attribution Test), as well as an intellectual functioning measure (KBIT-II) and parent reports of communication and reciprocal social skills (Social Communication Questionnaire, Social Responsiveness Scale). Relations between social cognition, cognitive abilities, and social-communication were examined. Results demonstrated relations between parent-reported social reciprocity and the typicality of the responses provided in the lab-based measure, even once variability in intellectual functioning was taken into account. Specifically, those individuals who produced narratives in response to the social attribution task (SAT) that were more similar to those described in previous studies of typically developing individuals were also reported to have fewer social reciprocity difficulties in the real world setting as reported by parents. In addition, a significant improvement in performance on the SAT was seen with added scaffolding, particularly for participants with stronger intellectual functioning. These findings indicate that difficulties interpreting the social dynamics between others in ambiguous situations may contribute to the social relationship difficulties observed in people with WS, above and beyond the role of intellectual functioning. Exploratory analyses indicated that performance by individuals with stronger intellectual functioning is improved with additional structure to a greater degree than for those with weaker intellectual functioning. Interventions that specifically target these social information processing of individuals with WS would likely be beneficial.

Social Cognition in Williams Syndrome: Relations between Performance on the Social Attribution Task and Cognitive and Behavioral Characteristics

PubMed Central

van der Fluit, Faye; Gaffrey, Michael S.; Klein-Tasman, Bonita P.

2012-01-01

Williams syndrome (WS) is a developmental disorder of genetic origin, with characteristic cognitive and personality profiles. Studies of WS point to an outgoing and gregarious personality style, often contrasted with autism spectrum disorders; however, recent research has uncovered underlying social reciprocity difficulties in people with WS. Social information processing difficulties that underlie these social reciprocity difficulties have been sparsely examined. Participants in the current study included 24 children with WS ages 8 through 15. A lab-based measure of social perception and social cognition was administered (Social Attribution Test), as well as an intellectual functioning measure (KBIT-II) and parent reports of communication and reciprocal social skills (Social Communication Questionnaire, Social Responsiveness Scale). Relations between social cognition, cognitive abilities, and social-communication were examined. Results demonstrated relations between parent-reported social reciprocity and the typicality of the responses provided in the lab-based measure, even once variability in intellectual functioning was taken into account. Specifically, those individuals who produced narratives in response to the social attribution task (SAT) that were more similar to those described in previous studies of typically developing individuals were also reported to have fewer social reciprocity difficulties in the real world setting as reported by parents. In addition, a significant improvement in performance on the SAT was seen with added scaffolding, particularly for participants with stronger intellectual functioning. These findings indicate that difficulties interpreting the social dynamics between others in ambiguous situations may contribute to the social relationship difficulties observed in people with WS, above and beyond the role of intellectual functioning. Exploratory analyses indicated that performance by individuals with stronger intellectual functioning is improved with additional structure to a greater degree than for those with weaker intellectual functioning. Interventions that specifically target these social information processing of individuals with WS would likely be beneficial. PMID:22737137

The Role of Affective and Cognitive Individual Differences in Social Perception.

PubMed

Aquino, Antonio; Haddock, Geoffrey; Maio, Gregory R; Wolf, Lukas J; Alparone, Francesca R

2016-06-01

Three studies explored the connection between social perception processes and individual differences in the use of affective and cognitive information in relation to attitudes. Study 1 revealed that individuals high in need for affect (NFA) accentuated differences in evaluations of warm and cold traits, whereas individuals high in need for cognition (NFC) accentuated differences in evaluations of competent and incompetent traits. Study 2 revealed that individual differences in NFA predicted liking of warm or cold targets, whereas individual differences in NFC predicted perceptions of competent or incompetent targets. Furthermore, the effects of NFA and NFC were independent of structural bases and meta-bases of attitudes. Study 3 revealed that differences in the evaluation of warm and cold traits mediated the effects of NFA and NFC on liking of targets. The implications for social perception processes and for individual differences in affect-cognition are discussed. © 2016 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Social priming improves cognitive control in elderly adults--evidence from the Simon task.

PubMed

Aisenberg, Daniela; Cohen, Noga; Pick, Hadas; Tressman, Iris; Rappaport, Michal; Shenberg, Tal; Henik, Avishai

2015-01-01

We examined whether social priming of cognitive states affects the inhibitory process in elderly adults, as aging is related to deficits in inhibitory control. Forty-eight elderly adults and 45 young adults were assigned to three groups and performed a cognitive control task (Simon task), which was followed by 3 different manipulations of social priming (i.e., thinking about an 82 year-old person): 1) negative--characterized by poor cognitive abilities, 2) neutral--characterized by acts irrelevant to cognitive abilities, and 3) positive--excellent cognitive abilities. After the manipulation, the Simon task was performed again. Results showed improvement in cognitive control effects in seniors after the positive manipulation, indicated by a significant decrease in the magnitude of the Simon and interference effects, but not after the neutral and negative manipulations. Furthermore, a healthy pattern of sequential effect (Gratton) that was absent before the manipulation in all 3 groups appeared after the positive manipulation. Namely, the Simon effect was only present after congruent but not after incongruent trials for the positive manipulation group. No influence of manipulations was found in young adults. These meaningful results were replicated in a second experiment and suggest a decrease in conflict interference resulting from positive cognitive state priming. Our study provides evidence that an implicit social concept of a positive cognitive condition in old age can affect the control process of the elderly and improve cognitive abilities.

Social Priming Improves Cognitive Control in Elderly Adults—Evidence from the Simon Task

PubMed Central

Aisenberg, Daniela; Cohen, Noga; Pick, Hadas; Tressman, Iris; Rappaport, Michal; Shenberg, Tal; Henik, Avishai

2015-01-01

We examined whether social priming of cognitive states affects the inhibitory process in elderly adults, as aging is related to deficits in inhibitory control. Forty-eight elderly adults and 45 young adults were assigned to three groups and performed a cognitive control task (Simon task), which was followed by 3 different manipulations of social priming (i.e., thinking about an 82 year-old person): 1) negative—characterized by poor cognitive abilities, 2) neutral—characterized by acts irrelevant to cognitive abilities, and 3) positive—excellent cognitive abilities. After the manipulation, the Simon task was performed again. Results showed improvement in cognitive control effects in seniors after the positive manipulation, indicated by a significant decrease in the magnitude of the Simon and interference effects, but not after the neutral and negative manipulations. Furthermore, a healthy pattern of sequential effect (Gratton) that was absent before the manipulation in all 3 groups appeared after the positive manipulation. Namely, the Simon effect was only present after congruent but not after incongruent trials for the positive manipulation group. No influence of manipulations was found in young adults. These meaningful results were replicated in a second experiment and suggest a decrease in conflict interference resulting from positive cognitive state priming. Our study provides evidence that an implicit social concept of a positive cognitive condition in old age can affect the control process of the elderly and improve cognitive abilities. PMID:25635946

Effects of social cognitive impairment on speech disorder in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Docherty, Nancy M; McCleery, Amanda; Divilbiss, Marielle; Schumann, Emily B; Moe, Aubrey; Shakeel, Mohammed K

2013-05-01

Disordered speech in schizophrenia impairs social functioning because it impedes communication with others. Treatment approaches targeting this symptom have been limited by an incomplete understanding of its causes. This study examined the process underpinnings of speech disorder, assessed in terms of communication failure. Contributions of impairments in 2 social cognitive abilities, emotion perception and theory of mind (ToM), to speech disorder were assessed in 63 patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and 21 nonpsychiatric participants, after controlling for the effects of verbal intelligence and impairments in basic language-related neurocognitive abilities. After removal of the effects of the neurocognitive variables, impairments in emotion perception and ToM each explained additional variance in speech disorder in the patients but not the controls. The neurocognitive and social cognitive variables, taken together, explained 51% of the variance in speech disorder in the patients. Schizophrenic disordered speech may be less a concomitant of "positive" psychotic process than of illness-related limitations in neurocognitive and social cognitive functioning.

Intercorporeality as a theory of social cognition.

PubMed

Tanaka, Shogo

2015-08-01

The main aim of this article is to revisit Merleau-Ponty's notion of intercorporeality (intercorporéité) and elaborate it as a new theory of social cognition. As is well known, theory of mind has been the central issue in the field of social cognition for more than two decades. In reviewing the basic concepts involved in two major theories (theory theory and simulation theory), I make clear that both theories have been missing the embodied dimension because of their mind-body dualistic supposition. The notion of intercorporeality, in accordance with the recent interaction theory, stresses the role of embodied interactions between the self and the other in the process of social understanding. I develop this notion into two directions and describe the related process of social cognition: one is behavior matching and primordial empathy, the other is interactional synchrony and the sense of mutual understanding. Through these embodied interactions, intersubjective meanings are created and directly shared between the self and the other, without being mediated by mental representations.

The impact of cognitive behavioral therapy on post event processing among those with social anxiety disorder.

PubMed

Price, Matthew; Anderson, Page L

2011-02-01

Individuals with social anxiety are prone to engage in post event processing (PEP), a post mortem review of a social interaction that focuses on negative elements. The extent that PEP is impacted by cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and the relation between PEP and change during treatment has yet to be evaluated in a controlled study. The current study used multilevel modeling to determine if PEP decreased as a result of treatment and if PEP limits treatment response for two types of cognitive behavioral treatments, a group-based cognitive behavioral intervention and individually based virtual reality exposure. These hypotheses were evaluated using 91 participants diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. The findings suggested that PEP decreased as a result of treatment, and that social anxiety symptoms for individuals reporting greater levels of PEP improved at a slower rate than those with lower levels of PEP. Further research is needed to understand why PEP attenuates response to treatment. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Impact of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy on Post Event Processing Among Those with Social Anxiety Disorder

PubMed Central

Price, Matthew; Anderson, Page L.

2011-01-01

Individuals with social anxiety are prone to engage in post event processing (PEP), a post mortem review of a social interaction that focuses on negative elements. The extent that PEP is impacted by cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and the relation between PEP and change during treatment has yet to be evaluated in a controlled study. The current study used multilevel modeling to determine if PEP decreased as a result of treatment and if PEP limits treatment response for two types of cognitive behavioral treatments, a group-based cognitive behavioral intervention and individually based virtual reality exposure. These hypotheses were evaluated using 91 participants diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. The findings suggested that PEP decreased as a result of treatment, and that social anxiety symptoms for individuals reporting greater levels of PEP improved at a slower rate than those with lower levels of PEP. Further research is needed to understand why PEP attenuates response to treatment. PMID:21159328

Effects of Social Supports on the Career Choice Consideration of Chinese Farmers: A Social Cognitive Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhao, Li

2012-01-01

Drawing from social cognitive career theory (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994), this study explored social supports' influence on the career choice consideration of farmers during China's current process of urbanization. A questionnaire was designed based on interviews with 140 people and a pretest with a sample of 419 participants. A total of 628…

Early neural activation during facial affect processing in adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

PubMed

Leung, Rachel C; Pang, Elizabeth W; Cassel, Daniel; Brian, Jessica A; Smith, Mary Lou; Taylor, Margot J

2015-01-01

Impaired social interaction is one of the hallmarks of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Emotional faces are arguably the most critical visual social stimuli and the ability to perceive, recognize, and interpret emotions is central to social interaction and communication, and subsequently healthy social development. However, our understanding of the neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying emotional face processing in adolescents with ASD is limited. We recruited 48 adolescents, 24 with high functioning ASD and 24 typically developing controls. Participants completed an implicit emotional face processing task in the MEG. We examined spatiotemporal differences in neural activation between the groups during implicit angry and happy face processing. While there were no differences in response latencies between groups across emotions, adolescents with ASD had lower accuracy on the implicit emotional face processing task when the trials included angry faces. MEG data showed atypical neural activity in adolescents with ASD during angry and happy face processing, which included atypical activity in the insula, anterior and posterior cingulate and temporal and orbitofrontal regions. Our findings demonstrate differences in neural activity during happy and angry face processing between adolescents with and without ASD. These differences in activation in social cognitive regions may index the difficulties in face processing and in comprehension of social reward and punishment in the ASD group. Thus, our results suggest that atypical neural activation contributes to impaired affect processing, and thus social cognition, in adolescents with ASD.

Embodied artificial agents for understanding human social cognition.

PubMed

Wykowska, Agnieszka; Chaminade, Thierry; Cheng, Gordon

2016-05-05

In this paper, we propose that experimental protocols involving artificial agents, in particular the embodied humanoid robots, provide insightful information regarding social cognitive mechanisms in the human brain. Using artificial agents allows for manipulation and control of various parameters of behaviour, appearance and expressiveness in one of the interaction partners (the artificial agent), and for examining effect of these parameters on the other interaction partner (the human). At the same time, using artificial agents means introducing the presence of artificial, yet human-like, systems into the human social sphere. This allows for testing in a controlled, but ecologically valid, manner human fundamental mechanisms of social cognition both at the behavioural and at the neural level. This paper will review existing literature that reports studies in which artificial embodied agents have been used to study social cognition and will address the question of whether various mechanisms of social cognition (ranging from lower- to higher-order cognitive processes) are evoked by artificial agents to the same extent as by natural agents, humans in particular. Increasing the understanding of how behavioural and neural mechanisms of social cognition respond to artificial anthropomorphic agents provides empirical answers to the conundrum 'What is a social agent?' © 2016 The Authors.

Social cognition and psychopathology: a critical overview

PubMed Central

Gallagher, Shaun; Varga, Somogy

2015-01-01

The philosophical and interdisciplinary debate about the nature of social cognition, and the processes involved, has important implications for psychiatry. On one account, mindreading depends on making theoretical inferences about another person's mental states based on knowledge of folk psychology, the so-called “theory theory” (TT). On a different account, “simulation theory” (ST), mindreading depends on simulating the other's mental states within one's own mental or motor system. A third approach, “interaction theory” (IT), looks to embodied processes (involving movement, gesture, facial expression, vocal intonation, etc.) and the dynamics of intersubjective interactions (joint attention, joint action, and processes not confined to an individual system) in highly contextualized situations to explain social cognition, and disruptions of these processes in some psychopathological conditions. In this paper, we present a brief summary of these three theoretical frameworks (TT, ST, IT). We then focus on impaired social abilities in autism and schizophrenia from the perspective of the three approaches. We discuss the limitations of such approaches in the scientific studies of these and other pathologies, and we close with a short reflection on the future of the field. In this regard we argue that, to the extent that TT, ST and IT offer explanations that capture different (limited) aspects of social cognition, a pluralist approach might be best. PMID:25655144

Adolescents' aggressive and prosocial behaviors: links with social information processing, negative emotionality, moral affect, and moral cognition.

PubMed

Laible, Deborah J; Murphy, Tia Panfile; Augustine, Mairin

2014-01-01

The goal of this study was to examine whether moral affect, moral cognition, negative emotionality, and attribution biases independently predicted adolescents' prosocial and aggressive behavior in adolescence. A total of 148 adolescents completed self-report measures of prosocial and aggressive behavior, moral affect, moral cognition, negative emotionality, and attribution biases. Although in general all 3 factors (emotional, moral, and social cognitive) were correlated with adolescent social behavior, the most consistent independent predictors of adolescent social behavior were moral affect and cognition. These findings have important implications for intervention and suggest that programs that promote adolescent perspective taking, moral reasoning, and moral affect are needed to reduce aggressive behavior and promote prosocial behavior.

Information processing versus social cognitive mediators of weight loss in a podcast-delivered health intervention.

PubMed

Ko, Linda K; Turner-McGrievy, Gabrielle M; Campbell, Marci K

2014-04-01

Podcasting is an emerging technology, and previous interventions have shown promising results using theory-based podcast for weight loss among overweight and obese individuals. This study investigated whether constructs of social cognitive theory and information processing theories (IPTs) mediate the effect of a podcast intervention on weight loss among overweight individuals. Data are from Pounds off Digitally, a study testing the efficacy of two weight loss podcast interventions (control podcast and theory-based podcast). Path models were constructed (n = 66). The IPTs, elaboration likelihood model, information control theory, and cognitive load theory mediated the effect of a theory-based podcast on weight loss. The intervention was significantly associated with all IPTs. Information control theory and cognitive load theory were related to elaboration, and elaboration was associated with weight loss. Social cognitive theory constructs did not mediate weight loss. Future podcast interventions grounded in theory may be effective in promoting weight loss.

Co-segregation of social cognition, executive function and local processing style in children with ASD, their siblings and normal controls.

PubMed

Oerlemans, Anoek M; Droste, Katharina; van Steijn, Daphne J; de Sonneville, Leo M J; Buitelaar, Jan K; Rommelse, Nanda N J

2013-12-01

Cognitive research proposes that social cognition (SC), executive functions (EF) and local processing style (weak CC) may be fruitful areas for research into the familial-genetic underpinnings of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The performance of 140 children with ASD, 172 siblings and 127 controls on tasks measuring SC (face recognition, affective prosody, and facial emotion recognition), EF (inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and verbal working memory) and local processing style was assessed. Compelling evidence was found for the interrelatedness of SC and EF, but not local processing style, within individuals and within families, suggesting that these domains tend to co-segregate in ASD. Using the underlying shared variance of these constructs in genetic research may increase the power for detecting susceptibility genes for ASD.

Communication and cognition: the social beyond language, interaction and culture.

PubMed

Mascareño, Aldo

2008-06-01

Cognition theories describe the social with terms like language, interaction or culture, whose theoretical status has also been discussed in modern sociology. These concepts are not well-positioned to understand the emergence and autonomy of social orders. Sociological theory of self-referential systems can be useful to reconstruct the bottom-up process which contributes to the emergence of the social as communication as well as to describe the way in which society exerts downward causation upon cognitive phenomena. The core of this theory is the systemic category of meaning as a shared horizon for psychic and social systems.

Intellectual Disabilities and Neglectful Parenting: Preliminary Findings on the Role of Cognition in Parenting Risk

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Azar, Sandra T.; Stevenson, Michael T.; Johnson, David R.

2012-01-01

Parents with intellectual disabilities (PID) are overrepresented in the child protective services (CPS) system. This study examined a more nuanced view of the role of cognition in parenting risk. Its goal was to validate a social information processing (SIP) model of child neglect that draws on social cognition research and advances in…

Mothers' depressive symptoms and children's cognitive and social agency: Predicting first-grade cognitive functioning.

PubMed

Yan, Ni; Dix, Theodore

2016-08-01

Using data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 1,364), the present study supports an agentic perspective; it demonstrates that mothers' depressive symptoms in infancy predict children's poor first-grade cognitive functioning because depressive symptoms predict children's low social and cognitive agency-low motivation to initiate social interaction and actively engage in activities. When mothers' depressive symptoms were high in infancy, children displayed poor first-grade cognitive functioning due to (a) tendencies to become socially withdrawn by 36 months and low in mastery motivation by 54 months and (b) tendencies for children's low agency to predict declines in mothers' sensitivity and cognitive stimulation. Findings suggest that mothers' depressive symptoms undermine cognitive development through bidirectional processes centered on children's low motivation to engage in social interaction and initiate and persist at everyday tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Social cognitive neuroscience and humanoid robotics.

PubMed

Chaminade, Thierry; Cheng, Gordon

2009-01-01

We believe that humanoid robots provide new tools to investigate human social cognition, the processes underlying everyday interactions between individuals. Resonance is an emerging framework to understand social interactions that is based on the finding that cognitive processes involved when experiencing a mental state and when perceiving another individual experiencing the same mental state overlap, both at the behavioral and neural levels. We will first review important aspects of his framework. In a second part, we will discuss how this framework is used to address questions pertaining to artificial agents' social competence. We will focus on two types of paradigm, one derived from experimental psychology and the other using neuroimaging, that have been used to investigate humans' responses to humanoid robots. Finally, we will speculate on the consequences of resonance in natural social interactions if humanoid robots are to become integral part of our societies.

Aspects of alcohol use disorder affecting social cognition as assessed using the Mini Social and Emotional Assessment (mini-SEA).

PubMed

Cox, Sharon; Bertoux, Maxime; Turner, John J D; Moss, Antony; Locker, Kirsty; Riggs, Kevin

2018-06-01

Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) is associated with problems with processing complex social scenarios. Little is known about the relationship between distinct AUD-related factors (e.g., years of problematic drinking), aspects of cognitive function and dysfunction in individuals diagnosed with AUD, and the relative impact these may have on social cognition. To explore differences in social cognition between a group of participants diagnosed with AUD and controls, using a clinical measure, the Mini Social and Emotional Assessment (mini-SEA). The mini-SEA was used to evaluate social and emotional understanding through a facial emotional recognition task and by utilising a series of social scenes some of which contain a faux pas (social error). Eighty-five participants (individuals with AUD and controls) completed demographic questions and a general cognitive and social cognitive test battery over three consecutive days. Between group analyses revealed that the participants with AUD performed less well on the faux pas test, and differences were also revealed in the emotional facial recognition task. Years of problematic alcohol consumption was the strongest predictor of poor ToM reasoning. These results suggest a strong link between AUD chronicity and social cognition, though the direction of this relationship needs further elucidation. This may be of clinical relevance to abstinence and relapse management, as basic social cognition skills and ability to maintain interpersonal relationships are likely to be crucial to recovery. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Impact of neurocognition on social and role functioning in individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis.

PubMed

Carrión, Ricardo E; Goldberg, Terry E; McLaughlin, Danielle; Auther, Andrea M; Correll, Christoph U; Cornblatt, Barbara A

2011-08-01

Cognitive deficits have been well documented in schizophrenia and have been shown to impair quality of life and to compromise everyday functioning. Recent studies of adolescents and young adults at high risk for developing psychosis show that neurocognitive impairments are detectable before the onset of psychotic symptoms. However, it remains unclear how cognitive impairments affect functioning before the onset of psychosis. The authors assessed cognitive impairment in adolescents at clinical high risk for psychosis and examined its impact on social and role functioning. A sample of 127 treatment-seeking patients at clinical high risk for psychosis and a group of 80 healthy comparison subjects were identified and recruited for research in the Recognition and Prevention Program. At baseline, participants were assessed with a comprehensive neurocognitive battery as well as measures of social and role functioning. Relative to healthy comparison subjects, clinical high-risk patients showed significant impairments in the domains of processing speed, verbal memory, executive function, working memory, visuospatial processing, motor speed, sustained attention, and language. Clinical high-risk patients also displayed impaired social and role functioning at baseline. Among patients with attenuated positive symptoms, processing speed was related to social and role functioning at baseline. These findings demonstrate that cognitive and functional impairments are detectable in patients at clinical high risk for psychosis before the onset of psychotic illness and that processing speed appears to be an important cognitive predictor of poor functioning.

Impact of Neurocognition on Social and Role Functioning in Individuals at Clinical High Risk for Psychosis

PubMed Central

Carrión, Ricardo E.; Goldberg, Terry E.; McLaughlin, Danielle; Auther, Andrea M.; Correll, Christoph U.; Cornblatt, Barbara A.

2011-01-01

Objective Cognitive deficits have been well documented in schizophrenia and have been shown to impair quality of life and to compromise everyday functioning. Recent studies of adolescents and young adults at high risk for developing psychosis show that neurocognitive impairments are detectable before the onset of psychotic symptoms. However, it remains unclear how cognitive impairments affect functioning before the onset of psychosis. The authors assessed cognitive impairment in adolescents at clinical high risk for psychosis and examined its impact on social and role functioning. Method A sample of 127 treatment-seeking patients at clinical high risk for psychosis and a group of 80 healthy comparison subjects were identified and recruited for research in the Recognition and Prevention Program. At baseline, participants were assessed with a comprehensive neurocognitive battery as well as measures of social and role functioning. Results Relative to healthy comparison subjects, clinical high-risk patients showed significant impairments in the domains of processing speed, verbal memory, executive function, working memory, visuospatial processing, motor speed, sustained attention, and language. Clinical high-risk patients also displayed impaired social and role functioning at baseline. Among patients with attenuated positive symptoms, processing speed was related to social and role functioning at baseline. Conclusions These findings demonstrate that cognitive and functional impairments are detectable in patients at clinical high risk for psychosis before the onset of psychotic illness and that processing speed appears to be an important cognitive predictor of poor functioning. PMID:21536691

A Social-Cognitive-Ecological Framework for Understanding the Impact of Exposure to Persistent Ethnic-Political Violence on Children’s Psychosocial Adjustment

PubMed Central

Dubow, Eric F.; Huesmann, L. Rowell; Boxer, Paul

2009-01-01

In this article, we describe a theoretical framework for understanding how persistent and extreme exposure to ethnic-political conflict and violence interacts with cognitive, emotional, and self processes to influence children’s psychosocial adjustment. Three recent strands of theorizing guide our approach. First, we focus on how observational and social learning processes combine to influence the development of social-cognitive structures and processes that affect behavior. Second, we focus on the role of developing self and identity processes in shaping the child’s interactions with the world and the consequences of those interactions. Third, we build on the complex systems perspective on development and assume that human development can only be understood accurately by examining how the multiple contexts affecting children and the adults in their lives interact to moderate biosocial factors which predispose individuals to develop in certain directions. We review the recent empirical literature on children’s exposure to ethnic-political violence and we apply the social-cognitive-ecological framework to the empirical findings in this literature. Finally, we propose future directions for research and clinical implications derived from this framework. PMID:19430904

A social-cognitive-ecological framework for understanding the impact of exposure to persistent ethnic-political violence on children's psychosocial adjustment.

PubMed

Dubow, Eric F; Huesmann, L Rowell; Boxer, Paul

2009-06-01

In this article, we describe a theoretical framework for understanding how persistent and extreme exposure to ethnic-political conflict and violence interacts with cognitive, emotional, and self processes to influence children's psychosocial adjustment. Three recent strands of theorizing guide our approach. First, we focus on how observational and social learning processes combine to influence the development of social-cognitive structures and processes that affect behavior. Second, we focus on the role of developing self and identity processes in shaping the child's interactions with the world and the consequences of those interactions. Third, we build on the complex systems perspective on development and assume that human development can only be understood accurately by examining how the multiple contexts affecting children and the adults in their lives interact to moderate biosocial factors which predispose individuals to develop in certain directions. We review the recent empirical literature on children's exposure to ethnic-political violence and we apply the social-cognitive-ecological framework to the empirical findings in this literature. Finally, we propose future directions for research and clinical implications derived from this framework.

The nature of social cognitive deficits in children and adults with Klinefelter syndrome (47,XXY).

PubMed

van Rijn, S; de Sonneville, L; Swaab, H

2018-02-06

About 1 in 650 boys are born with an extra X chromosome (47,XXY or Klinefelter syndrome). 47,XXY is associated with vulnerabilities in socio-emotional development. This study was designed to assess types of cognitive deficits in individuals with 47,XXY that may contribute to social-emotional dysfunction, and to evaluate the nature of such deficits at various levels: ranging from basic visuospatial processing deficits, impairments in face recognition (FR), to emotion expression impairments. A total of 70 boys and men with 47,XXY, aged 8 to 60 years old, participated in the study. The subtests feature identification, FR and identification of facial emotions of the Amsterdam Neuropsychological Tasks were used. Level of intellectual functioning was assessed with the child and adult versions of the Wechsler Intelligence Scales. Reaction time data showed that in the 47,XXY group, 17% had difficulties in visuospatial processing (no social load), 26% had difficulties with FR (medium social load) and an even higher number of 33% had difficulties with facial expressions of emotions (high-social load). Information processing impairments increased as a function of "social load" of the stimuli, independent of intellectual functioning. Taken together, our data suggest that on average individuals with XXY may have more difficulties in information processing when "social load" increases, suggesting a specific difficulty in the higher-order labeling and interpretation of social cues, which cannot be explained by more basic visuospatial perceptual skills. Considering the increased risk for social cognitive impairments, routine assessment of social cognitive functioning as part of neuropsychological screening is warranted. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society.

Evidence for social working memory from a parametric functional MRI study.

PubMed

Meyer, Meghan L; Spunt, Robert P; Berkman, Elliot T; Taylor, Shelley E; Lieberman, Matthew D

2012-02-07

Keeping track of various amounts of social cognitive information, including people's mental states, traits, and relationships, is fundamental to navigating social interactions. However, to date, no research has examined which brain regions support variable amounts of social information processing ("social load"). We developed a social working memory paradigm to examine the brain networks sensitive to social load. Two networks showed linear increases in activation as a function of increasing social load: the medial frontoparietal regions implicated in social cognition and the lateral frontoparietal system implicated in nonsocial forms of working memory. Of these networks, only load-dependent medial frontoparietal activity was associated with individual differences in social cognitive ability (trait perspective-taking). Although past studies of nonsocial load have uniformly found medial frontoparietal activity decreases with increasing task demands, the current study demonstrates these regions do support increasing mental effort when such effort engages social cognition. Implications for the etiology of clinical disorders that implicate social functioning and potential interventions are discussed.

The Importance of Social Cognition in Improving Functional Outcomes in Schizophrenia

PubMed Central

Javed, Afzal; Charles, Asha

2018-01-01

Social cognition has become recognized as an important driver of functional outcomes and overall recovery in patients with schizophrenia, mediating the relationship between neurocognition and social functioning. Since antipsychotic therapy targeting remission of clinical symptoms has been shown to have a limited impact on social cognition, there has been an increasing drive to develop therapeutic strategies to specifically improve social cognition in schizophrenia. We sought to review current evidence relating to social cognition in schizophrenia and its clinical implications, including interventions designed to target the core domains of social cognition (emotion processing, theory of mind, attributional bias, and social perception) as a means of improving functional outcomes and thereby increasing the likelihood of recovery. Relevant articles were identified by conducting a literature search in PubMed using the search terms “schizophrenia” AND “cognition” AND “social functioning,” limited to Title/Abstract, over a time period of the past 10 years. Current evidence demonstrates that schizophrenia is associated with impairments in all four core domains of social cognition, during the pre-first-episode, first-episode, early, and chronic phases of the disease, and that such impairments are important determinants of functional outcome. Interventions targeting the four core domains of social cognition comprise psychosocial approaches (social cognition training programs) and pharmacological therapies. Social cognition training programs targeting multiple and specific core domains of social cognition have shown promise in improving social cognition skills, which, in some cases, has translated into improvements in functional outcomes. Use of some psychosocial interventions has additionally resulted in improvements in clinical symptoms and/or quality of life. Pharmacological therapies, including oxytocin and certain antipsychotics, have yielded more mixed results, due in part to the confounding impact of factors including variation in receptor genetics, bioavailability, pharmacokinetics, and drug–drug interactions, and inconsistencies between study designs and medication dosages. Additional research is required to advance our understanding of the role of social cognition in schizophrenia, and to further establish the utility of targeted interventions in this setting. PMID:29740360

Mechanisms of age-related cognitive change and targets for intervention: social interactions and stress.

PubMed

Kremen, William S; Lachman, Margie E; Pruessner, Jens C; Sliwinski, Martin; Wilson, Robert S

2012-06-01

The effects of biological and physical factors on cognitive aging are widely studied. Less is known about the role of psychosocial factors such as stress and social relationships for cognitive functioning. Speakers in Session IV of the Summit focused on possible mechanisms linking social interactions and stressful experiences to cognitive changes with aging. Elevated cortisol, repetitive thinking, negative emotions, neuroticism, chronic stress, and early life adversity were negatively associated with memory and other cognitive dimensions in later life. In contrast, supportive social relationships were found to be positively related to cognitive functioning. Some evidence was provided for multidirectional, causal relationships involving stress and negative affect as both antecedents and consequences of cognitive decline. The findings contribute to understanding the potential underlying causal processes linking psychosocial factors and cognitive aging with a developmental focus on the etiology of declines and onset of cognitive impairments. This work provides an important foundation for future research to identify modifiable factors and to design interventions to minimize cognitive declines and optimize cognitive health in adulthood.

Mechanisms of functional improvement through cognitive rehabilitation in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Peña, J; Ibarretxe-Bilbao, N; Sánchez, P; Uriarte, J J; Elizagarate, E; Gutierrez, M; Ojeda, N

2018-06-01

Whereas the efficacy of cognitive rehabilitation in schizophrenia is widely known, studies examining mechanisms for functional improvement are still scarce. The aim of the study was to examine the mediational mechanisms through which cognitive rehabilitation improves functioning in schizophrenia. One hundred and eleven schizophrenia patients were randomly assigned to either a 4-month cognitive rehabilitation group or an active control group. Patients underwent a neurocognitive battery (including processing speed, verbal memory, working memory and executive functioning) and social cognition assessment (emotion perception, theory of mind and social perception). Functioning was assessed by the combined use of a performance-based instrument, the UCSD Performance-based Skills Assessment (UPSA) and an observer-rated instrument, the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF). The trial was registered in clinicaltrials.gov (NCT02796417). Multiple mediational analyses revealed that the effect of cognitive rehabilitation on functional improvement was partially mediated by changes in processing speed and verbal memory, but not by the domains of social cognition and negative symptoms. More specifically, verbal memory partially mediated the treatment's effect on performance-based functioning (UPSA), whereas processing speed acted as a partial mediator for observer-rated functioning (GAF). The effect of rehabilitation on functioning did not take place through all the domains that showed significant improvement. Verbal memory and processing speed emerged as the most crucial factors. However, these complex interactions need further research. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Incubation environment impacts the social cognition of adult lizards.

PubMed

Siviter, Harry; Deeming, D Charles; van Giezen, M F T; Wilkinson, Anna

2017-11-01

Recent work exploring the relationship between early environmental conditions and cognition has shown that incubation environment can influence both brain anatomy and performance in simple operant tasks in young lizards. It is currently unknown how it impacts other, potentially more sophisticated, cognitive processes. Social-cognitive abilities, such as gaze following and social learning, are thought to be highly adaptive as they provide a short-cut to acquiring new information. Here, we investigated whether egg incubation temperature influenced two aspects of social cognition, gaze following and social learning in adult reptiles ( Pogona vitticeps ). Incubation temperature did not influence the gaze following ability of the bearded dragons; however, lizards incubated at colder temperatures were quicker at learning a social task and faster at completing that task. These results are the first to show that egg incubation temperature influences the social cognitive abilities of an oviparous reptile species and that it does so differentially depending on the task. Further, the results show that the effect of incubation environment was not ephemeral but lasted long into adulthood. It could thus have potential long-term effects on fitness.

Incubation environment impacts the social cognition of adult lizards

PubMed Central

van Giezen, M. F. T.

2017-01-01

Recent work exploring the relationship between early environmental conditions and cognition has shown that incubation environment can influence both brain anatomy and performance in simple operant tasks in young lizards. It is currently unknown how it impacts other, potentially more sophisticated, cognitive processes. Social-cognitive abilities, such as gaze following and social learning, are thought to be highly adaptive as they provide a short-cut to acquiring new information. Here, we investigated whether egg incubation temperature influenced two aspects of social cognition, gaze following and social learning in adult reptiles (Pogona vitticeps). Incubation temperature did not influence the gaze following ability of the bearded dragons; however, lizards incubated at colder temperatures were quicker at learning a social task and faster at completing that task. These results are the first to show that egg incubation temperature influences the social cognitive abilities of an oviparous reptile species and that it does so differentially depending on the task. Further, the results show that the effect of incubation environment was not ephemeral but lasted long into adulthood. It could thus have potential long-term effects on fitness. PMID:29291066

The enactive mind, or from actions to cognition: lessons from autism.

PubMed Central

Klin, Ami; Jones, Warren; Schultz, Robert; Volkmar, Fred

2003-01-01

Normative-IQ individuals with autism are capable of solving explicit social cognitive problems at a level that is not matched by their ability to meet the demands of everyday social situations. The magnitude of this discrepancy is now being documented through newer techniques such as eye tracking, which allows us to see and measure how individuals with autism search for meaning when presented with naturalistic social scenes. This paper offers an approach to social cognitive development intended to address the above discrepancy, which is considered a key element for any understanding of the pathophysiology of autism. This approach, called the enactive mind (EM), originates from the emerging work on 'embodied cognitive science', a neuroscience framework that views cognition as bodily experiences accrued as a result of an organism's adaptive actions upon salient aspects of the surrounding environment. The EM approach offers a developmental hypothesis of autism in which the process of acquisition of embodied social cognition is derailed early on, as a result of reduced salience of social stimuli and concomitant enactment of socially irrelevant aspects of the environment. PMID:12639332

Developmental issues in school-based aggression prevention from a social-cognitive perspective.

PubMed

Boxer, Paul; Goldstein, Sara E; Musher-Eizenman, Dara; Dubow, Eric F; Heretick, Donna

2005-09-01

Contemporary research on the development and prevention of aggressive behavior in childhood and adolescence emphasizes the importance of social-cognitive factors such as perceptual biases, problem-solving skills, and social-moral beliefs in the maintenance of aggression. Indeed, school-based social-cognitive intervention approaches have been identified as best practices by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, because child age is an important covariate of both intervention effectiveness and social-cognitive ability, school-based prevention program designers should keep in mind a number of issues identified through developmental research. In this paper, we review the social-cognitive model of aggressive behavior development as applied to prevention programming. We then discuss some of the ways in which the broader developmental research base can inform the design of aggression prevention programs. EDITORS' STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS: Educational administrators and policy makers will find evidence in this review that school-based programs that employ a social-cognitive model represent a strategy that works for preventing violence. Prevention researchers will also benefit from the authors' insights regarding theoretical mediating processes and the importance of a developmental view.

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

PubMed Central

Wiltshire, Travis J.; Lobato, Emilio J. C.; McConnell, Daniel S.; Fiore, Stephen M.

2015-01-01

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. PMID:25709572

Open, randomized trial of the effects of aripiprazole versus risperidone on social cognition in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Maat, Arija; Cahn, Wiepke; Gijsman, Harm J; Hovens, Johannes E; Kahn, René S; Aleman, André

2014-04-01

To date, only few studies have examined the impact of medication on social cognition and none have examined the effects of aripiprazole in this respect. The goal of this 8-week, randomized, multicenter, open-label study was to examine the effects of aripiprazole and risperidone on social cognition and neurocognition in individuals with schizophrenia. Eighty schizophrenia patients (DSM-IV-TR) aged 16-50 years were administered multiple computerized measures of social cognition and neurocognition including reaction times at baseline and the end of week 8. Social functioning was mapped with the Social Functioning scale and Quality of Life scale. The study ran from June 2005 to March 2011. Scores on social cognitive and neurocognitive tests improved with both treatments, as did reaction time. There were few differences between the two antipsychotics on (social) cognitive test-scores. The aripiprazole group performed better (more correct items) on symbol substitution (P=.003). Aripiprazole was also superior to risperidone on reaction time for emotional working memory and working memory (P=.006 and P=.023, respectively). Improvements on these tests were correlated with social functioning. In conclusion, aripiprazole and risperidone showed a similar impact on social cognitive test-scores. However, aripiprazole treatment produced a greater effect on patients' processing speed compared to risperidone, with these improvements being associated with concurrent improvements in social functioning. Further research on the long-term effects of aripiprazole on cognition is warranted. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. and ECNP. All rights reserved.

From neural signatures of emotional modulation to social cognition: individual differences in healthy volunteers and psychiatric participants

PubMed Central

Aguado, Jaume; Baez, Sandra; Huepe, David; Lopez, Vladimir; Ortega, Rodrigo; Sigman, Mariano; Mikulan, Ezequiel; Lischinsky, Alicia; Torrente, Fernando; Cetkovich, Marcelo; Torralva, Teresa; Bekinschtein, Tristan; Manes, Facundo

2014-01-01

It is commonly assumed that early emotional signals provide relevant information for social cognition tasks. The goal of this study was to test the association between (a) cortical markers of face emotional processing and (b) social-cognitive measures, and also to build a model which can predict this association (a and b) in healthy volunteers as well as in different groups of psychiatric patients. Thus, we investigated the early cortical processing of emotional stimuli (N170, using a face and word valence task) and their relationship with the social-cognitive profiles (SCPs, indexed by measures of theory of mind, fluid intelligence, speed processing and executive functions). Group comparisons and individual differences were assessed among schizophrenia (SCZ) patients and their relatives, individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), individuals with euthymic bipolar disorder (BD) and healthy participants (educational level, handedness, age and gender matched). Our results provide evidence of emotional N170 impairments in the affected groups (SCZ and relatives, ADHD and BD) as well as subtle group differences. Importantly, cortical processing of emotional stimuli predicted the SCP, as evidenced by a structural equation model analysis. This is the first study to report an association model of brain markers of emotional processing and SCP. PMID:23685775

Why epilepsy challenges social life.

PubMed

Steiger, Bettina K; Jokeit, Hennric

2017-01-01

Social bonds are at the center of our daily living and are an essential determinant of our quality of life. In people with epilepsy, numerous factors can impede cognitive and affective functions necessary for smooth social interactions. Psychological and psychiatric complications are common in epilepsy and may hinder the processing of social information. In addition, neuropsychological deficits such as slowed processing speed, memory loss or attentional difficulties may interfere with enjoyable reciprocity of social interactions. We consider societal, psychological, and neuropsychological aspects of social life with particular emphasis on socio-cognitive functions in temporal lobe epilepsy. Deficits in emotion recognition and theory of mind, two main aspects of social cognition, are frequently observed in individuals with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy. Results from behavioural studies targeting these functions will be presented with a focus on their relevance for patients' daily life. Furthermore, we will broach the issue of pitfalls in current diagnostic tools and potential directions for future research. By giving a broad overview of individual and interpersonal determinants of social functioning in epilepsy, we hope to provide a basis for future research to establish social cognition as a key component in the comprehensive assessment and care of those with epilepsy. Copyright © 2016 British Epilepsy Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Action mechanisms for social cognition: behavioral and neural correlates of developing Theory of Mind

PubMed Central

Bowman, Lindsay C.; Thorpe, Samuel G.; Cannon, Erin N.; Fox, Nathan A.

2016-01-01

Many psychological theories posit foundational links between two fundamental constructs: (1) our ability to produce, perceive, and represent action; and (2) our ability to understand the meaning and motivation behind the action (i.e. Theory of Mind; ToM). This position is contentious, however, and long-standing competing theories of social-cognitive development debate roles for basic action-processing in ToM. Developmental research is key to investigating these hypotheses, but whether individual differences in neural and behavioral measures of motor action relate to social-cognitive development is unknown. We examined 3- to 5-year-old children’s (N = 26) EEG mu-desynchronization during production of object-directed action, and explored associations between mu-desynchronization and children’s behavioral motor skills, behavioral action-representation abilities, and behavioral ToM. For children with high (but not low) mu-desynchronization, motor skill related to action-representation abilities, and action-representation mediated relations between motor skill and ToM. Results demonstrate novel foundational links between action-processing and ToM, suggesting that basic motor action may be a key mechanism for social-cognitive development, thus shedding light on the origins and emergence of higher social cognition. PMID:27573916

Grist and mills: on the cultural origins of cultural learning

PubMed Central

Heyes, Cecilia

2012-01-01

Cumulative cultural evolution is what ‘makes us odd’; our capacity to learn facts and techniques from others, and to refine them over generations, plays a major role in making human minds and lives radically different from those of other animals. In this article, I discuss cognitive processes that are known collectively as ‘cultural learning’ because they enable cumulative cultural evolution. These cognitive processes include reading, social learning, imitation, teaching, social motivation and theory of mind. Taking the first of these three types of cultural learning as examples, I ask whether and to what extent these cognitive processes have been adapted genetically or culturally to enable cumulative cultural evolution. I find that recent empirical work in comparative psychology, developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience provides surprisingly little evidence of genetic adaptation, and ample evidence of cultural adaptation. This raises the possibility that it is not only ‘grist’ but also ‘mills’ that are culturally inherited; through social interaction in the course of development, we not only acquire facts about the world and how to deal with it (grist), we also build the cognitive processes that make ‘fact inheritance’ possible (mills). PMID:22734061

Social Cognitive Training Improves Emotional Processing and Reduces Aggressive Attitudes in Ex-combatants

PubMed Central

Trujillo, Sandra; Trujillo, Natalia; Lopez, Jose D.; Gomez, Diana; Valencia, Stella; Rendon, Jorge; Pineda, David A.; Parra, Mario A.

2017-01-01

Emotional processing (EP) is a complex cognitive function necessary to successfully adjust to social environments where we need to interpret and respond to cues that convey threat or reward signals. Ex-combatants have consistently shown atypical EP as well as poor social interactions. Available reintegration programs aim to facilitate the re-adaptation of ex-combatants to their communities. However, they do not incorporate actions to improve EP and to enhance cognitive-emotional regulation. The present study was aimed at evaluating the usefulness of an intervention focused on Social Cognitive Training (SCT), which was designed to equip ex-combatants enrolled in the Social Reintegration Route with EP and social cognition skills. A group of 31 ex-combatants (mean age of 37.2, 29 men) from Colombian illegal armed groups were recruited into this study. Of these, 16 were invited to take part in a SCT and the other continued with the conventional reintegration intervention. Both groups underwent 12 training sessions in a period 12–14 weeks. They were assessed with a comprehensive protocol which included Psychosocial, Behavioral, and Emotion Processing instruments. The scores on these instruments prior to and after the intervention were compared within and between groups. Both groups were matched at baseline. Ex-combatants receiving the SCT experienced significant improvements in EP and a reduction in aggressive attitudes, effects not observed in those continuing the conventional reintegration intervention. This is the first study that achieves such outcomes in such a population using SCT intervention. We discuss the implications of such results toward better social reintegration strategies. PMID:28428767

Social Cognitive Training Improves Emotional Processing and Reduces Aggressive Attitudes in Ex-combatants.

PubMed

Trujillo, Sandra; Trujillo, Natalia; Lopez, Jose D; Gomez, Diana; Valencia, Stella; Rendon, Jorge; Pineda, David A; Parra, Mario A

2017-01-01

Emotional processing (EP) is a complex cognitive function necessary to successfully adjust to social environments where we need to interpret and respond to cues that convey threat or reward signals. Ex-combatants have consistently shown atypical EP as well as poor social interactions. Available reintegration programs aim to facilitate the re-adaptation of ex-combatants to their communities. However, they do not incorporate actions to improve EP and to enhance cognitive-emotional regulation. The present study was aimed at evaluating the usefulness of an intervention focused on Social Cognitive Training (SCT), which was designed to equip ex-combatants enrolled in the Social Reintegration Route with EP and social cognition skills. A group of 31 ex-combatants (mean age of 37.2, 29 men) from Colombian illegal armed groups were recruited into this study. Of these, 16 were invited to take part in a SCT and the other continued with the conventional reintegration intervention. Both groups underwent 12 training sessions in a period 12-14 weeks. They were assessed with a comprehensive protocol which included Psychosocial, Behavioral, and Emotion Processing instruments. The scores on these instruments prior to and after the intervention were compared within and between groups. Both groups were matched at baseline. Ex-combatants receiving the SCT experienced significant improvements in EP and a reduction in aggressive attitudes, effects not observed in those continuing the conventional reintegration intervention. This is the first study that achieves such outcomes in such a population using SCT intervention. We discuss the implications of such results toward better social reintegration strategies.

Application of a model of social information processing to nursing theory: how nurses respond to patients.

PubMed

Sheldon, Lisa Kennedy; Ellington, Lee

2008-11-01

This paper is a report of a study to assess the applicability of a theoretical model of social information processing in expanding a nursing theory addressing how nurses respond to patients. Nursing communication affects patient outcomes such as anxiety, adherence to treatments and satisfaction with care. Orlando's theory of nursing process describes nurses' reactions to patients' behaviour as generating a perception, thought and feeling in the nurse and then action by the nurse. A model of social information processing describes the sequential steps in the cognitive processes used to respond to social cues and may be useful in describing the nursing process. Cognitive interviews were conducted in 2006 with a convenience sample of 5 nurses in the United States of America. The data were interpreted using the Crick and Dodge model of social information processing. Themes arising from cognitive interviews validated concepts of the nursing theory and the constructs of the model of social information processing. The interviews revealed that the support of peers was an additional construct involved in the development of communication skills, creation of a database and enhancement of self-efficacy. Models of social information processing enhance understanding of the process of how nurses respond to patients and further develop nursing theories further. In combination, the theories are useful in developing research into nurse-patient communication. Future research based on the expansion of nursing theory may identify effective and culturally appropriate nurse response patterns to specific patient interactions with implications for nursing care and patient outcomes.

The Effects of Social Cue Principles on Cognitive Load, Situational Interest, Motivation, and Achievement in Pedagogical Agent Multimedia Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Park, Sanghoon

2015-01-01

Animated pedagogical agents have become popular in multimedia learning with combined delivery of verbal and non-verbal forms of information. In order to reduce unnecessary cognitive load caused by such multiple forms of information and also to foster generative cognitive processing, multimedia design principles with social cues are suggested…

Promoting cognitive and social aspects of inquiry through classroom discourse

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jin, Hui; Wei, Xin; Duan, Peiran; Guo, Yuying; Wang, Wenxia

2016-01-01

We investigated how Chinese physics teachers structured classroom discourse to support the cognitive and social aspects of inquiry-based science learning. Regarding the cognitive aspect, we examined to what extent the cognitive processes underlying the scientific skills and the disciplinary reasoning behind the content knowledge were taught. Regarding the social aspect, we examined how classroom discourse supported student learning in terms of students' opportunities to talk and interaction patterns. Our participants were 17 physics teachers who were actively engaged in teacher education programs in universities and professional development programs in local school districts. We analyzed one lesson video from each participating teacher. The results suggest both promises and challenges. Regarding the cognitive aspect of inquiry, the teachers in general recognized the importance of teaching the cognitive processes and disciplinary reasoning. However, they were less likely to address common intuitive ideas about science concepts and principles. Regarding the social aspect of inquiry, the teachers frequently interacted with students in class. However, it appeared that facilitating conversations among students and prompting students to talk about their own ideas are challenging. We discuss the implications of these findings for teacher education programs and professional development programs in China.

Answering the missed call: Initial exploration of cognitive and electrophysiological changes associated with smartphone use and abuse.

PubMed

Hadar, Aviad; Hadas, Itay; Lazarovits, Avi; Alyagon, Uri; Eliraz, Daniel; Zangen, Abraham

2017-01-01

Smartphone usage is now integral to human behavior. Recent studies associate extensive usage with a range of debilitating effects. We sought to determine whether excessive usage is accompanied by measurable neural, cognitive and behavioral changes. Subjects lacking previous experience with smartphones (n = 35) were compared to a matched group of heavy smartphone users (n = 16) on numerous behavioral and electrophysiological measures recorded using electroencephalogram (EEG) combined with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the right prefrontal cortex (rPFC). In a second longitudinal intervention, a randomly selected sample of the original non-users received smartphones for 3 months while the others served as controls. All measurements were repeated following this intervention. Heavy users showed increased impulsivity, hyperactivity and negative social concern. We also found reduced early TMS evoked potentials in the rPFC of this group, which correlated with severity of self-reported inattention problems. Heavy users also obtained lower accuracy rates than nonusers in a numerical processing. Critically, the second part of the experiment revealed that both the numerical processing and social cognition domains are causally linked to smartphone usage. Heavy usage was found to be associated with impaired attention, reduced numerical processing capacity, changes in social cognition, and reduced right prefrontal cortex (rPFC) excitability. Memory impairments were not detected. Novel usage over short period induced a significant reduction in numerical processing capacity and changes in social cognition.

A comparison of basic and social cognition between schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder.

PubMed

Fiszdon, Joanna M; Richardson, Randall; Greig, Tamasine; Bell, Morris D

2007-03-01

We compared basic and social cognition in individuals with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. 199 individuals with schizophrenia and 73 with schizoaffective disorder were compared on measures of executive function, verbal and nonverbal memory, and processing speed, as well as two measures of social cognition, the Hinting Task and the Bell Lysaker Emotion Recognition Task. The samples did not differ significantly on the basic cognitive measures, however individuals with schizoaffective disorder performed significantly better than those with schizophrenia on the Hinting Task, a measure of Theory of Mind. Results provide limited support for a taxonomic distinction between the two disorders.

Building social cognitive models of language change.

PubMed

Hruschka, Daniel J; Christiansen, Morten H; Blythe, Richard A; Croft, William; Heggarty, Paul; Mufwene, Salikoko S; Pierrehumbert, Janet B; Poplack, Shana

2009-11-01

Studies of language change have begun to contribute to answering several pressing questions in cognitive sciences, including the origins of human language capacity, the social construction of cognition and the mechanisms underlying culture change in general. Here, we describe recent advances within a new emerging framework for the study of language change, one that models such change as an evolutionary process among competing linguistic variants. We argue that a crucial and unifying element of this framework is the use of probabilistic, data-driven models both to infer change and to compare competing claims about social and cognitive influences on language change.

Transcranial Electrical Stimulation over Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex Modulates Processing of Social Cognitive and Affective Information.

PubMed

Conson, Massimiliano; Errico, Domenico; Mazzarella, Elisabetta; Giordano, Marianna; Grossi, Dario; Trojano, Luigi

2015-01-01

Recent neurofunctional studies suggested that lateral prefrontal cortex is a domain-general cognitive control area modulating computation of social information. Neuropsychological evidence reported dissociations between cognitive and affective components of social cognition. Here, we tested whether performance on social cognitive and affective tasks can be modulated by transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). To this aim, we compared the effects of tDCS on explicit recognition of emotional facial expressions (affective task), and on one cognitive task assessing the ability to adopt another person's visual perspective. In a randomized, cross-over design, male and female healthy participants performed the two experimental tasks after bi-hemispheric tDCS (sham, left anodal/right cathodal, and right anodal/left cathodal) applied over DLPFC. Results showed that only in male participants explicit recognition of fearful facial expressions was significantly faster after anodal right/cathodal left stimulation with respect to anodal left/cathodal right and sham stimulations. In the visual perspective taking task, instead, anodal right/cathodal left stimulation negatively affected both male and female participants' tendency to adopt another's point of view. These findings demonstrated that concurrent facilitation of right and inhibition of left lateral prefrontal cortex can speed-up males' responses to threatening faces whereas it interferes with the ability to adopt another's viewpoint independently from gender. Thus, stimulation of cognitive control areas can lead to different effects on social cognitive skills depending on the affective vs. cognitive nature of the task, and on the gender-related differences in neural organization of emotion processing.

Implicit social cognition: From measures to mechanisms

PubMed Central

Nosek, Brian A.; Hawkins, Carlee Beth; Frazier, Rebecca S.

2011-01-01

Most of human cognition occurs outside of conscious awareness or conscious control. Some of these implicit processes influence social perception, judgment and action. The last fifteen years of research in implicit social cognition can be characterized as the Age of Measurement because of a proliferation of measurement methods and research evidence demonstrating their practical value for predicting human behavior. Implicit measures assess constructs that are distinct, but related, to self-report assessments, and predict variation in behavior that is not accounted for by those explicit measures. The present state of knowledge provides a foundation for the next age of implicit social cognition – clarification of the mechanisms underlying implicit measurement and how the measured constructs influence behavior. PMID:21376657

The Effects of Television Violence and Early Harsh Discipline on Children's Social Cognitions and Peer-Directed Aggression.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Frazier, Stacy L.; And Others

This study examined the additive and interactive effects of television viewing and harsh, physical discipline on children's social information processing and subsequent aggression; and the effects of heavy viewing versus permission to view violent content on children's social cognitions and aggression. Participating were 535 children and their…

Development and Validation of a Gender-Balanced Measure of Aggression-Relevant Social Cognition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hughes, Jan N.; Webster-Stratton, Barbara T.; Cavell, Timothy A.

2004-01-01

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Social?Cognitive Assessment Profile (SCAP), a gender-balanced measure of social information processing (SIP) in a sample of 371 (139 girls, 232 boys) 2nd- to 4th-grade children. The SCAP assesses 4 dimensions of SIP (Inferring Hostile Intent, Constructing Hostile Goals, Generating Aggressive…

The Role of Personality in Adolescent Career Planning and Exploration: A Social Cognitive Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rogers, Mary E.; Creed, Peter A.; Glendon, A. Ian

2008-01-01

Social cognitive career theory (SCCT) recognises the importance of individual differences and contextual influences in the career decision-making process. In extending the SCCT choice model, this study tested the role of personality, social supports, and the SCCT variables of self-efficacy, outcome expectations and goals in explaining the career…

Post-event processing in social anxiety.

PubMed

Dannahy, Laura; Stopa, Lusia

2007-06-01

Clark and Wells' [1995. A cognitive model of social phobia. In: R. Heimberg, M. Liebowitz, D.A. Hope, & F.R. Schneier (Eds.) Social phobia: Diagnosis, assessment and treatment (pp. 69-93). New York: Guildford Press.] cognitive model of social phobia proposes that following a social event, individuals with social phobia will engage in post-event processing, during which they conduct a detailed review of the event. This study investigated the relationship between self-appraisals of performance and post-event processing in individuals high and low in social anxiety. Participants appraised their performance immediately after a conversation with an unknown individual and prior to an anticipated second conversation task 1 week later. The frequency and valence of post-event processing during the week following the conversation was also assessed. The study also explored differences in the metacognitive processes of high and low socially anxious participants. The high socially anxious group experienced more anxiety, predicted worse performance, underestimated their actual performance, and engaged in more post-event processing than low socially anxious participants. The degree of negative post-event processing was linked to the extent of social anxiety and negative appraisals of performance, both immediately after the conversation task and 1 week later. Differences were also observed in some metacognitive processes. The results are discussed in relation to current theory and previous research.

Neural correlates of three cognitive processes involved in theory of mind and discourse comprehension.

PubMed

Lin, Nan; Yang, Xiaohong; Li, Jing; Wang, Shaonan; Hua, Huimin; Ma, Yujun; Li, Xingshan

2018-04-01

Neuroimaging studies have found that theory of mind (ToM) and discourse comprehension involve similar brain regions. These brain regions may be associated with three cognitive components that are necessarily or frequently involved in ToM and discourse comprehension, including social concept representation and retrieval, domain-general semantic integration, and domain-specific integration of social semantic contents. Using fMRI, we investigated the neural correlates of these three cognitive components by exploring how discourse topic (social/nonsocial) and discourse processing period (ending/beginning) modulate brain activation in a discourse comprehension (and also ToM) task. Different sets of brain areas showed sensitivity to discourse topic, discourse processing period, and the interaction between them, respectively. The most novel finding was that the right temporoparietal junction and middle temporal gyrus showed sensitivity to discourse processing period only during social discourse comprehension, indicating that they selectively contribute to domain-specific semantic integration. Our finding indicates how different domains of semantic information are processed and integrated in the brain and provides new insights into the neural correlates of ToM and discourse comprehension.

Learners' Internal Management of Cognitive Processing in Online Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, C.-Y.; Pedersen, S.

2012-01-01

This study examined students' internal management of their cognitive processing in an interactive online class. A mixed methods approach was used to explore students' strategy use in online discussions. The focus is on examining individual knowledge construction through active cognitive engagement, rather than the social interactions, in the…

Training Implicit Social Anxiety Associations: An Experimental Intervention

PubMed Central

Clerkin, Elise M.; Teachman, Bethany A.

2010-01-01

The current study investigates an experimental anxiety reduction intervention among a highly socially anxious sample (N=108; n=36 per Condition; 80 women). Using a conditioning paradigm, our goal was to modify implicit social anxiety associations to directly test the premise from cognitive models that biased cognitive processing may be causally related to anxious responding. Participants were trained to preferentially process non-threatening information through repeated pairings of self-relevant stimuli and faces indicating positive social feedback. As expected, participants in this positive training condition (relative to our two control conditions) displayed less negative implicit associations following training, and were more likely to complete an impromptu speech (though they did not report less anxiety during the speech). These findings offer partial support for cognitive models and indicate that implicit associations are not only correlated with social anxiety, they may be causally related to anxiety reduction as well. PMID:20102788

Training implicit social anxiety associations: an experimental intervention.

PubMed

Clerkin, Elise M; Teachman, Bethany A

2010-04-01

The current study investigates an experimental anxiety reduction intervention among a highly socially anxious sample (N=108; n=36 per Condition; 80 women). Using a conditioning paradigm, our goal was to modify implicit social anxiety associations to directly test the premise from cognitive models that biased cognitive processing may be causally related to anxious responding. Participants were trained to preferentially process non-threatening information through repeated pairings of self-relevant stimuli and faces indicating positive social feedback. As expected, participants in this positive training condition (relative to our two control conditions) displayed less negative implicit associations following training, and were more likely to complete an impromptu speech (though they did not report less anxiety during the speech). These findings offer partial support for cognitive models and indicate that implicit associations are not only correlated with social anxiety, they may be causally related to anxiety reduction as well. (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Analysis of Online Social Networks to Understand Information Sharing Behaviors Through Social Cognitive Theory.

PubMed

Yoon, Hong-Jun; Tourassi, Georgia

2014-05-01

Analyzing the contents of online social networks is an effective process for monitoring and understanding peoples' behaviors. Since the nature of conversation and information propagation is similar to traditional conversation and learning, one of the popular socio-cognitive methods, social cognitive theory was applied to online social networks to. Two major news topics about colon cancer were chosen to monitor traffic of Twitter messages. The activity of "leaders" on the issue (i.e., news companies or people will prior Twitter activity on topics related to colon cancer) was monitored. In addition, the activity of "followers", people who never discussed the topics before, but replied to the discussions was also monitored. Topics that produce tangible benefits such as positive outcomes from appropriate preventive actions received dramatically more attention and online social media traffic. Such characteristics can be explained with social cognitive theory and thus present opportunities for effective health campaigns.

Cognitive neuroscience of social emotions and implications for psychopathology: examining embarrassment, guilt, envy, and schadenfreude.

PubMed

Jankowski, Kathryn F; Takahashi, Hidehiko

2014-05-01

Social emotions are affective states elicited during social interactions and integral for promoting socially appropriate behaviors and discouraging socially inappropriate ones. Social emotion-processing deficits significantly impair interpersonal relationships, and play distinct roles in the manifestation and maintenance of clinical symptomatology. Elucidating the neural correlates of discrete social emotions can serve as a window to better understanding and treating neuropsychiatric disorders. Moral cognition and social emotion-processing broadly recruit a fronto-temporo-subcortical network, supporting empathy, perspective-taking, self-processing, and reward-processing. The present review specifically examines the neural correlates of embarrassment, guilt, envy, and schadenfreude. Embarrassment and guilt are self-conscious emotions, evoked during negative evaluation following norm violations and supported by a fronto-temporo-posterior network. Embarrassment is evoked by social transgressions and recruits greater anterior temporal regions, representing conceptual social knowledge. Guilt is evoked by moral transgressions and recruits greater prefrontal regions, representing perspective-taking and behavioral change demands. Envy and schadenfreude are fortune-of-other emotions, evoked during social comparison and supported by a prefronto-striatal network. Envy represents displeasure in others' fortunes, and recruits increased dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, representing cognitive dissonance, and decreased reward-related striatal regions. Schadenfreude represents pleasure in others' misfortunes, and recruits reduced empathy-related insular regions and increased reward-related striatal regions. Implications for psychopathology and treatment design are discussed. © 2014 The Authors. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences © 2014 Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology.

Social Cognition in Preschoolers: Effects of Early Experience and Individual Differences

PubMed Central

Bulgarelli, Daniela; Molina, Paola

2016-01-01

Social cognition is the way in which people process, remember, and use information in social contexts to explain and predict their own behavior and that of others. Children’s social cognition may be influenced by multiple factors, both external and internal to the child. In the current study, two aspects of social cognition were examined: Theory of Mind and Emotion Understanding. The aim of this study was to analyze the effects of type of early care (0–3 years of age), maternal education, parents’ country of birth, and child’s language on the social cognition of 118 Italian preschoolers. To our knowledge, the joint effect of these variables on social cognition has not previously been investigated in the literature. The measures used to collect social cognition and linguistic data were not parent- or teacher-reports, but based on direct assessment of the children through two standardized tests, the Test of Emotion Comprehension and the ToM Storybooks. Relationships among the variables showed a complex pattern. Overall, maternal education and linguistic competence showed a systematic effect on social cognition; the linguistic competence mediated the effect of maternal education. In children who had experienced centre-base care in the first 3 years of life, the effect of maternal education disappeared, supporting the protective role of centre-base care for children with less educated mothers. The children with native and foreign parents did not significantly differ on the social cognition tasks. Limits of the study, possible educational outcomes and future research lines were discussed. PMID:27895605

The role of social frailty in explaining the association between hearing problems and mild cognitive impairment in older adults.

PubMed

Bae, Seongryu; Lee, Sangyoon; Lee, Sungchul; Jung, Songee; Makino, Keitaro; Park, Hyuntae; Shimada, Hiroyuki

2018-06-01

We examined the role of social frailty in the association between hearing problems and mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and investigated which cognitive impairment domains are most strongly involved. Participants were 4251 older adults (mean age 72.5 ± 5.2 years, 46.1% male) who met the study inclusion criteria. Hearing problems were measured using the Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly. Social frailty was identified using responses to five questions. Participants were divided into four groups depending on the presence of social frailty and hearing problems: control, social frailty, hearing problem, and co-occurrence. We assessed memory, attention, executive function, and processing speed using the National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology-Functional Assessment Tool. Participants were categorized into normal cognition, single- and multiple-domain MCI, depending on the number of impaired cognitive domains. Participants with multiple-domain MCI exhibited the highest odds ratios (OR) of the co-occurrence group (OR: 3.89, 95% confidence intervals [CI]: 1.96-7.72), followed by the social frailty (OR: 2.65, 95% CI: 1.49-4.67), and hearing problem (OR: 1.90, 95% CI: 1.08-3.34) groups, compared with the control group. However, single-domain MCI was not significantly associated with any group. Cognitive domain analysis revealed that impaired executive function and processing speed were associated with the co-occurrence, hearing problem, and social frailty groups, respectively. Social frailty and hearing problems were independently associated with multiple-domain MCI. Comorbid conditions were more strongly associated with multiple-domain MCI. Longitudinal studies are needed to elucidate the causal role of social frailty in the association between hearing impairment and MCI. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The association between imitation recognition and socio-communicative competencies in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).

PubMed

Pope, Sarah M; Russell, Jamie L; Hopkins, William D

2015-01-01

Imitation recognition provides a viable platform from which advanced social cognitive skills may develop. Despite evidence that non-human primates are capable of imitation recognition, how this ability is related to social cognitive skills is unknown. In this study, we compared imitation recognition performance, as indicated by the production of testing behaviors, with performance on a series of tasks that assess social and physical cognition in 49 chimpanzees. In the initial analyses, we found that males were more responsive than females to being imitated and engaged in significantly greater behavior repetitions and testing sequences. We also found that subjects who consistently recognized being imitated performed better on social but not physical cognitive tasks, as measured by the Primate Cognitive Test Battery. These findings suggest that the neural constructs underlying imitation recognition are likely associated with or among those underlying more general socio-communicative abilities in chimpanzees. Implications regarding how imitation recognition may facilitate other social cognitive processes, such as mirror self-recognition, are discussed.

The association between imitation recognition and socio-communicative competencies in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

PubMed Central

Pope, Sarah M.; Russell, Jamie L.; Hopkins, William D.

2015-01-01

Imitation recognition provides a viable platform from which advanced social cognitive skills may develop. Despite evidence that non-human primates are capable of imitation recognition, how this ability is related to social cognitive skills is unknown. In this study, we compared imitation recognition performance, as indicated by the production of testing behaviors, with performance on a series of tasks that assess social and physical cognition in 49 chimpanzees. In the initial analyses, we found that males were more responsive than females to being imitated and engaged in significantly greater behavior repetitions and testing sequences. We also found that subjects who consistently recognized being imitated performed better on social but not physical cognitive tasks, as measured by the Primate Cognitive Test Battery. These findings suggest that the neural constructs underlying imitation recognition are likely associated with or among those underlying more general socio-communicative abilities in chimpanzees. Implications regarding how imitation recognition may facilitate other social cognitive processes, such as mirror self-recognition, are discussed. PMID:25767454

PLASMA OXYTOCIN LEVELS PREDICT SOCIAL CUE RECOGNITION IN INDIVIDUALS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA

PubMed Central

Strauss, Gregory P.; Keller, William R.; Koenig, James I.; Gold, James M.; Frost, Katherine H.; Buchanan, Robert W.

2015-01-01

Lower endogenous levels of the neuropeptide oxytocin may be an important biological predictor of social cognition impairments in schizophrenia (SZ). Prior studies have demonstrated that lower-level social cognitive processes (e.g., facial affect perception) are significantly associated with reduced plasma oxytocin levels in SZ; however, it is unclear whether higher-level social cognition, which requires inferential processes and knowledge not directly presented in the stimulus, is associated with endogenous oxytocin. The current study explored the association between endogenous oxytocin levels and lower- and higher-level social cognition in 40 individuals diagnosed with SZ and 22 demographically matched healthy controls (CN). All participants received the Social Cue Recognition Test (SCRT), which presents participants with videotaped interpersonal vignettes and subsequent true/false questions related to concrete or abstract aspects of social interactions in the vignettes. Results indicated that SZ had significantly higher plasma oxytocin concentrations than CN. SZ and CN did not differ on SCRT hits, but SZ had more false positives and lower sensitivity scores than CN. Higher plasma oxytocin levels were associated with better sensitivity scores for abstract items in CN and fewer false positives for concrete items in individuals with SZ. Findings indicate that endogenous oxytocin levels predict accurate encoding of lower-level socially relevant information in SZ. PMID:25673435

The neural mediators of kindness-based meditation: a theoretical model

PubMed Central

Mascaro, Jennifer S.; Darcher, Alana; Negi, Lobsang T.; Raison, Charles L.

2015-01-01

Although kindness-based contemplative practices are increasingly employed by clinicians and cognitive researchers to enhance prosocial emotions, social cognitive skills, and well-being, and as a tool to understand the basic workings of the social mind, we lack a coherent theoretical model with which to test the mechanisms by which kindness-based meditation may alter the brain and body. Here, we link contemplative accounts of compassion and loving-kindness practices with research from social cognitive neuroscience and social psychology to generate predictions about how diverse practices may alter brain structure and function and related aspects of social cognition. Contingent on the nuances of the practice, kindness-based meditation may enhance the neural systems related to faster and more basic perceptual or motor simulation processes, simulation of another’s affective body state, slower and higher-level perspective-taking, modulatory processes such as emotion regulation and self/other discrimination, and combinations thereof. This theoretical model will be discussed alongside best practices for testing such a model and potential implications and applications of future work. PMID:25729374

Relationship between Social Cognition and traditional cognitive impairment in Progressive Multiple Sclerosis and possible implicated neuroanatomical regions.

PubMed

Ciampi, E; Uribe-San-Martin, R; Vásquez, M; Ruiz-Tagle, A; Labbe, T; Cruz, J P; Lillo, P; Slachevsky, A; Reyes, D; Reyes, A; Cárcamo-Rodríguez, C

2018-02-01

Cognitive impairment is a relevant contributor of the medical and social burden in Progressive MS. Social Cognition, the neurocognitive processes underlying social interaction, has been explored mainly in European and North American cohorts, influencing social aspects of quality of life (QOL) of early MS patients and families. Few studies have studied Social Cognition in Progressive MS and the literature on its neuroanatomical bases or brain atrophy measurements is still scarce. To explore the relationship between Social Cognition performance and its correlations with traditional cognitive domains, brain atrophy and QOL in primary and secondary Progressive MS patients. Cross-sectional analysis including: mini-Social-Cognition-and-Emotional-Assessment (mini-SEA), neuropsychological battery, disability, depression, fatigue, QOL, and brain volume. Forty-three MS patients, 23 primary and 20 secondary Progressive, 65% women, mean age and disease duration of 57.2 and 15.7 years, respectively, with high levels of disability (median EDSS 6.0) and a widespread impairment in traditional domains (mostly episodic verbal/visual and working memories) were assessed. The Mini-SEA score was correlated with executive functions (cognitive shifts Rho:0.55; p = 0.001) analyzing the whole group, and with visual episodic memory (Rho:0.58, p = 0.009) in the primary Progressive MS group. Mini-SEA score was also correlated with total normalized grey matter volume (Rho:0.48; p = 0.004). Particularly, atrophy within bilateral cortical regions of orbitofrontal, insula and cerebellum, and right regions of fusiform gyrus and precuneus were significantly associated with higher Social Cognition impairment. In this cohort, QOL was not correlated with Social Cognition, but with EDSS, fatigue and depression. In Progressive MS, Social Cognition is directly correlated with traditional cognitive domains such as executive function and episodic memory. It is also associated with global grey matter atrophy and regional atrophy within associative visual and executive cortical areas, but no correlations with QOL were found in this cohort. These findings may contribute to the understanding of the pathological bases behind Social Cognition in Progressive MS. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Conventional Wisdom: Negotiating Conventions of Reference Enhances Category Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Voiklis, John; Corter, James E.

2012-01-01

Collaborators generally coordinate their activities through communication, during which they readily negotiate a shared lexicon for activity-related objects. This social-pragmatic activity both recruits and affects cognitive and social-cognitive processes ranging from selective attention to perspective taking. We ask whether negotiating reference…

Social anxiety questionnaire (SAQ): Development and preliminary validation.

PubMed

Łakuta, Patryk

2018-05-30

The Social Anxiety Questionnaire (SAQ) was designed to assess five dimensions of social anxiety as posited by the Clark and Wells' (1995; Clark, 2001) cognitive model. The development of the SAQ involved generation of an item pool, followed by a verification of content validity and the theorized factor structure (Study 1). The final version of the SAQ was then assessed for reliability, temporal stability (test re-test reliability), and construct, criterion-related, and contrasted-group validity (Study 2, 3, and 4). Following a systematic process, the results provide support for the SAQ as reliable, and both theoretically and empirically valid measure. A five-factor structure of the SAQ verified and replicated through confirmatory factor analyses reflect five dimensions of social anxiety: negative self-processing; self-focused attention and self-monitoring; safety behaviours; somatic and cognitive symptoms; and anticipatory and post-event rumination. Results suggest that the SAQ possesses good psychometric properties, while recognizing that additional validation is a required future research direction. It is important to replicate these findings in diverse populations, including a large clinical sample. The SAQ is a promising measure that supports social anxiety as a multidimensional construct, and the foundational role of self-focused cognitive processes in generation and maintenance of social anxiety symptoms. The findings make a significant contribution to the literature, moreover, the SAQ is a first instrument that offers to assess all, proposed by the Clark-Wells model, specific cognitive-affective, physiological, attitudinal, and attention processes related to social anxiety. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Differential profiles in auditory social cognition deficits between adults with autism and schizophrenia spectrum disorders: A preliminary analysis.

PubMed

Tobe, Russell H; Corcoran, Cheryl M; Breland, Melissa; MacKay-Brandt, Anna; Klim, Casimir; Colcombe, Stanley J; Leventhal, Bennett L; Javitt, Daniel C

2016-08-01

Impairment in social cognition, including emotion recognition, has been extensively studied in both Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and Schizophrenia (SZ). However, the relative patterns of deficit between disorders have been studied to a lesser degree. Here, we applied a social cognition battery incorporating both auditory (AER) and visual (VER) emotion recognition measures to a group of 19 high-functioning individuals with ASD relative to 92 individuals with SZ, and 73 healthy control adult participants. We examined group differences and correlates of basic auditory processing and processing speed. Individuals with SZ were impaired in both AER and VER while ASD individuals were impaired in VER only. In contrast to SZ participants, those with ASD showed intact basic auditory function. Our finding of a dissociation between AER and VER deficits in ASD relative to Sz support modality-specific theories of emotion recognition dysfunction. Future studies should focus on visual system-specific contributions to social cognitive impairment in ASD. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Social cognition and African American men: The roles of perceived discrimination and experimenter race on task performance.

PubMed

Nagendra, Arundati; Twery, Benjamin L; Neblett, Enrique W; Mustafic, Hasan; Jones, Tevin S; Gatewood, D'Angelo; Penn, David L

2018-01-01

The Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation (SCOPE) study consists of a battery of eight tasks selected to measure social-cognitive deficits in individuals with schizophrenia. The battery is currently in a multisite validation process. While the SCOPE study collects basic demographic data, more nuanced race-related factors might artificially inflate cross-cultural differences in social cognition. As an initial step, we investigated whether race, independent of mental illness status, affects performance on the SCOPE battery. Thus, we examined the effects of perceived discrimination and experimenter race on the performance of 51 non-clinical African American men on the SCOPE battery. Results revealed that these factors impacted social cognitive task performance. Specifically, participants performed better on a skills-based task factor in the presence of Black experimenters, and frequency of perceived racism predicted increased perception of hostility in negative interpersonal situations with accidental causes. Thus, race-related factors are important to identify and explore in the measurement of social cognition in African Americans. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A Social-Interactive Neuroscience Approach to Understanding the Developing Brain.

PubMed

Redcay, Elizabeth; Warnell, Katherine Rice

2018-01-01

From birth onward, social interaction is central to our everyday lives. Our ability to seek out social partners, flexibly navigate and learn from social interactions, and develop social relationships is critically important for our social and cognitive development and for our mental and physical health. Despite the importance of our social interactions, the neurodevelopmental bases of such interactions are underexplored, as most research examines social processing in noninteractive contexts. We begin this chapter with evidence from behavioral work and adult neuroimaging studies demonstrating how social-interactive context fundamentally alters cognitive and neural processing. We then highlight four brain networks that play key roles in social interaction and, drawing on existing developmental neuroscience literature, posit the functional roles these networks may play in social-interactive development. We conclude by discussing how a social-interactive neuroscience approach holds great promise for advancing our understanding of both typical and atypical social development. © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Social complexity beliefs predict posttraumatic growth in survivors of a natural disaster.

PubMed

Nalipay, Ma Jenina N; Bernardo, Allan B I; Mordeno, Imelu G

2016-09-01

Most studies on posttraumatic growth (PTG) have focused on personal characteristics, interpersonal resources, and the immediate environment. There has been less attention on dynamic internal processes related to the development of PTG and on how these processes are affected by the broader culture. Calhoun and Tedeschi's (2006) model suggests a role of distal culture in PTG development, but empirical investigations on that point are limited. The present study investigated the role of social complexity-the generalized belief about changing social environments and inconsistency of human behavior-as a predictor of PTG. Social complexity was hypothesized to be associated with problem-solving approaches that are likely to give rise to cognitive processes that promote PTG. A sample of 446 survivors of Typhoon Haiyan, 1 of the strongest typhoons ever recorded at the time, answered self-report measures of social complexity, cognitive processing of trauma, and PTG. Structural equation modeling indicated a good fit between the data and the hypothesized model; belief in social complexity predicted stronger PTG, mediated by cognitive processing. The results provide evidence for how disaster survivors' beliefs about the changing nature of social environments and their corresponding behavior changes are predictors of PTG and suggest a psychological mechanism for how distal culture can influence PTG. Thus, assessing social complexity beliefs during early the phases of a postdisaster psychosocial intervention may provide useful information on who is likely to experience PTG. Trauma workers might consider culture-specific social themes related to social complexity in disaster-affected communities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Second Language Socialization through Team Interaction among Electrical and Computer Engineering Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vickers, Caroline H.

2007-01-01

This article, based on a longitudinal, ethnographic study among engineering students, examines the interactional processes surrounding second language (L2) socialization. L2 socialization perspectives argue that the cognitive and the social are interconnected, and that learning an L2 is a process of coming to understand socially constructed…

The Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation Study: Results of the Expert Survey and RAND Panel

PubMed Central

Pinkham, Amy E.; Penn, David L.; Green, Michael F.; Buck, Benjamin; Healey, Kristin; Harvey, Philip D.

2014-01-01

Background: In schizophrenia, social cognition is strongly linked to functional outcome and is increasingly seen as a viable treatment target. The goal of the Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation (SCOPE) study is to identify and improve the best existing measures of social cognition so they can be suitably applied in large-scale treatment studies. Initial phases of this project sought to (1) develop consensus on critical domains of social cognition and (2) identify the best existing measures of social cognition for use in treatment studies. Methods: Experts in social cognition were invited to nominate key domains of social cognition and the best measures of those domains. Nominations for measures were reduced according to set criteria, and all available psychometric information about these measures was summarized and provided to RAND panelists. Panelists rated the quality of each measure on multiple criteria, and diverging ratings were discussed at the in-person meeting to obtain consensus. Results: Expert surveys identified 4 core domains of social cognition—emotion processing, social perception, theory of mind/mental state attribution, and attributional style/bias. Using RAND panel consensus ratings, the following measures were selected for further evaluation: Ambiguous Intentions Hostility Questionnaire, Bell Lysaker Emotion Recognition Task, Penn Emotion Recognition Test, Relationships Across Domains, Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, The Awareness of Social Inferences Test, Hinting Task, and Trustworthiness Task. Discussion: While it was possible to establish consensus, only a limited amount of psychometric information is currently available for the candidate measures, which underscores the need for well-validated and standardized measures in this area. PMID:23728248

Where am I? Who am I? The Relation Between Spatial Cognition, Social Cognition and Individual Differences in the Built Environment

PubMed Central

Proulx, Michael J.; Todorov, Orlin S.; Taylor Aiken, Amanda; de Sousa, Alexandra A.

2016-01-01

Knowing who we are, and where we are, are two fundamental aspects of our physical and mental experience. Although the domains of spatial and social cognition are often studied independently, a few recent areas of scholarship have explored the interactions of place and self. This fits in with increasing evidence for embodied theories of cognition, where mental processes are grounded in action and perception. Who we are might be integrated with where we are, and impact how we move through space. Individuals vary in personality, navigational strategies, and numerous cognitive and social competencies. Here we review the relation between social and spatial spheres of existence in the realms of philosophical considerations, neural and psychological representations, and evolutionary context, and how we might use the built environment to suit who we are, or how it creates who we are. In particular we investigate how two spatial reference frames, egocentric and allocentric, might transcend into the social realm. We then speculate on how environments may interact with spatial cognition. Finally, we suggest how a framework encompassing spatial and social cognition might be taken in consideration by architects and urban planners. PMID:26903893

Aggression and Moral Development: Integrating Social Information Processing and Moral Domain Models

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arsenio, William F.; Lemerise, Elizabeth A.

2004-01-01

Social information processing and moral domain theories have developed in relative isolation from each other despite their common focus on intentional harm and victimization, and mutual emphasis on social cognitive processes in explaining aggressive, morally relevant behaviors. This article presents a selective summary of these literatures with…

Social Outcomes in Childhood Brain Disorder: A Heuristic Integration of Social Neuroscience and Developmental Psychology

PubMed Central

Yeates, Keith Owen; Bigler, Erin D.; Dennis, Maureen; Gerhardt, Cynthia A.; Rubin, Kenneth H.; Stancin, Terry; Taylor, H. Gerry; Vannatta, Kathryn

2010-01-01

The authors propose a heuristic model of the social outcomes of childhood brain disorder that draws on models and methods from both the emerging field of social cognitive neuroscience and the study of social competence in developmental psychology/psychopathology. The heuristic model characterizes the relationships between social adjustment, peer interactions and relationships, social problem solving and communication, social-affective and cognitive-executive processes, and their neural substrates. The model is illustrated by research on a specific form of childhood brain disorder, traumatic brain injury. The heuristic model may promote research regarding the neural and cognitive-affective substrates of children’s social development. It also may engender more precise methods of measuring impairments and disabilities in children with brain disorder and suggest ways to promote their social adaptation. PMID:17469991

Introduction to The Special Issue: Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions with Students with EBD

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mayer, Matthew; Lochman, John; Van Acker, Richard

2005-01-01

Significant progress has been made in developing models of social information processing, and cognitive-behavioral processes and related interventions. While there has been limited attention to cognitive-behavioral modification (CBM) in the special education literature, the majority of the contributions have come from the fields of school,…

Information Processing Versus Social Cognitive Mediators of Weight Loss in a Podcast-Delivered Health Intervention

PubMed Central

Ko, Linda K.; Turner-McGrievy, Gabrielle; Campbell, Marci K.

2016-01-01

Podcasting is an emerging technology, and previous interventions have shown promising results using theory-based podcast for weight loss among overweight and obese individuals. This study investigated whether constructs of social cognitive theory and information processing theories (IPTs) mediate the effect of a podcast intervention on weight loss among overweight individuals. Data are from Pounds off Digitally, a study testing the efficacy of two weight loss podcast interventions (control podcast and theory-based podcast). Path models were constructed (n = 66). The IPTs—elaboration likelihood model, information control theory, and cognitive load theory—mediated the effect of a theory-based podcast on weight loss. The intervention was significantly associated with all IPTs. Information control theory and cognitive load theory were related to elaboration, and elaboration was associated with weight loss. Social cognitive theory constructs did not mediate weight loss. Future podcast interventions grounded in theory may be effective in promoting weight loss. PMID:24082027

Information Extraction Using Controlled English to Support Knowledge-Sharing and Decision-Making

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-06-01

or language variants. CE-based information extraction will greatly facilitate the processes in the cognitive and social domains that enable forces...terminology or language variants. CE-based information extraction will greatly facilitate the processes in the cognitive and social domains that...processor is run to turn the atomic CE into a more “ stylistically felicitous” CE, using techniques such as: aggregating all information about an entity

Cognition in people with Prader-Willi syndrome: Insights into genetic influences on cognitive and social development.

PubMed

Whittington, Joyce; Holland, Anthony

2017-01-01

We present a mini-review of cognition in Prader-Willi syndrome. Studies cited include findings on general ability (IQ), IQ correlates with family members, strengths and weaknesses in cognitive profiles in genetic subtypes, attainment in literacy and numeracy, language, comprehension, modality preferences, executive functions, and social cognition. The latter includes investigations of theory of mind, emotion recognition, face processing and knowledge of social norms. Results from research on mouse models and brain imaging studies relevant to cognition are briefly discussed. The importance of these studies to understanding and managing education and behaviour in PWS and the limitations of the studies in terms of small numbers, non-representativeness, and lack of replication is also touched upon. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Social context modulates cognitive markers in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

PubMed

Santamaría-García, Hernando; Soriano-Mas, Carles; Burgaleta, Miguel; Ayneto, Alba; Alonso, Pino; Menchón, José M; Cardoner, Narcis; Sebastián-Gallés, Nuria

2017-08-03

Error monitoring, cognitive control and motor inhibition control are proposed as cognitive alterations disrupted in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). OCD has also been associated with an increased sensitivity to social evaluations. The effect of a social simulation over electrophysiological indices of cognitive alterations in OCD was examined. A case-control cross-sectional study measuring event-related potentials (ERP) for error monitoring (Error-Related Negativity), cognitive control (N2) and motor control (LRP) was conducted. We analyzed twenty OCD patients and twenty control participants. ERP were recorded during a social game consisting of a visual discrimination task, which was performed in the presence of a simulated superior or an inferior player. Significant social effects (different ERP amplitudes in Superior vs. Inferior player conditions) were found for OCD patients, but not for controls, in all ERP components. Performing the task against a simulated inferior player reduced abnormal ERP responses in OCD to levels observed in controls. The hierarchy-induced ERP effects were accompanied effects over reaction times in OCD patients. Social context modulates signatures of abnormal cognitive functioning in OCD, therefore experiencing a social superiority position impacts over cognitive processes in OCD such as error monitoring mechanisms. These results open the door for the research of new therapeutic choices.

Effects of empathic social responses on the emotions of the recipient.

PubMed

Seehausen, Maria; Kazzer, Philipp; Bajbouj, Malek; Heekeren, Hauke R; Jacobs, Arthur M; Klann-Delius, Gisela; Menninghaus, Winfried; Prehn, Kristin

2016-03-01

Empathy is highly relevant for social behavior and can be verbally expressed by voicing sympathy and concern (emotional empathy) as well as by paraphrasing or stating that one can mentally reconstruct and understand another person's thoughts and feelings (cognitive empathy). In this study, we investigated the emotional effects and neural correlates of receiving empathic social responses after negative performance feedback and compared the effects of emotionally vs. cognitively empathic comments. 20 participants (10 male) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while receiving negative performance feedback for a cognitive task. Performance feedback was followed by verbal comments either expressing cognitive and emotional empathy or demonstrating a lack of empathy. Empathic comments in general led to less negative self-reported feelings and calmer breathing. At the neural level, empathic comments induced activity in regions associated with social cognition and emotion processing, specifically in right postcentral gyrus and left cerebellum (cognitively empathic comments), right precentral gyrus, the opercular part of left inferior frontal gyrus, and left middle temporal gyrus (emotionally empathic comments), as well as the orbital part of the left middle frontal gyrus and left superior parietal gyrus (emotionally empathic vs. unempathic comments). The study shows that cognitively and emotionally empathic comments appear to be processed in partially separable neural systems. Furthermore, confirming and expanding on another study on the same subject, the present results demonstrate that the social display of cognitive empathy exerts almost as positive effects on the recipient's feelings and emotions in states of distress as emotionally empathic response does. This can be relevant for professional settings in which strong negative emotions need to be de-escalated while maintaining professional impartiality, which may allow the display of cognitive but not emotional empathy. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

What does God know? Supernatural agents' access to socially strategic and non-strategic information.

PubMed

Purzycki, Benjamin G; Finkel, Daniel N; Shaver, John; Wales, Nathan; Cohen, Adam B; Sosis, Richard

2012-07-01

Current evolutionary and cognitive theories of religion posit that supernatural agent concepts emerge from cognitive systems such as theory of mind and social cognition. Some argue that these concepts evolved to maintain social order by minimizing antisocial behavior. If these theories are correct, then people should process information about supernatural agents' socially strategic knowledge more quickly than non-strategic knowledge. Furthermore, agents' knowledge of immoral and uncooperative social behaviors should be especially accessible to people. To examine these hypotheses, we measured response-times to questions about the knowledge attributed to four different agents--God, Santa Claus, a fictional surveillance government, and omniscient but non-interfering aliens--that vary in their omniscience, moral concern, ability to punish, and how supernatural they are. As anticipated, participants respond more quickly to questions about agents' socially strategic knowledge than non-strategic knowledge, but only when agents are able to punish. Copyright © 2012 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

[Human interaction, social cognition, and the superior temporal sulcus].

PubMed

Brunelle, Francis; Saitovitch, Anna; Boddaert, Nathalie; Grevent, David; Cambier, Jean; Lelord, Gilbert; Samson, Yves; Zilbovicius, Monica

2013-01-01

Human beings are social animals. This ability to live together is ensured by cognitive functions, the neuroanatomical bases of which are starting to be unraveled by MRI-based studies. The regions and network engaged in this process are known as the "social brain ". The core of this network is the superior temporal sulcus (STS), which integrates sensory and emotional inputs. Modeling studies of healthy volunteers have shown the role of the STS.in recognizing others as biological beings, as well as facial and eye-gaze recognition, intentionality and emotions. This cognitive capacity has been described as the "theory of mind ". Pathological models such as autism, in which the main clinical abnormality is altered social abilities and communication, have confirmed the role of the STS in the social brain. Conceptualisation of this empathic capacity has been described as "meta cognition ", which forms the basis of human social organizationand culture.

Emotion Discourse, Social Cognition, and Social Skills in Children with and without Developmental Delays

PubMed Central

Fenning, RM; Baker, BL; Juvonen, J

2009-01-01

This study examined parent-child emotion discourse, children’s independent social information processing, and social skills outcomes in 146 families of 8-year-olds with and without developmental delays. Children’s emergent social-cognitive understanding (internal state understanding, perspective taking, and causal reasoning/problem solving) was coded in the context of parent-child conversations about emotion, and children were interviewed separately to assess social problem solving. Mothers, fathers, and teachers reported on children’s social skills. The proposed strengths-based model partially accounted for social skills differences between typically developing children and children with delays. A multigroup analysis of the model linking emotion discourse to social skills through children’s prosocial problem solving suggested that processes operated similarly across the two groups. Implications for ecologically focused prevention and intervention are discussed. PMID:21410465

Children's and adults' use of verbal information to visually anticipate others' actions: A study on explicit and implicit social-cognitive processing.

PubMed

Paulus, Markus; Schuwerk, Tobias; Sodian, Beate; Ganglmayer, Kerstin

2017-03-01

According to recent theories, social cognition is based on two different types of information-processing; an implicit or action-based one and an explicit or verbal one. The present study examined whether implicit and explicit social-cognitive information processing interact with each other by investigating young children's and adults' use of verbal (i.e., explicit) information to predict others' actions. Employing eye-tracking to measure anticipatory eye-movements as a measure of implicit processing, Experiment 1 presented 1.5-, 2.5-, and 3.5-year-old children as well as adults with agents who announced to move to either of two possible targets. The results show that only the 3.5-year-old children and adults, but not the 1.5- and 2.5-year-old children were able to use verbal information to correctly anticipate others' actions. Yet, Experiments 2 and 3 showed that 2.5-year-old children were able to use explicit information to give a correct explicit answer (Experiment 2) and that they were able to use statistical information to anticipate the other's actions (Experiment 3). Overall, the study is in line with theoretical claims that two types of information-processing underlie human social cognition. It shows that these two inform each other by 3years of age. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

From neural signatures of emotional modulation to social cognition: individual differences in healthy volunteers and psychiatric participants.

PubMed

Ibáñez, Agustín; Aguado, Jaume; Baez, Sandra; Huepe, David; Lopez, Vladimir; Ortega, Rodrigo; Sigman, Mariano; Mikulan, Ezequiel; Lischinsky, Alicia; Torrente, Fernando; Cetkovich, Marcelo; Torralva, Teresa; Bekinschtein, Tristan; Manes, Facundo

2014-07-01

It is commonly assumed that early emotional signals provide relevant information for social cognition tasks. The goal of this study was to test the association between (a) cortical markers of face emotional processing and (b) social-cognitive measures, and also to build a model which can predict this association (a and b) in healthy volunteers as well as in different groups of psychiatric patients. Thus, we investigated the early cortical processing of emotional stimuli (N170, using a face and word valence task) and their relationship with the social-cognitive profiles (SCPs, indexed by measures of theory of mind, fluid intelligence, speed processing and executive functions). Group comparisons and individual differences were assessed among schizophrenia (SCZ) patients and their relatives, individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), individuals with euthymic bipolar disorder (BD) and healthy participants (educational level, handedness, age and gender matched). Our results provide evidence of emotional N170 impairments in the affected groups (SCZ and relatives, ADHD and BD) as well as subtle group differences. Importantly, cortical processing of emotional stimuli predicted the SCP, as evidenced by a structural equation model analysis. This is the first study to report an association model of brain markers of emotional processing and SCP. © The Author (2013). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Social strain and executive function across the lifespan: The dark (and light) sides of social engagement

PubMed Central

Tun, Patricia A.; Miller-Martinez, Dana; Lachman, Margie E.; Seeman, Teresa

2012-01-01

We investigated how the association between social strain and cognitive efficiency varies with task demands across adulthood, from latencies on simpler speeded tasks to tests involving executive function. Participants (N= 3280) were drawn from the MIDUS survey, a large, diverse national sample of adults who completed cognitive tests including speeded task-switching (Tun & Lachman, 2008). After controlling for demographic and health variables, we found that higher levels of reported social strain were associated with slower processing speed, particularly for the complex task-switching test relative to simpler speeded tests. Effects of strain were greatest for those with the lowest general cognitive ability. Moreover, those with very high levels of social strain but low levels of social support gave the poorest task-switching performance. These findings provide further evidence for the complex relationship between the social environment and cognition across adulthood, particularly the association between efficiency of executive functions and negative social interactions. PMID:22873285

Oxytocin and social cognition in rhesus macaques: Implications for understanding and treating human psychopathology

PubMed Central

Chang, Steve W. C.; Platt, Michael L.

2013-01-01

Converging evidence from humans and non-human animals indicates that the neurohypophysial hormone oxytocin (OT) evolved to serve a specialized function in social behavior in mammals. Although OT-based therapies are currently being evaluated as remedies for social deficits in neuropsychiatric disorders, precisely how OT regulates complex social processes remains largely unknown. Here we describe how a non-human primate model can be used to understand the mechanisms by which OT regulates social cognition and thereby inform its clinical application in humans. We focus primarily on recent advances in our understanding of OT-mediated social cognition in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta), supplemented by discussion of recent work in humans, other primates, and rodents. Together, these studies endorse the hypothesis that OT promotes social exploration both by amplifying social motivation and by attenuating social vigilance. PMID:24231551

Fuzzy Cognitive and Social Negotiation Agent Strategy for Computational Collective Intelligence

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chohra, Amine; Madani, Kurosh; Kanzari, Dalel

Finding the adequate (win-win solutions for both parties) negotiation strategy with incomplete information for autonomous agents, even in one-to-one negotiation, is a complex problem. Elsewhere, negotiation behaviors, in which the characters such as conciliatory or aggressive define a 'psychological' aspect of the negotiator personality, play an important role. The aim of this paper is to develop a fuzzy cognitive and social negotiation strategy for autonomous agents with incomplete information, where the characters conciliatory, neutral, or aggressive, are suggested to be integrated in negotiation behaviors (inspired from research works aiming to analyze human behavior and those on social negotiation psychology). For this purpose, first, one-to-one bargaining process, in which a buyer agent and a seller agent negotiate over single issue (price), is developed for a time-dependent strategy (based on time-dependent behaviors of Faratin et al.) and for a fuzzy cognitive and social strategy. Second, experimental environments and measures, allowing a set of experiments, carried out for different negotiation deadlines of buyer and seller agents, are detailed. Third, experimental results for both time-dependent and fuzzy cognitive and social strategies are presented, analyzed, and compared for different deadlines of agents. The suggested fuzzy cognitive and social strategy allows agents to improve the negotiation process, with regard to the time-dependent one, in terms of agent utilities, round number to reach an agreement, and percentage of agreements.

Learning to re-appraise the self during video feedback for social anxiety: Does depth of processing matter?

PubMed

Orr, Elizabeth M J; Moscovitch, David A

2010-08-01

Video feedback (VF) with cognitive preparation (CP) has been widely integrated into cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) protocols for social anxiety disorder (SAD) due to its presumed efficacy in improving negative self-perception. However, previous experimental studies have demonstrated that improvements in negative self-perception via VF+CP do not typically facilitate anxiety reduction during subsequent social interactions - a troubling finding for proponents of cognitive models of social anxiety. We examined whether VF+CP could be optimized to enhance participants' processing of corrective self-related information through the addition of a post-VF cognitive review (CR). Sixty-eight socially anxious individuals were randomly assigned to perform two public speeches in one of the following conditions: a) exposure alone (EXP); b) CP+VF; and c) CP+VF+CR. Those in the CP+VF+CR condition demonstrated marginally significant reductions in anxiety from speech 1 to speech 2 relative to those who received EXP - an improvement not shown for those in the CP+VF condition. Furthermore, only those who received CP+VF+CR demonstrated significant improvements in self-perception and performance expectations relative to EXP. Decreases in anxiety among participants who received CP+VF+CR relative to EXP were fully mediated by improvements in self-perception. Implications are discussed in the context of cognitive models of social anxiety and mechanisms of exposure-based learning. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Answering the missed call: Initial exploration of cognitive and electrophysiological changes associated with smartphone use and abuse

PubMed Central

Hadas, Itay; Lazarovits, Avi; Alyagon, Uri; Eliraz, Daniel; Zangen, Abraham

2017-01-01

Background Smartphone usage is now integral to human behavior. Recent studies associate extensive usage with a range of debilitating effects. We sought to determine whether excessive usage is accompanied by measurable neural, cognitive and behavioral changes. Method Subjects lacking previous experience with smartphones (n = 35) were compared to a matched group of heavy smartphone users (n = 16) on numerous behavioral and electrophysiological measures recorded using electroencephalogram (EEG) combined with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the right prefrontal cortex (rPFC). In a second longitudinal intervention, a randomly selected sample of the original non-users received smartphones for 3 months while the others served as controls. All measurements were repeated following this intervention. Results Heavy users showed increased impulsivity, hyperactivity and negative social concern. We also found reduced early TMS evoked potentials in the rPFC of this group, which correlated with severity of self-reported inattention problems. Heavy users also obtained lower accuracy rates than nonusers in a numerical processing. Critically, the second part of the experiment revealed that both the numerical processing and social cognition domains are causally linked to smartphone usage. Conclusion Heavy usage was found to be associated with impaired attention, reduced numerical processing capacity, changes in social cognition, and reduced right prefrontal cortex (rPFC) excitability. Memory impairments were not detected. Novel usage over short period induced a significant reduction in numerical processing capacity and changes in social cognition. PMID:28678870

Neural predictors and mechanisms of cognitive behavioral therapy on threat processing in social anxiety disorder.

PubMed

Klumpp, Heide; Fitzgerald, Daniel A; Phan, K Luan

2013-08-01

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is "gold standard" psychotherapy for social anxiety disorder (SAD). Cognitive models posit that preferential processing of threat mediates excessive forms of anxiety, which is supported by exaggerated amygdala, insula, and cortical reactivity to threatening socio-emotional signals in SAD. However, little is known about neural predictors of CBT success or the mechanisms by which CBT exerts its therapeutic effects. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was conducted during responses to social signals of threat (fearful/angry faces) against positive signals (happy faces) in 14 patients with SAD before and after 12 weeks of CBT. For comparison, 14 healthy control (HC) participants also underwent two fMRI scans, 12 weeks apart. Whole-brain voxel-wise analyses showed therapeutic success was predicted by enhanced pre-treatment activation to threatening faces in higher-order visual (superior and middle temporal gyrus), cognitive, and emotion processing areas (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex). Moreover, a group by time interaction was revealed in prefrontal regions (dorsomedial, medial gyrus) and insula. The interaction was driven by relatively greater activity during threat processing in SAD, which significantly reduced after CBT but did not significantly predict response to CBT. Therefore, pre-treatment cortical hyperactivity to social threat signals may serve as a prognostic indicator of CBT success in SAD. Collectively, CBT-related brain changes involved a reduction in activity in insula, prefrontal, and extrastriate regions. Results are consistent with cognitive models, which associate decreases in threat processing bias with recovery. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Perceived live interaction modulates the developing social brain.

PubMed

Rice, Katherine; Moraczewski, Dustin; Redcay, Elizabeth

2016-09-01

Although children's social development is embedded in social interaction, most developmental neuroscience studies have examined responses to non-interactive social stimuli (e.g. photographs of faces). The neural mechanisms of real-world social behavior are of special interest during middle childhood (roughly ages 7-13), a time of increased social complexity and competence coinciding with structural and functional social brain development. Evidence from adult neuroscience studies suggests that social interaction may alter neural processing, but no neuroimaging studies in children have directly examined the effects of live social-interactive context on social cognition. In the current study of middle childhood, we compare the processing of two types of speech: speech that children believed was presented over a real-time audio-feed by a social partner and speech that they believed was recorded. Although in reality all speech was prerecorded, perceived live speech resulted in significantly greater neural activation in regions associated with social cognitive processing. These findings underscore the importance of using ecologically-valid and interactive methods to understand the developing social brain. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

How understanding the neurobiology of complex post-traumatic stress disorder can inform clinical practice: a social cognitive and affective neuroscience approach.

PubMed

Lanius, R A; Bluhm, R L; Frewen, P A

2011-11-01

In this review, we examine the relevance of the social cognitive and affective neuroscience (SCAN) paradigm for an understanding of the psychology and neurobiology of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its effective treatment. The relevant literature pertaining to SCAN and PTSD was reviewed. We suggest that SCAN offers a novel theoretical paradigm for understanding psychological trauma and its numerous clinical outcomes, most notably problems in emotional/self-awareness, emotion regulation, social emotional processing and self-referential processing. A core set of brain regions appear to mediate these collective psychological functions, most notably the cortical midline structures, the amygdala, the insula, posterior parietal cortex and temporal poles, suggesting that problems in one area (e.g. emotional awareness) may relate to difficulties in another (e.g. self-referential processing). We further propose, drawing on clinical research, that the experiences of individuals with PTSD related to chronic trauma often reflect impairments in multiple social cognitive and affective functions. It is important that the assessment and treatment of individuals with complex PTSD not only addresses traumatic memories but also takes a SCAN-informed approach that focuses on the underlying deficits in emotional/self-awareness, emotion regulation, social emotional processing and self-referential processing. © 2011 John Wiley & Sons A/S.

Conceptual Challenges and Directions for Social Neuroscience

PubMed Central

Adolphs, Ralph

2010-01-01

Social neuroscience has been enormously successful and is making major contributions to fields ranging from psychiatry to economics. Yet deep and interesting conceptual challenges abound. Is social information processing domain specific? Is it universal or susceptible to individual differences and effects of culture? Are there uniquely human social cognitive abilities? What is the “social brain,” and how do we map social psychological processes onto it? Animal models together with fMRI and other cognitive neuroscience approaches in humans are providing an unprecedented level of detail and many surprising results. It may well be that social neuroscience in the near future will give us an entirely new view of who we are, how we evolved, and what might be in store for the future of our species. PMID:20346753

Experimental Training of Children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Piscalkiene, Viktorija

2009-01-01

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) negatively affects the cognitive and psychomotoric spheres of the pupil's social behavior and social adaptation. The review of many studies states that pupils with AD/HD achieve worse learning results because of insufficiently functioning cognitive processes, such as attention, (work) memory,…

The evolution of primate general and cultural intelligence

PubMed Central

Reader, Simon M.; Hager, Yfke; Laland, Kevin N.

2011-01-01

There are consistent individual differences in human intelligence, attributable to a single ‘general intelligence’ factor, g. The evolutionary basis of g and its links to social learning and culture remain controversial. Conflicting hypotheses regard primate cognition as divided into specialized, independently evolving modules versus a single general process. To assess how processes underlying culture relate to one another and other cognitive capacities, we compiled ecologically relevant cognitive measures from multiple domains, namely reported incidences of behavioural innovation, social learning, tool use, extractive foraging and tactical deception, in 62 primate species. All exhibited strong positive associations in principal component and factor analyses, after statistically controlling for multiple potential confounds. This highly correlated composite of cognitive traits suggests social, technical and ecological abilities have coevolved in primates, indicative of an across-species general intelligence that includes elements of cultural intelligence. Our composite species-level measure of general intelligence, ‘primate gS’, covaried with both brain volume and captive learning performance measures. Our findings question the independence of cognitive traits and do not support ‘massive modularity’ in primate cognition, nor an exclusively social model of primate intelligence. High general intelligence has independently evolved at least four times, with convergent evolution in capuchins, baboons, macaques and great apes. PMID:21357224

Differential effects of MDMA and methylphenidate on social cognition.

PubMed

Schmid, Yasmin; Hysek, Cédric M; Simmler, Linda D; Crockett, Molly J; Quednow, Boris B; Liechti, Matthias E

2014-09-01

Social cognition is important in everyday-life social interactions. The social cognitive effects of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, 'ecstasy') and methylphenidate (both used for neuroenhancement and as party drugs) are largely unknown. We investigated the acute effects of MDMA (75 mg), methylphenidate (40 mg) and placebo using the Facial Emotion Recognition Task, Multifaceted Empathy Test, Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition, Social Value Orientation Test and the Moral Judgment Task in a cross-over study in 30 healthy subjects. Additionally, subjective, autonomic, pharmacokinetic, endocrine and adverse drug effects were measured. MDMA enhanced emotional empathy for positive emotionally charged situations in the MET and tended to reduce the recognition of sad faces in the Facial Emotion Recognition Task. MDMA had no effects on cognitive empathy in the Multifaceted Empathy Test or social cognitive inferences in the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition. MDMA produced subjective 'empathogenic' effects, such as drug liking, closeness to others, openness and trust. In contrast, methylphenidate lacked such subjective effects and did not alter emotional processing, empathy or mental perspective-taking. MDMA but not methylphenidate increased the plasma levels of oxytocin and prolactin. None of the drugs influenced moral judgment. Effects on emotion recognition and emotional empathy were evident at a low dose of MDMA and likely contribute to the popularity of the drug. © The Author(s) 2014.

Social cognition and underlying cognitive mechanisms in children with an extra X chromosome: a comparison with autism spectrum disorder.

PubMed

van Rijn, S; Stockmann, L; van Buggenhout, G; van Ravenswaaij-Arts, C; Swaab, H

2014-06-01

Individuals with an extra X chromosome are at increased risk for autism symptoms. This study is the first to assess theory of mind and facial affect labeling in children with an extra X chromosome. Forty-six children with an extra X chromosome (29 boys with Klinefelter syndrome and 17 girls with Trisomy X), 56 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 88 non-clinical controls, aged 9-18 years, were included. Similar to children with ASD, children with an extra X chromosome showed significant impairments in social cognition. Regression analyses showed that different cognitive functions predicted social cognitive skills in the extra X and ASD groups. The social cognitive deficits were similar for boys and girls with an extra X chromosome, and not specific for a subgroup with high Autism Diagnostic Interview Revised autism scores. Thus, children with an extra X chromosome show social cognitive deficits, which may contribute to social dysfunction, not only in children showing a developmental pattern that is 'typical' for autism but also in those showing mild or late presenting autism symptoms. Our findings may also help explain variance in type of social deficit: children may show similar social difficulties, but these may arise as a consequence of different underlying information processing deficits. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society.

Visual cognition during real social interaction

PubMed Central

Skarratt, Paul A.; Cole, Geoff G.; Kuhn, Gustav

2012-01-01

Laboratory studies of social visual cognition often simulate the critical aspects of joint attention by having participants interact with a computer-generated avatar. Recently, there has been a movement toward examining these processes during authentic social interaction. In this review, we will focus on attention to faces, attentional misdirection, and a phenomenon we have termed social inhibition of return (Social IOR), that have revealed aspects of social cognition that were hitherto unknown. We attribute these discoveries to the use of paradigms that allow for more realistic social interactions to take place. We also point to an area that has begun to attract a considerable amount of interest—that of Theory of Mind (ToM) and automatic perspective taking—and suggest that this too might benefit from adopting a similar approach. PMID:22754521

Human Neuroimaging of Oxytocin and Vasopressin in Social Cognition

PubMed Central

Zink, Caroline F; Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas

2012-01-01

The neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin have increasingly been identified as modulators of human social behaviors and associated with neuropsychiatric disorders characterized by social dysfunction, such as autism. Identifying the human brain regions that are impacted by oxytocin and vasopressin in a social context is essential to fully characterize the role of oxytocin and vasopressin in complex human social cognition. Advances in human non-invasive neuroimaging techniques and genetics have enabled scientists to begin to elucidate the neurobiological basis of the influence of oxytocin and vasopressin on human social behaviors. Here we review the findings to-date from investigations of the acute and chronic effects of oxytocin and vasopressin on neural activity underlying social cognitive processes using “pharmacological fMRI” and “imaging genetics”, respectively. PMID:22326707

219. Changes in Functional Networks Underlying Social Cognition Following Cognitive Training in Individuals at Risk for Psychosis

PubMed Central

Haut, Kristen; Saxena, Abhishek; Yin, Hong; Carol, Emily; Dodell-Feder, David; Lincoln, Sarah Hope; Tully, Laura; Keshavan, Matcheri; Seidman, Larry J.; Nahum, Mor; Hooker, Christine

2017-01-01

Abstract Background: Deficits in social cognition are prominent features of schizophrenia that play a large role in functional impairments and disability. Performance deficits in these domains are associated with altered activity in functional networks, including those that support social cognitive abilities such as emotion recognition. These social cognitive deficits and alterations in neural networks are present prior to the onset of frank psychotic symptoms and thus present a potential target for intervention in early phases of the illness, including in individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis. This study assessed changes in social cognitive functional networks following targeted cognitive training (TCT) in CHR individuals. Methods: 14 CHR subjects (7 male, mean age = 21.9) showing attenuated psychotic symptoms as assessed by the SIPS were included in the study. Subjects underwent a clinical evaluation and a functional MRI session prior to and subsequent to completing 40 hours (8 weeks) of targeted cognitive and social cognitive training using Lumosity and SocialVille. 14 matched healthy control (HC) subjects also underwent a single fMRI session as a comparison group for functional activity. Resting state fMRI was acquired as well as fMRI during performance of an emotion recognition task. Group level differences in BOLD activity between HC and CHR group before TCT, and CHR group before and after TCT were computed. Changes in social cognitive network functional connectivity at rest and during task performance was evaluated using seed-based connectivity analyses and psychophysiological interaction (PPI). Results: Prior to training, CHR individuals demonstrated hyperactivity in the amygdala, posterior cingulate, and superior temporal sulcus (STS) during emotion recognition, suggesting inefficient processing. This hyperactivity normalized somewhat after training, with CHR individuals showing less hyperactivity in the amygdala in response to emotional faces. In addition, training was associated with increased connectivity in emotion processing networks, including greater STS-medial prefrontal connectivity and normalization of amygdala connectivity patterns. Conclusion: These results suggest that targeted cognitive training produced improvements in emotion recognition and may be effective in altering functional network connectivity in networks associated with psychosis risk. TCT may be a useful tool for early intervention in individuals at risk for psychotic disorders to address behaviors that impact functional outcome.

Social cognition in anorexia nervosa: Specific difficulties in decoding emotional but not nonemotional mental states.

PubMed

Brockmeyer, Timo; Pellegrino, Judith; Münch, Hannah; Herzog, Wolfgang; Dziobek, Isabell; Friederich, Hans-Christoph

2016-09-01

Building on recent models of anorexia nervosa (AN) that emphasize the importance of impaired social cognition in the development and maintenance of the disorder, the present study aimed at examining whether women with AN have more difficulties with inferring other people's emotional and nonemotional mental states than healthy women. Social cognition was assessed in 25 adult women with AN and 25 age-matched healthy women. To overcome limitations of previous research on social cognition in AN, the processing of social information was examined in a more complex and ecologically valid manner. The Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC) reflects complex real-life social interaction and allows for disentangling emotional and non-emotional mental state inference as well as different types of errors in mentalizing. Women with AN showed poorer emotional mental state inference, whereas non-emotional mental state inference was largely intact. Groups did not differ in undermentalizing (overly simplistic theory of mind) and overmentalizing (overly complex or over-interpretative mental state reasoning). Performance in the MASC was independent of levels of eating disorder psychopathology and symptoms of depression and anxiety. The findings suggest that AN is associated with specific difficulties in emotional mental state inference despite largely intact nonemotional mental state inference. Upon replication in larger samples, these findings advocate a stronger emphasis on socio-emotional processing in AN treatment. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.(Int J Eat Disord 2016; 49:883-890). © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Advancing the State of the Art in Applying Network Science to C2

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-06-01

technological networks to include information , cognitive and social networks, they have yet to apply the full range of theoretical instruments now...robustness, and processes. While NEC researchers extended their coverage from technological networks to include information , cognitive and social networks...can be found in a wide variety of domains. For example, Newman (2003) surveys work on biological, technological , information , and social networks

Empathy, Attitude towards Bullying, Theory-Of-Mind, and Non-Physical Forms of Bully Perpetration and Victimization among U.S. Middle School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Espelage, Dorothy L.; Hong, Jun Sung; Kim, Dong Ha; Nan, Luana

2018-01-01

Background: Children's bullying involvement may arise from biases and deficiencies in social information processing, and it is important to consider cognitive and emotional aspects of bullying because social cognition is an important aspect of children's social skills and their ability to get along with others. It is also important to understand…

Deficits in Social Cognition: An Unveiled Signature of Multiple Sclerosis.

PubMed

Chalah, Moussa A; Ayache, Samar S

2017-03-01

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic progressive inflammatory disease of the central nervous system, representing the primary cause of non-traumatic disability in young adults. Cognitive dysfunction can affect patients at any time during the disease process and might alter the six core functional domains. Social cognition is a multi-component construct that includes the theory of mind, empathy and social perception of emotions from facial, bodily and vocal cues. Deficits in this cognitive faculty might have a drastic impact on interpersonal relationships and quality of life (QoL). Although exhaustive data exist for non-social cognitive functions in MS, only a little attention has been paid for social cognition. The objectives of the present work are to reappraise the definition and anatomy of social cognition and evaluate the integrity of this domain across MS studies. We will put special emphasis on neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies concerning social cognitive performance in MS. Studies were selected in conformity with PRISMA guidelines. We looked for computerized databases (PubMed, Medline, and Scopus) that index peer-reviewed journals to identify published reports in English and French languages that mention social cognition and multiple sclerosis, regardless of publication year. We combined keywords as follows: (facial emotion or facial expression or emotional facial expressions or theory of mind or social cognition or empathy or affective prosody) AND multiple sclerosis AND (MRI or functional MRI or positron emission tomography or functional imaging or structural imaging). We also scanned references from articles aiming to get additional relevant studies. In total, 26 studies matched the abovementioned criteria (26 neuropsychological studies including five neuroimaging studies). Available data support the presence of social cognitive deficits even at early stages of MS. The increase in disease burden along with the "multiple disconnection syndrome" resulting from gray and white matters pathology might exceed the "threshold for cerebral tolerance" and can manifest as deficits in social cognition. Admitting the impact of the latter on patients' social functioning, a thorough screening for such deficits is crucial to improving patients' QoL. (JINS, 2017, 23, 266-286).

When BOLD is thicker than water: processing social information about kin and friends at different levels of the social network.

PubMed

Wlodarski, Rafael; Dunbar, Robin I M

2016-12-01

The aim of this study was to examine differences in the neural processing of social information about kin and friends at different levels of closeness and social network level. Twenty-five female participants engaged in a cognitive social task involving different individuals in their social network while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning to detect BOLD (Blood Oxygen Level Dependent) signals changes. Greater levels of activation occurred in several regions of the brain previously associated with social cognition when thinking about friends than when thinking about kin, including the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC). Linear parametric analyses across network layers further showed that, when it came to thinking about friends, activation increased in the vMPFC, lingual gyrus, and sensorimotor cortex as individuals thought about friends at closer layers of the network. These findings suggest that maintaining friendships may be more cognitively exacting than maintaining kin relationships. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Social Information Processing and Emotional Understanding in Children with LD

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bauminger, Nirit; Edelsztein, Hany Schorr; Morash, Janice

2005-01-01

The present study aimed to comprehensively examine social cognition processes in children with and without learning disabilities (LD), focusing on social information processing (SIP) and complex emotional understanding capabilities such as understanding complex, mixed, and hidden emotions. Participants were 50 children with LD (age range 9.4-12.7;…

Cognitive and Social Processes Predicting Partner Psychological Adaptation to Early Stage Breast Cancer

PubMed Central

Manne, Sharon; Ostroff, Jamie; Fox, Kevin; Grana, Generosa; Winkel, Gary

2009-01-01

Introduction The diagnosis and subsequent treatment for early stage breast cancer is stressful for partners. Little is known about the role of cognitive and social processes predicting the longitudinal course of partners’ psychosocial adaptation. This study evaluated the role of cognitive and social processing in partner psychological adaptation to early stage breast cancer, evaluating both main and moderator effect models. Moderating effects for meaning-making, acceptance, and positive reappraisal on the predictive association of searching for meaning, emotional processing, and emotional expression on partner psychological distress were examined. Materials and Methods Partners of women diagnosed with early stage breast cancer were evaluated shortly after the ill partner’s diagnosis (n= 253), nine (n = 167), and 18 months (n = 149) later. Partners completed measures of emotional expression, emotional processing, acceptance, meaning-making, and general and cancer-specific distress at all time points. Results Lower satisfaction with partner support predicted greater global distress, and greater use of positive reappraisal was associated with greater distress. The predicted moderator effects for found meaning on the associations between the search for meaning and cancer-specific distress were found and similar moderating effects for positive reappraisal on the associations between emotional expression and global distress and for acceptance on the association between emotional processing and cancer-specific distress were found. Conclusions Results indicate several cognitive-social processes directly predict partner distress. However, moderator effect models in which the effects of partners’ processing depends upon whether these efforts result changes in perceptions of the cancer experience may add to the understanding of partners’ adaptation to cancer. PMID:18435865

Cognitive and social processes predicting partner psychological adaptation to early stage breast cancer.

PubMed

Manne, Sharon; Ostroff, Jamie; Fox, Kevin; Grana, Generosa; Winkel, Gary

2009-02-01

The diagnosis and subsequent treatment for early stage breast cancer is stressful for partners. Little is known about the role of cognitive and social processes predicting the longitudinal course of partners' psychosocial adaptation. This study evaluated the role of cognitive and social processing in partner psychological adaptation to early stage breast cancer, evaluating both main and moderator effect models. Moderating effects for meaning making, acceptance, and positive reappraisal on the predictive association of searching for meaning, emotional processing, and emotional expression on partner psychological distress were examined. Partners of women diagnosed with early stage breast cancer were evaluated shortly after the ill partner's diagnosis (N=253), 9 (N=167), and 18 months (N=149) later. Partners completed measures of emotional expression, emotional processing, acceptance, meaning making, and general and cancer-specific distress at all time points. Lower satisfaction with partner support predicted greater global distress, and greater use of positive reappraisal was associated with greater distress. The predicted moderator effects for found meaning on the associations between the search for meaning and cancer-specific distress were found and similar moderating effects for positive reappraisal on the associations between emotional expression and global distress and for acceptance on the association between emotional processing and cancer-specific distress were found. Results indicate several cognitive-social processes directly predict partner distress. However, moderator effect models in which the effects of partners' processing depends upon whether these efforts result in changes in perceptions of the cancer experience may add to the understanding of partners' adaptation to cancer.

Cognitive Load Does Not Affect the Behavioral and Cognitive Foundations of Social Cooperation.

PubMed

Mieth, Laura; Bell, Raoul; Buchner, Axel

2016-01-01

The present study serves to test whether the cognitive mechanisms underlying social cooperation are affected by cognitive load. Participants interacted with trustworthy-looking and untrustworthy-looking partners in a sequential Prisoner's Dilemma Game. Facial trustworthiness was manipulated to stimulate expectations about the future behavior of the partners which were either violated or confirmed by the partners' cheating or cooperation during the game. In a source memory test, participants were required to recognize the partners and to classify them as cheaters or cooperators. A multinomial model was used to disentangle item memory, source memory and guessing processes. We found an expectancy-congruent bias toward guessing that trustworthy-looking partners were more likely to be associated with cooperation than untrustworthy-looking partners. Source memory was enhanced for cheating that violated the participants' positive expectations about trustworthy-looking partners. We were interested in whether or not this expectancy-violation effect-that helps to revise unjustified expectations about trustworthy-looking partners-depends on cognitive load induced via a secondary continuous reaction time task. Although this secondary task interfered with working memory processes in a validation study, both the expectancy-congruent guessing bias as well as the expectancy-violation effect were obtained with and without cognitive load. These findings support the hypothesis that the expectancy-violation effect is due to a simple mechanism that does not rely on demanding elaborative processes. We conclude that most cognitive mechanisms underlying social cooperation presumably operate automatically so that they remain unaffected by cognitive load.

Cognitive Load Does Not Affect the Behavioral and Cognitive Foundations of Social Cooperation

PubMed Central

Mieth, Laura; Bell, Raoul; Buchner, Axel

2016-01-01

The present study serves to test whether the cognitive mechanisms underlying social cooperation are affected by cognitive load. Participants interacted with trustworthy-looking and untrustworthy-looking partners in a sequential Prisoner’s Dilemma Game. Facial trustworthiness was manipulated to stimulate expectations about the future behavior of the partners which were either violated or confirmed by the partners’ cheating or cooperation during the game. In a source memory test, participants were required to recognize the partners and to classify them as cheaters or cooperators. A multinomial model was used to disentangle item memory, source memory and guessing processes. We found an expectancy-congruent bias toward guessing that trustworthy-looking partners were more likely to be associated with cooperation than untrustworthy-looking partners. Source memory was enhanced for cheating that violated the participants’ positive expectations about trustworthy-looking partners. We were interested in whether or not this expectancy-violation effect—that helps to revise unjustified expectations about trustworthy-looking partners—depends on cognitive load induced via a secondary continuous reaction time task. Although this secondary task interfered with working memory processes in a validation study, both the expectancy-congruent guessing bias as well as the expectancy-violation effect were obtained with and without cognitive load. These findings support the hypothesis that the expectancy-violation effect is due to a simple mechanism that does not rely on demanding elaborative processes. We conclude that most cognitive mechanisms underlying social cooperation presumably operate automatically so that they remain unaffected by cognitive load. PMID:27630597

Cross-Cultural Study of Cognitive and Metacognitive Processes during Math Problem Solving

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cozza, Barbara; Oreshkina, Maria

2013-01-01

The purpose of this qualitative study was: (a) to explore the cognitive and metacognitive processes of mathematics problem-solving discourse of 10-year-old students in Russia, Spain, Hungary, and the United States; and (b) to explore the patterns of social interactions during small group work. Data were analyzed using a cognitive/metacognitive…

Self-referential and social cognition in a case of autism and agenesis of the corpus callosum

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background While models of autism spectrum conditions (ASC) are emerging at the genetic level of analysis, clear models at higher levels of analysis, such as neuroanatomy, are lacking. Here we examine agenesis of the corpus callosum (AgCC) as a model at the level of neuroanatomy that may be relevant for understanding self-referential and social-cognitive difficulties in ASC. Methods We examined performance on a wide array of tests in self-referential and social-cognitive domains in a patient with both AgCC and a diagnosis of ASC. Tests included a depth-of-processing memory paradigm with self-referential and social-cognitive manipulations, self-report measures of self-consciousness, alexithymia, and empathy, as well as performance measures of first-person pronoun usage and mentalizing ability. The performance of the AgCC patient was compared to a group of individuals with ASC but without AgCC and with neurotypical controls. These comparison groups come from a prior study where group differences were apparent across many measures. We used bootstrapping to assess whether the AgCC patient exhibited scores that were within or outside the 95% bias-corrected and accelerated bootstrap confidence intervals observed in both comparison groups. Results Within the depth-of-processing memory paradigm, the AgCC patient showed decreased memory sensitivity that was more extreme than both comparison groups across all conditions. The patient’s most pronounced difficulty on this task emerged in the social-cognitive domain related to information-processing about other people. The patient was similar to the ASC group in benefiting less from self-referential processing compared to the control group. Across a variety of other self-referential (i.e. alexithymia, private self-consciousness) and social-cognitive measures (i.e. self-reported imaginative and perspective-taking subscales of empathy, mentalizing), the AgCC patient also showed more extreme scores than those observed for both of the comparison groups. However, the AgCC patient scored within the range observed in the comparison groups on measures of first-person pronoun usage and self-reported affective empathy subscales. Conclusions We conclude that AgCC co-occurring with a diagnosis of ASC may be a relevant model at the level of neuroanatomy for understanding mechanisms involved in self-referential and high-level social-cognitive difficulties in ASC. PMID:23171505

Hypochondriasis Differs From Panic Disorder and Social Phobia: Specific Processes Identified Within Patient Groups.

PubMed

Höfling, Volkmar; Weck, Florian

2017-03-01

Studies of the comorbidity of hypochondriasis have indicated high rates of cooccurrence with other anxiety disorders. In this study, the contrast among hypochondriasis, panic disorder, and social phobia was investigated using specific processes drawing on cognitive-perceptual models of hypochondriasis. Affective, behavioral, cognitive, and perceptual processes specific to hypochondriasis were assessed with 130 diagnosed participants based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, criteria (66 with hypochondriasis, 32 with panic disorder, and 32 with social phobia). All processes specific to hypochondriasis were more intense for patients with hypochondriasis in contrast to those with panic disorder or social phobia (0.61 < d < 2.67). No differences were found between those with hypochondriasis with comorbid disorders and those without comorbid disorders. Perceptual processes were shown to best discriminate between patients with hypochondriasis and those with panic disorder.

Business change process, creativity and the brain: a practitioner's reflective account with suggestions for future research.

PubMed

Yeats, Rowena M; Yeats, Martyn F

2007-11-01

Resolution of a critical organizational problem requires the use of carefully selected techniques. This is the work of a management consultant: facilitating a business change process in an organizational setting. Here, an account is provided of a practitioner's reflections on one such case study that demonstrates a structure for a business change process. The reflective account highlights certain affective states and social behaviors that were extracted from participants during the business change process. These affective states and social behaviors are mediated by specific neural networks in the brain that are activated during organizational intervention. By breaking down the process into the affective states and social behaviors highlighted, cognitive neuroscience can be a useful tool for investigating the neural substrates of such intervention. By applying a cognitive neuroscience approach to examine organizational change, it is possible to converge on a greater understanding of the neural substrates of everyday social behavior.

Coherence and specificity of information-processing biases in depression and social phobia.

PubMed

Gotlib, Ian H; Kasch, Karen L; Traill, Saskia; Joormann, Jutta; Arnow, Bruce A; Johnson, Sheri L

2004-08-01

Research has not resolved whether depression is associated with a distinct information-processing bias, whether the content of the information-processing bias in depression is specific to themes of loss and sadness, or whether biases are consistent across the tasks most commonly used to assess attention and memory processing. In the present study, participants diagnosed with major depression, social phobia, or no Axis I disorder, completed several information-processing tasks assessing attention and memory for sad, socially threatening, physically threatening, and positive stimuli. As predicted, depressed participants exhibited specific biases for stimuli connoting sadness; social phobic participants did not evidence such specificity for threat stimuli. It is important to note that the different measures of bias in memory and attention were not systematically intercorrelated. Implications for the study of cognitive bias in depression, and for cognitive theory more broadly, are discussed.

Neurocognitive performance, psychopathology and social functioning in individuals at high risk for schizophrenia or psychotic bipolar disorder.

PubMed

Gkintoni, Evgenia; Pallis, Eleftherios G; Bitsios, Panos; Giakoumaki, Stella G

2017-01-15

Although cognitive deficits are consistent endophenotypes of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, findings in psychotic bipolar disorder (BDP) are inconsistent. In this study we compared adult unaffected first-degree relatives of schizophrenia and BDP patients on cognition, psychopathology, social functioning and quality of life. Sixty-six unaffected first-degree relatives of schizophrenia patients (SUnR), 36 unaffected first-degree relatives of BDP patients (BDPUnR) and 102 controls participated in the study. Between-group differences were examined and Discriminant Function Analysis (DFA) predicted group membership. Visual memory, control inhibition, working memory, cognitive flexibility and abstract reasoning were linearly impaired in the relatives' groups. Poorer verbal fluency and processing speed were evident only in the SUnR group. The SUnR group had higher depressive and somatization symptoms while the BDPUnR group had higher anxiety and lower social functioning compared with the controls. Individuals with superior cognition were more likely to be classified as controls; those with higher social functioning, prolonged processing speed and lower anxiety were more likely to be classified as SUnR. The relatives' sample is quite heterogeneous; the effects of genetic or environmental risk-factors were not examined. Cognitive functions mediated by a fronto-parietal network, show linear impairments in unaffected relatives of BDP and schizophrenia patients; processing speed and verbal fluency impairments were evident only in schizophrenia relatives. Self-perceived symptomatology and social functioning also differ between schizophrenia and BDP relatives. The continuum seen in patients in several indices was also seen in the cognitive impairments in unaffected relatives of schizophrenia and BDP patients. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The body social: an enactive approach to the self

PubMed Central

Kyselo, Miriam

2014-01-01

This paper takes a new look at an old question: what is the human self? It offers a proposal for theorizing the self from an enactive perspective as an autonomous system that is constituted through interpersonal relations. It addresses a prevalent issue in the philosophy of cognitive science: the body-social problem. Embodied and social approaches to cognitive identity are in mutual tension. On the one hand, embodied cognitive science risks a new form of methodological individualism, implying a dichotomy not between the outside world of objects and the brain-bound individual but rather between body-bound individuals and the outside social world. On the other hand, approaches that emphasize the constitutive relevance of social interaction processes for cognitive identity run the risk of losing the individual in the interaction dynamics and of downplaying the role of embodiment. This paper adopts a middle way and outlines an enactive approach to individuation that is neither individualistic nor disembodied but integrates both approaches. Elaborating on Jonas’ notion of needful freedom it outlines an enactive proposal to understanding the self as co-generated in interactions and relations with others. I argue that the human self is a social existence that is organized in terms of a back and forth between social distinction and participation processes. On this view, the body, rather than being identical with the social self, becomes its mediator. PMID:25309471

Cognitive processes as mediators of the relation between mindfulness and change in social anxiety symptoms following cognitive behavioral treatment

PubMed Central

Morgan, Jessica R.; Price, Matthew; Schmertz, Stefan K.; Johnson, Suzanne B.; Masuda, Akihiko; Calamaras, Martha; Anderson, Page L.

2014-01-01

The present study examined whether pretreatment mindfulness exerts an indirect effect on outcomes following cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Cognitive processes of probability and cost bias (i.e., overestimations of the likelihood that negative social events will occur, and that these events will have negative consequences when they do occur) were explored as potential mediators of the relation between mindfulness and social anxiety symptom change. People with higher levels of mindfulness may be better able to benefit from treatments that reduce biases because mindfulness may aid in regulation of attention. Sixty-seven individuals with a primary diagnosis of social phobia identifying public speaking as their greatest fear received eight sessions of one of two types of exposure-based CBT delivered according to treatment manuals. Participants completed self-report measures of mindfulness, probability bias, cost bias, and social anxiety symptoms. Mediation hypotheses were assessed by a bootstrapped regression using treatment outcome data. Pretreatment mindfulness was not related to change in social anxiety symptoms from pre- to posttreatment. However, mindfulness had an indirect effect on treatment outcome via its association with probability bias, but not cost bias, at midtreatment. These findings were consistent across three metrics of social anxiety symptoms. Mindfulness may play a role in response to CBT among individuals with social phobia through its relation with probability bias – even when the treatment does not target mindfulness. PMID:24147809

Social Information Processing Skills in Children with Histories of Heavy Prenatal Alcohol Exposure

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McGee, Christie L.; Bjorkquist, Olivia A.; Price, Joseph M.; Mattson, Sarah N.; Riley, Edward P.

2009-01-01

Based on caregiver report, children with prenatal alcohol exposure have difficulty with social functioning, but little is known about their social cognition. The current study assessed the social information processing patterns of school-age children with heavy prenatal alcohol exposure using a paradigm based on Crick and Dodge's reformulated…

Social Information Processing in Preschool Children Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ziv, Yair; Hadad, Bat Sheva; Khateeb, Yasmine

2014-01-01

The social cognitive deficiencies of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are well documented. However, the mechanisms underlying these deficiencies are unclear. Therefore, we examined the social information processing (SIP) patterns and social behaviors of 25 preschool children with ASDs in comparison to a matched group of 25…

Examining the relationship between face processing and social interaction behavior in children with and without autism spectrum disorder

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show impairment in reciprocal social communication, which includes deficits in social cognition and behavior. Since social cognition and social behavior are considered to be interdependent, it is valuable to examine social processes on multiple levels of analysis. Neuropsychological measures of face processing often reveal deficits in social cognition in ASD including the ability to identify and remember facial information. However, the extent to which neuropsychological measures are associated with or predictive of real-world social behavior is unclear. Methods The study investigated 66 children (ASD 34, typically developing (TD) 32) using neuropsychological measures of face processing (identity, affect, and memory). Children also participated in a peer interaction paradigm, which allowed observation and coding of natural social interaction behaviors during play with peers (e.g., Self-Play, Cooperative Play, Verbal Bout). ANCOVA, regression, and correlation models analyzed between-group differences, the ability of neuropsychological measures to predict social behavior, and the strength of the associations. Results Between-group differences were shown on Memory for Faces Delayed and the peer interaction variables Self-Play and Verbal Bout. Regression models indicated that Memory for Faces Delayed predicted the amount of Self-Play, Equipment use alone, and Cooperative Play with peers on the playground. Autism symptomology only predicted verbal exchange with peers. Conclusions Face memory strongly predicts relevant social engagement patterns in both children with and without ASD. Impairment in facial memory is associated with reduced ‘real-world’ social interaction and more self-play, whereas higher performance in face memory predicts more cooperative play. Results highlight the strong connection between face memory and reciprocal social interaction, suggesting that improvement in one may benefit the other. PMID:25180050

Emotion perception, non-social cognition and symptoms as predictors of theory of mind in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Vaskinn, Anja; Andersson, Stein; Østefjells, Tiril; Andreassen, Ole A; Sundet, Kjetil

2018-06-05

Theory of mind (ToM) can be divided into cognitive and affective ToM, and a distinction can be made between overmentalizing and undermentalizing errors. Research has shown that ToM in schizophrenia is associated with non-social and social cognition, and with clinical symptoms. In this study, we investigate cognitive and clinical predictors of different ToM processes. Ninety-one individuals with schizophrenia participated. ToM was measured with the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC) yielding six scores (total ToM, cognitive ToM, affective ToM, overmentalizing errors, undermentalizing errors and no mentalizing errors). Neurocognition was indexed by a composite score based on the non-social cognitive tests in the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB). Emotion perception was measured with Emotion in Biological Motion (EmoBio), a point-light walker task. Clinical symptoms were assessed with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Seventy-one healthy control (HC) participants completed the MASC. Individuals with schizophrenia showed large impairments compared to HC for all MASC scores, except overmentalizing errors. Hierarchical regression analyses with the six different MASC scores as dependent variables revealed that MCCB was a significant predictor of all MASC scores, explaining 8-18% of the variance. EmoBio increased the explained variance significantly, to 17-28%, except for overmentalizing errors. PANSS excited symptoms increased explained variance for total ToM, affective ToM and no mentalizing errors. Both social and non-social cognition were significant predictors of ToM. Overmentalizing was only predicted by non-social cognition. Excited symptoms contributed to overall and affective ToM, and to no mentalizing errors. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Coordination dynamics in a socially situated nervous system

PubMed Central

Coey, Charles A.; Varlet, Manuel; Richardson, Michael J.

2012-01-01

Traditional theories of cognitive science have typically accounted for the organization of human behavior by detailing requisite computational/representational functions and identifying neurological mechanisms that might perform these functions. Put simply, such approaches hold that neural activity causes behavior. This same general framework has been extended to accounts of human social behavior via concepts such as “common-coding” and “co-representation” and much recent neurological research has been devoted to brain structures that might execute these social-cognitive functions. Although these neural processes are unquestionably involved in the organization and control of human social interactions, there is good reason to question whether they should be accorded explanatory primacy. Alternatively, we propose that a full appreciation of the role of neural processes in social interactions requires appropriately situating them in their context of embodied-embedded constraints. To this end, we introduce concepts from dynamical systems theory and review research demonstrating that the organization of human behavior, including social behavior, can be accounted for in terms of self-organizing processes and lawful dynamics of animal-environment systems. Ultimately, we hope that these alternative concepts can complement the recent advances in cognitive neuroscience and thereby provide opportunities to develop a complete and coherent account of human social interaction. PMID:22701413

Analysis of Online Social Networks to Understand Information Sharing Behaviors Through Social Cognitive Theory

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Yoon, Hong-Jun; Tourassi, Georgia

Analyzing the contents of online social networks is an effective process for monitoring and understanding peoples behaviors. Since the nature of conversation and information propagation is similar to traditional conversation and learning, one of the popular socio-cognitive methods, social cognitive theory was applied to online social networks to. Two major news topics about colon cancer were chosen to monitor traffic of Twitter messages. The activity of leaders on the issue (i.e., news companies or people will prior Twitter activity on topics related to colon cancer) was monitored. In addition, the activity of followers , people who never discussed the topicsmore » before, but replied to the discussions was also monitored. Topics that produce tangible benefits such as positive outcomes from appropriate preventive actions received dramatically more attention and online social media traffic. Such characteristics can be explained with social cognitive theory and thus present opportunities for effective health campaigns.« less

Language Is a Complex Adaptive System: Position Paper

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beckner, Clay; Blythe, Richard; Bybee, Joan; Christiansen, Morten H.; Croft, William; Ellis, Nick C.; Holland, John; Ke, Jinyun; Larsen-Freeman, Diane; Schoenemann, Tom

2009-01-01

Language has a fundamentally social function. Processes of human interaction along with domain-general cognitive processes shape the structure and knowledge of language. Recent research in the cognitive sciences has demonstrated that patterns of use strongly affect how language is acquired, is used, and changes. These processes are not independent…

Abnormal emotion processing, but intact fairness and intentionality considerations during social decision-making in schizophrenia.

PubMed

de la Asuncion, Javier; Docx, Lise; Sabbe, Bernard; Morrens, Manuel; de Bruijn, Ellen R A

2015-01-01

Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder that is highly characterized by social cognitive impairments. Most studies investigating these impairments focus on one specific social domain such as emotion recognition. However, in daily life, processing complex social situations relies on the combination of several social cognitive and affective processes simultaneously rather than one process alone. A modified version of the economically based Ultimatum Game was used to measure the interplay between fairness, intentionality, and emotion considerations during social decision-making. In this task, participants accept or reject fair and unfair monetary offers proposed intentionally or unintentionally by either angry, happy, neutral, or sad proposers. Behavioral data was collected from a group of schizophrenia patients (N = 35) and a group of healthy individuals (N = 30). Like healthy participants, schizophrenia patients differentiated between fair and unfair offers by rejecting unfair offers more compared to fair offers. However, overall patients did reject more fair offers, indicating that their construct of fairness operates within different margins. In both groups, intentional unfair offers were rejected more compared to unintentional ones, indicating a normal integration of intentionality considerations in schizophrenia. Importantly, healthy subjects also differentiated between proposers' emotion when rejecting unfair offers (more rejections from proposers depicting angry faces compared to proposers depicting, happy, neutral, or sad faces). Schizophrenia patients' decision behavior on the other hand, was not affected by the proposers' emotions. The current study thus shows that schizophrenia patients have specific problems with processing and integrating emotional information. Importantly, the finding that patients display normal fairness and intentionality considerations emphasizes preservation of central social cognitive processes in schizophrenia.

The cognitive basis of social behavior: cognitive reflection overrides antisocial but not always prosocial motives

PubMed Central

Corgnet, Brice; Espín, Antonio M.; Hernán-González, Roberto

2015-01-01

Even though human social behavior has received considerable scientific attention in the last decades, its cognitive underpinnings are still poorly understood. Applying a dual-process framework to the study of social preferences, we show in two studies that individuals with a more reflective/deliberative cognitive style, as measured by scores on the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT), are more likely to make choices consistent with “mild” altruism in simple non-strategic decisions. Such choices increase social welfare by increasing the other person's payoff at very low or no cost for the individual. The choices of less reflective individuals (i.e., those who rely more heavily on intuition), on the other hand, are more likely to be associated with either egalitarian or spiteful motives. We also identify a negative link between reflection and choices characterized by “strong” altruism, but this result holds only in Study 2. Moreover, we provide evidence that the relationship between social preferences and CRT scores is not driven by general intelligence. We discuss how our results can reconcile some previous conflicting findings on the cognitive basis of social behavior. PMID:26594158

Cognitive aspects of young children's experience of economic disadvantage.

PubMed

Heberle, Amy E; Carter, Alice S

2015-07-01

Economic disadvantage is a well-studied risk factor for poorer behavioral and academic functioning in young children. Although the mechanisms by which disadvantage impacts children have long been of interest to researchers, studies to date have predominantly focused on mechanisms that are external to the child (e.g., parental depression, marital conflict). Very few studies have examined the internal, cognitive aspects of the experience of economic disadvantage, and almost none have considered how the effects of disadvantage on children's functioning might be mediated through cognitive processes. This article provides a framework for research into cognitive and social-cognitive mediators of economic disadvantage operating in early-to-middle childhood. The initial section of the article briefly reviews and summarizes the extant literature on childhood poverty and its effects. The second section reviews the evidence that preschool-aged children have the requisite cognitive abilities to recognize social inequality in their environments, to be aware of stereotypes related to social class, and to connect these social concepts to their own experience. The third section reviews and evaluates the small literature on children's appraisals, attributions, stereotypes, and perceptions of or about poverty and inequality. The fourth section defines and evaluates the literature on 2 social-cognitive processes-stereotype threat and status anxiety-that are hypothesized to mediate the effects of economic disadvantage on children's functioning. The article concludes with a series of proposed questions and hypotheses for future research, and elaborates on the potential implications of the proposed area of research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Cognitive deconstruction of parenting in schizophrenia: the role of theory of mind.

PubMed

Mehta, Urvakhsh M; Bhagyavathi, Haralahalli D; Kumar, Channaveerachari Naveen; Thirthalli, Jagadisha; Gangadhar, Bangalore N

2014-03-01

Schizophrenia patients experience impairments across various functional roles. Emotional unresponsiveness and an inability to foster intimacy and display affection may lead to impairments in parenting. A comprehensive cognitive understanding of parenting abilities in schizophrenia has the potential to guide newer treatment strategies. As part of a larger study on functional ability in schizophrenia patients, we attempted a cognitive deconstruction of their parenting ability. Sixty-nine of the 170 patients who participated in a study on social cognition in remitted schizophrenia were parents (mean age of their children: 11.8 ± 6.2 years). They underwent comprehensive assessments for neurocognition, social cognition (theory of mind, emotion processing, social perception and attributional bias), motivation and insight. A rater blind to their cognitive status assessed their social functioning using the Groningen Social Disabilities Schedule. We examined the association of their functional ability (active involvement and affective relationship) in the parental role with their cognitive performance as well as with their level of insight and motivation. Deficits in first- and second-order theory of mind (t = 2.57, p = 0.01; t = 3.2, p = 0.002, respectively), speed of processing (t = 2.37, p = 0.02), cognitive flexibility (t = 2.26, p = 0.02) and motivation (t = 2.64, p = 0.01) had significant association with parental role dysfunction. On logistic regression, second-order theory of mind emerged as a specific predictor of parental role, even after controlling for overall functioning scores sans parental role. Second-order theory of mind deficits are specifically associated with parental role dysfunction of patients with schizophrenia. Novel treatment strategies targeting theory of mind may improve parenting abilities in individuals with schizophrenia.

Emotion discourse, social cognition, and social skills in children with and without developmental delays.

PubMed

Fenning, Rachel M; Baker, Bruce L; Juvonen, Jaana

2011-01-01

This study examined parent-child emotion discourse, children's independent social information processing, and social skills outcomes in 146 families of 8-year-olds with and without developmental delays. Children's emergent social-cognitive understanding (internal state understanding, perspective taking, and causal reasoning and problem solving) was coded in the context of parent-child conversations about emotion, and children were interviewed separately to assess social problem solving. Mothers, fathers, and teachers reported on children's social skills. The proposed strengths-based model partially accounted for social skills differences between typically developing children and children with delays. A multigroup analysis of the model linking emotion discourse to social skills through children's prosocial problem solving suggested that processes operated similarly for the two groups. Implications for ecologically focused prevention and intervention are discussed. © 2011 The Authors. Child Development © 2011 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.

Examining young children's conceptual change process in floating and sinking from a social constructivist perspective

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Havu-Nuutinen, Sari

2005-03-01

This paper presents a case study of the process of conceptual change in six-year-old children. The process of conceptual change in learning about floating and sinking is described from two different viewpoints: how the children's conceptions change during the instructional process, and how the social discussion during the experimental exploration can be seen in terms of the cognitive changes in the children. Based on qualitative analysis of verbal data, changes in the children's conceptions were mostly epistemological and the children's theories of flotation became more complete with respect to the scientific view. From the viewpoint of the conceptual change, conceptually orientated teacher-child interactions seemed to support the children's cognitive progress in cognitive skills and guided the children to consider the reasons for the flotation.

Extending Hypothesis Testing of Edge Organizations Using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) During ELICIT

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-06-01

task difficulty and response correctness on neural systems supporting fluid reasoning. Cognitive Neurodynamics 1 (1): 71-84. Kaplan, J.T., Iacoboni...dynamic influences on decision-making and trust during social interaction. ELICITing Behavior ELICIT is designed to explore social and cognitive ...a person’s own self-awareness in the game experience, (2) their cognitive processes of reasoning, and (3) the modulation of uncertainty that primes

Threatening events theme of cognitive biases mediates the relationship between fear of social situations and delusion-like experiences among healthy adults.

PubMed

Prochwicz, Katarzyna; Kłosowska, Joanna; Karpowska, Milena

2017-10-01

Social anxiety (SA) is frequently observed among patients diagnosed with psychosis as well as among individuals with delusion-like experiences (DLEs). A heightened level of SA has been recognized to precede the development of psychotic symptoms; however, the detailed mechanisms that link SA to delusional ideation remain unrecognized. Since social anxiety is associated with the presence of cognitive biases and biased cognitive processes have been found to play a role in the development and maintenance of delusions, we hypothesized that cognitive biases may mediate in the relationship between social anxiety and DLEs. A total sample of 202 healthy individuals with mean age 35.59 (SD = 17.15) was assessed for the presence of delusion-like experiences, social anxiety, as well as the threatening events theme and anomalous perception theme of cognitive biases. The threatening events theme was found to fully mediate the linkage between fear of social situations and DLEs (β = 0.12, p < 0.05). The threatening events theme was also found to be a partial mediator in the association between social avoidance and DLEs (β = 0.20, p < 0.05), and between the overall level of social anxiety and DLEs (β = 0.18, p < 0.05). Our findings suggest that social anxiety may influence DLEs by providing the threatening events theme of cognitive biases. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Multivariate assessment of subjective and objective measures of social and family satisfaction in Veterans with history of traumatic brain injury.

PubMed

Orff, Henry J; Hays, Chelsea C; Twamley, Elizabeth W

2016-01-01

Approximately 20% of current-era Veterans have sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI), which can result in persistent postconcussive symptoms. These symptoms may disrupt family and social functioning. We explored psychiatric, postconcussive, and cognitive factors as correlates of objective functioning and subjective satisfaction in family and social relationships. At entry into a supported employment study, 50 unemployed Veterans with a history of mild to moderate TBI and current cognitive impairment were administered baseline assessments. Multivariate stepwise regressions determined that higher levels of depressive symptomatology were strongly associated with less frequent social contact, as well as lower subjective satisfaction with family and social relationships. Worse verbal fluency predicted less frequent social contact, whereas worse processing speed and switching predicted higher levels of subjective satisfaction with family relationships. The pattern of results remained similar when examining those Veterans with only mild TBI. Depressive symptoms and cognitive functioning may impact Veterans' social contact and satisfaction with family and social relationships. Evidence-based interventions addressing depression and cognition may therefore aid in improving community reintegration and satisfaction with social and family relationships.

Unconscious emotional reasoning and the therapeutic misconception.

PubMed

Charuvastra, A; Marder, S R

2008-03-01

The "therapeutic misconception" describes a process whereby research volunteers misinterpret the intentions of researchers and the nature of clinical research. This misinterpretation leads research volunteers to falsely attribute a therapeutic potential to clinical research, and compromises informed decision making, therefore compromising the ethical integrity of a clinical experiment. We review recent evidence from the neurobiology of social cognition to provide a novel framework for thinking about the therapeutic misconception. We argue that the neurobiology of social cognition should be considered in any ethical analysis of how people make decisions about participating in clinical trials. The neurobiology of social cognition also suggests how the complicated dynamics of the doctor-patient relationship may unavoidably interfere with the process of obtaining informed consent. Following this argument we suggest new ways to prevent or at least mitigate the therapeutic misconception.

Cognitive Development of Social Justice through Re-Designed Courses and Community-Based Partnerships: An Initial Investigation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Robert E.; Creasey, Gary; Showalter, Brent D.; D'Santiago, Verenice

2010-01-01

Identifying (and assessing) the mechanisms responsible for promoting social justice awareness represent a process that could be illuminated via theory building. To illustrate, integrated theories of moral reasoning and prosocial development stipulate that ultimate altruistic/benevolent intentions and behaviors are preceded by cognitive and…

A Social Cognitive View of Self-Regulated Learning about Health

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clark, Noreen M.; Zimmerman, Barry J.

2014-01-01

Researchers interested in health-related learning have recently begun to study processes people use to self-regulate their health and their ability to prevent or control chronic disease. This paper represents a social cognitive view of self-regulation that involves three classes of influence on self-regulating behavior: personal, behavioral, and…

A Social Cognitive Investigation of Australian Independent School Boards as Teams

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Krishnan, Aparna; Barnett, Kerry; McCormick, John; Newcombe, Geoffrey

2016-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate independent school Boards as teams using a social cognitive perspective. Specifically, the study investigated Board processes and the nature of relationships between Board member self-efficacy, Board collective efficacy and performance of independent school Boards in New South Wales, Australia.…

Influencing Children's Self-Efficacy and Self-Regulation of Reading and Writing through Modeling

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schunk, Dale H.; Zimmerman, Barry J.

2007-01-01

According to Bandura's social cognitive theory, self-efficacy and self-regulation are key processes that affect students' learning and achievement. This article discusses students' reading and writing performances using Zimmerman's four-phase social cognitive model of the development of self-regulatory competence. Modeling is an effective means of…

Assessing the Social Influence of Television: A Social Cognition Perspective on Cultivation Effects.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shrum, L. J.

1995-01-01

Uses an information-processing perspective to illustrate how television viewing may affect social judgements. Posits heuristic processing as a mechanism that can explain why heavier television viewing results in higher first-order cultivation judgments (those requiring estimates of set size). (SR)

Social implications arise in embodied music cognition research which can counter musicological "individualism".

PubMed

Moran, Nikki

2014-01-01

The agenda in music research that is broadly recognized as embodied music cognition has arrived hand-in-hand with a social interpretation of music, focusing on the real-world basis of its performance, and fostering an empirical approach to musician movement regarding the communicative function and potential of those movements. However, embodied cognition emerged from traditional cognitivism, which produced a body of scientific explanation of music-theoretic concepts. The analytical object of this corpus is based on the particular imagined encounter of a listener responding to an idealized "work." Although this problem of essentialism has been identified within mainstream musicology, the lingering effects may spill over into interdisciplinary, empirical research. This paper defines the situation according to its legacy of individualism, and offers an alternative sketch of musical activity as performance event, a model that highlights the social interaction processes at the heart of musical behavior. I describe some recent empirical work based on interaction-oriented approaches, arguing that this particular focus - on the social interaction process itself - creates a distinctive and promising agenda for further research into embodied music cognition.

Cognitive Styles and the Social Order. Final Report, Part II. O.E.O. Study B00-5135, "Thought, Race, and Opportunity."

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

TenHouten, Warren D.

This report presents data developed for testing the theory that there are social processes which result in differing cognitive styles for subdominant and dominant social groups. The results of surveys of black and white persons in an urban area, of white rural farmers, and Hopi Indians are presented. The research attempts to integrate data and…

How we see others: the psychobiology of schemas and transference.

PubMed

Stein, Dan J

2009-01-01

Social cognition involves automatic and stimulus-driven processes; these may be important in mediating stereotypes in the community and schemas and transference in the clinic setting. Significant differences in self-related processing and other-related processing may also lead to important biases in our view of the other. The psychobiology of social cognition is gradually being delineated, and may be useful in understanding these phenomena, and in responding appropriately. In the clinic, schemas can be rigorously assessed, and schema-focused psychotherapy may be useful in a number of indications.

Emotional engagements predict and enhance social cognition in young chimpanzees

PubMed Central

Bard, Kim A; Bakeman, Roger; Boysen, Sarah T; Leavens, David A

2014-01-01

Social cognition in infancy is evident in coordinated triadic engagements, that is, infants attending jointly with social partners and objects. Current evolutionary theories of primate social cognition tend to highlight species differences in cognition based on human-unique cooperative motives. We consider a developmental model in which engagement experiences produce differential outcomes. We conducted a 10-year-long study in which two groups of laboratory-raised chimpanzee infants were given quantifiably different engagement experiences. Joint attention, cooperativeness, affect, and different levels of cognition were measured in 5- to 12-month-old chimpanzees, and compared to outcomes derived from a normative human database. We found that joint attention skills significantly improved across development for all infants, but by 12 months, the humans significantly surpassed the chimpanzees. We found that cooperativeness was stable in the humans, but by 12 months, the chimpanzee group given enriched engagement experiences significantly surpassed the humans. Past engagement experiences and concurrent affect were significant unique predictors of both joint attention and cooperativeness in 5- to 12-month-old chimpanzees. When engagement experiences and concurrent affect were statistically controlled, joint attention and cooperation were not associated. We explain differential social cognition outcomes in terms of the significant influences of previous engagement experiences and affect, in addition to cognition. Our study highlights developmental processes that underpin the emergence of social cognition in support of evolutionary continuity. PMID:24410843

A neuroscientific perspective on music therapy.

PubMed

Koelsch, Stefan

2009-07-01

During the last years, a number of studies demonstrated that music listening (and even more so music production) activates a multitude of brain structures involved in cognitive, sensorimotor, and emotional processing. For example, music engages sensory processes, attention, memory-related processes, perception-action mediation ("mirror neuron system" activity), multisensory integration, activity changes in core areas of emotional processing, processing of musical syntax and musical meaning, and social cognition. It is likely that the engagement of these processes by music can have beneficial effects on the psychological and physiological health of individuals, although the mechanisms underlying such effects are currently not well understood. This article gives a brief overview of factors contributing to the effects of music-therapeutic work. Then, neuroscientific studies using music to investigate emotion, perception-action mediation ("mirror function"), and social cognition are reviewed, including illustrations of the relevance of these domains for music therapy.

Social Cognition as Reinforcement Learning: Feedback Modulates Emotion Inference.

PubMed

Zaki, Jamil; Kallman, Seth; Wimmer, G Elliott; Ochsner, Kevin; Shohamy, Daphna

2016-09-01

Neuroscientific studies of social cognition typically employ paradigms in which perceivers draw single-shot inferences about the internal states of strangers. Real-world social inference features much different parameters: People often encounter and learn about particular social targets (e.g., friends) over time and receive feedback about whether their inferences are correct or incorrect. Here, we examined this process and, more broadly, the intersection between social cognition and reinforcement learning. Perceivers were scanned using fMRI while repeatedly encountering three social targets who produced conflicting visual and verbal emotional cues. Perceivers guessed how targets felt and received feedback about whether they had guessed correctly. Visual cues reliably predicted one target's emotion, verbal cues predicted a second target's emotion, and neither reliably predicted the third target's emotion. Perceivers successfully used this information to update their judgments over time. Furthermore, trial-by-trial learning signals-estimated using two reinforcement learning models-tracked activity in ventral striatum and ventromedial pFC, structures associated with reinforcement learning, and regions associated with updating social impressions, including TPJ. These data suggest that learning about others' emotions, like other forms of feedback learning, relies on domain-general reinforcement mechanisms as well as domain-specific social information processing.

Exploring the Interactive Patterns of Concept Map-Based Online Discussion: A Sequential Analysis of Users' Operations, Cognitive Processing, and Knowledge Construction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wu, Sheng-Yi; Chen, Sherry Y.; Hou, Huei-Tse

2016-01-01

Concept maps can be used as a cognitive tool to assist learners' knowledge construction. However, in a concept map-based online discussion environment, studies that take into consideration learners' manipulative actions of composing concept maps, cognitive process among learners' discussion, and social knowledge construction at the same time are…

A Systematic Review of the Processes Underlying the Main and the Buffering Effect of Social Support on the Experience of Pain.

PubMed

Che, Xianwei; Cash, Robin; Ng, Sin Ki; Fitzgerald, Paul; Fitzgibbon, Bernadette M

2018-04-24

This review aimed to explore the processes that underlie the main and the buffering effect of social support on decreased pain experience. The systematic review was conducted according to the PRISMA guidelines. Online databases of PubMed and PsycINFO were searched for peer-reviewed articles using keywords (("social support", OR "interpersonal", OR "social presence", OR "spouse", OR "couple", OR "marriage") AND "pain"). Articles were included if they examined the cognitive or behavioural processes linking social support to any aspects of reduced pain experience. The database search identified 38 studies, of which 33 were cognitive-behavioural studies and 5 were neurobiological. Cognitive-behavioural studies generated a total of 57 findings of the analgesic influence of social support. This effect was further categorized as social support decreasing the adverse influence of pain-related stress (28/44 findings), reappraising pain-related stress (7/9 findings), and facilitating coping attempts (2/4 findings). Of the 5 neurobiological studies, the influence of social support on pain reduction was associated with reduced neural and physiological stress systems in response to painful stimuli. This review presents evidence that the stress-buffering effect is more often able to account for the relationship between social support and pain experience. Moreover, findings suggest the critical significance of stress appraisal and attenuated stress systems in linking social support to aspects of reduced pain experience. Findings implicate the role of integrating perceived support and intimacy in support-oriented interventional trials for chronic pain.

Which Aspects of Social Support Are Associated With Which Cognitive Abilities for Which People?

PubMed

La Fleur, Claire G; Salthouse, Timothy A

2017-10-01

To assess the relations between 11 aspects of social support and five cognitive abilities (vocabulary, reasoning, spatial visualization, memory, and speed of processing) and to determine whether these relations between social support and cognition are moderated by age or sex. A sample of 2,613 individuals between the ages of 18 and 99 years completed a battery of cognitive tests and a questionnaire assessing aspects of social support. A measure of general intelligence was computed using principal components analysis. Multiple regressions were used to evaluate whether each aspect of support and/or its interactions with age or sex predicted each cognitive ability and g. Several aspects of social support were significantly related to all five cognitive abilities and to g. When g was included as a predictor, there were few relations with specific cognitive abilities. Age and sex did not moderate any of the relations. These results suggest that contact with family and friends, emotional and informational support, anticipated support, and negative interactions are related to cognition, whereas satisfaction with and tangible support were not. In addition, these aspects of support were primarily related to g, with the exception of family contact. Social support- cognition relations are comparable across the life span and the sexes. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Social cognition in pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis (MS)

PubMed Central

Charvet, LE; Cleary, RE; Vazquez, K; Belman, A; Krupp, LB

2014-01-01

Background Pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis (MS) patients represent a subpopulation who are diagnosed during the course of development. Social cognitive deficits have recently been recognized in adults with MS. It is critical to identify if these youngest patients with the disorder are also at risk. Objective To determine whether pediatric-onset MS is associated with social cognitive deficits. Methods Consecutively-recruited participants with pediatric-onset MS were compared to a group of age- and gender-matched healthy controls on Theory of Mind (ToM) task performance. Tasks measured facial affect recognition (Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test), understanding social faux pas (Faux Pas Test), and understanding the perspective of another (False Beliefs Task). Results Twenty-eight (28) pediatric-onset MS participants (median age 17 years) and 32 healthy controls (median age 16 years) completed the study. The MS participants performed worse than controls on all three ToM tasks: Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (p=0.008), the Faux-Pas Test (p=0.009), and the False Beliefs Task (p=0.06). While more MS than control participants were impaired on a measure of information processing speed (the Symbol Digit Modalities Test; 38% versus 6%), it did not account for the differences in ToM performance. Conclusions Social cognition may represent an area of cognitive functioning affected by MS in the pediatric-onset population. These processes are especially important to study in younger patients as these deficits could have long range implications on social adjustment, employment, and well-being. PMID:24647558

Social cognition in pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis (MS).

PubMed

Charvet, L E; Cleary, R E; Vazquez, K; Belman, A L; Krupp, L B

2014-10-01

Pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis (MS) patients represent a subpopulation who are diagnosed during the course of development. Social cognitive deficits have recently been recognized in adults with MS. It is critical to identify whether these youngest patients with the disorder are also at risk. To determine whether pediatric-onset MS is associated with social cognitive deficits. Consecutively-recruited participants with pediatric-onset MS were compared to a group of age- and gender-matched healthy controls on Theory of Mind (ToM) task performance. Tasks measured facial affect recognition (Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test), detecting social faux pas (Faux Pas Test), and understanding the perspective of another (False Beliefs Task). Twenty-eight (28) pediatric-onset MS participants (median age 17 years) and 32 healthy controls (median age 16 years) completed the study. The MS participants performed worse than controls on all three ToM tasks: Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (p = 0.008), the Faux Pas Test (p = 0.009), and the False Beliefs Task (p = 0.06). While more MS than control participants were impaired on a measure of information processing speed (the Symbol Digit Modalities Test; 38% versus 6%), it did not account for the differences in ToM performance. Social cognition may represent an area of cognitive functioning affected by MS in the pediatric-onset population. These processes are especially important to study in younger patients as they may have long range implications for social adjustment, employment, and well-being. © The Author(s) 2014.

A Mobile Game for the Social and Cognitive Well-Being of Elderly People in China.

PubMed

Li, Nan; Chen, Weiqin

2017-01-01

China, like many other countries, is facing the challenges of an ageing population. Literature has shown that the lack of social interaction has a negative impact on the physical health of the elderly, and playing games can be beneficial in maintaining or even improving their cognitive abilities. This study describes the design and development process for a social and cognitive mobile game and the related user evaluation in terms of well-being. The objective is to explore the underlying connections between game playing and the improvement of well-being among elderly people in China.

Why Medical Informatics (still) Needs Cognitive and Social Sciences.

PubMed

Declerck, G; Aimé, X

2013-01-01

To summarize current excellent medical informatics research in the field of human factors and organizational issues. Using PubMed, a total of 3,024 papers were selected from 17 journals. The papers were evaluated on the basis of their title, keywords, and abstract, using several exclusion and inclusion criteria. 15 preselected papers were carefully evaluated by six referees using a standard evaluation grid. Six best papers were selected exemplifying the central role cognitive and social sciences can play in medical informatics research. Among other contributions, those studies: (i) make use of the distributed cognition paradigm to model and understand clinical care situations; (ii) take into account organizational issues to analyse the impact of HIT on information exchange and coordination processes; (iii) illustrate how models and empirical data from cognitive psychology can be used in medical informatics; and (iv) highlight the need of qualitative studies to analyze the unexpected side effects of HIT on cognitive and work processes. The selected papers demonstrate that paradigms, methodologies, models, and results from cognitive and social sciences can help to bridge the gap between HIT and end users, and contribute to limit adoption failures that are reported regularly.

Opposing Oxytocin Effects on Intergroup Cooperative Behavior in Intuitive and Reflective Minds.

PubMed

Ma, Yina; Liu, Yi; Rand, David G; Heatherton, Todd F; Han, Shihui

2015-09-01

People often favor ingroup over outgroup members when choosing to cooperate. Such ingroup-favored cooperation is promoted by oxytocin-a neuropeptide shown to facilitate social cognition and that has emerged as a pharmacological target for treatments of social functioning deficits. The current study applied a dual-process model to investigate whether and how intuitive and reflective cognitive styles affect the oxytocin-motivated ingroup favoritism in cooperation. We examined oxytocin effects on ingroup favoritism in a double-blind, placebo-controlled between-subjects design where cognitive processing (intuition vs reflection) was experimentally manipulated in healthy Chinese males (n=150). We also supplemented this experimental manipulation with an individual difference analysis by assessing participants' inclination toward intuition or reflection in daily life. Intranasal administration of oxytocin (vs placebo) increased ingroup favoritism among participants primed to be intuitive or those who preferred intuition in daily life. In contrast, oxytocin decreased ingroup favoritism in participants primed to rely on reflective thinking or those who preferred reflective decision-making in daily life. Our results demonstrate that oxytocin has distinct functional roles when different cognitive styles (ie, intuition vs reflection) are promoted during social cooperation in a group situation. Our findings have implications for oxytocin pharmacotherapy of social dysfunction in that whether the effects of oxytocin on social functioning are facilitative, debilitative, or null, depends on an individual's cognitive style.

Opposing Oxytocin Effects on Intergroup Cooperative Behavior in Intuitive and Reflective Minds

PubMed Central

Ma, Yina; Liu, Yi; Rand, David G; Heatherton, Todd F; Han, Shihui

2015-01-01

People often favor ingroup over outgroup members when choosing to cooperate. Such ingroup-favored cooperation is promoted by oxytocin—a neuropeptide shown to facilitate social cognition and that has emerged as a pharmacological target for treatments of social functioning deficits. The current study applied a dual-process model to investigate whether and how intuitive and reflective cognitive styles affect the oxytocin-motivated ingroup favoritism in cooperation. We examined oxytocin effects on ingroup favoritism in a double-blind, placebo-controlled between-subjects design where cognitive processing (intuition vs reflection) was experimentally manipulated in healthy Chinese males (n=150). We also supplemented this experimental manipulation with an individual difference analysis by assessing participants' inclination toward intuition or reflection in daily life. Intranasal administration of oxytocin (vs placebo) increased ingroup favoritism among participants primed to be intuitive or those who preferred intuition in daily life. In contrast, oxytocin decreased ingroup favoritism in participants primed to rely on reflective thinking or those who preferred reflective decision-making in daily life. Our results demonstrate that oxytocin has distinct functional roles when different cognitive styles (ie, intuition vs reflection) are promoted during social cooperation in a group situation. Our findings have implications for oxytocin pharmacotherapy of social dysfunction in that whether the effects of oxytocin on social functioning are facilitative, debilitative, or null, depends on an individual's cognitive style. PMID:25807529

Ascribing beliefs to ingroup and outgroup political candidates: neural correlates of perspective-taking, issue importance and days until the election

PubMed Central

Falk, Emily B.; Spunt, Robert P.; Lieberman, Matthew D.

2012-01-01

We used the five weeks leading up to the 2008 presidential election as a backdrop to examine the ways that the brain processes attitudes and beliefs under different circumstances. We examined individual differences in personal issue importance and trait perspective-taking, as well as the temporal context in which attitude representation took place (i.e. number of days until the election). Finally, we examined the extent to which similar or dissimilar processes were recruited when considering the attitudes of political ingroup and outgroup candidates. Brain regions involved in social cognition and theory of mind, and to a lesser extent the limbic system, were modulated by these factors. Higher issue importance led to greater recruitment of neural regions involved in social cognition, across target perspectives. Higher trait perspective-taking was also associated with greater recruitment of several regions involved in social cognition, but differed depending on target perspective; greater activity was observed in prefrontal regions associated with social cognition when considering the perspective of one's own candidate compared with the opponent, and this effect was amplified closer to the election. Taken together, these results highlight ways in which ability and motivational relevance modulate socio-affective processing of the attitudes of others. PMID:22271788

Ascribing beliefs to ingroup and outgroup political candidates: neural correlates of perspective-taking, issue importance and days until the election.

PubMed

Falk, Emily B; Spunt, Robert P; Lieberman, Matthew D

2012-03-05

We used the five weeks leading up to the 2008 presidential election as a backdrop to examine the ways that the brain processes attitudes and beliefs under different circumstances. We examined individual differences in personal issue importance and trait perspective-taking, as well as the temporal context in which attitude representation took place (i.e. number of days until the election). Finally, we examined the extent to which similar or dissimilar processes were recruited when considering the attitudes of political ingroup and outgroup candidates. Brain regions involved in social cognition and theory of mind, and to a lesser extent the limbic system, were modulated by these factors. Higher issue importance led to greater recruitment of neural regions involved in social cognition, across target perspectives. Higher trait perspective-taking was also associated with greater recruitment of several regions involved in social cognition, but differed depending on target perspective; greater activity was observed in prefrontal regions associated with social cognition when considering the perspective of one's own candidate compared with the opponent, and this effect was amplified closer to the election. Taken together, these results highlight ways in which ability and motivational relevance modulate socio-affective processing of the attitudes of others.

The interplay of conflict and analogy in multidisciplinary teams.

PubMed

Paletz, Susannah B F; Schunn, Christian D; Kim, Kevin H

2013-01-01

Creative teamwork in multidisciplinary teams is a topic of interest to cognitive psychologists on the one hand, and to both social and organizational psychologists on the other. However, the interconnections between cognitive and social layers have been rarely explored. Drawing on mental models and dissonance theories, the current study takes a central variable studied by cognitive psychologists-analogy-and examines its relationship to a central variable examined by social psychologists-conflict. In an observational, field study, over 11h of audio-video data from conversations of the Mars Exploration Rover scientists were coded for different types of analogy and micro-conflicts that reveal the character of underlying psychological mechanisms. Two different types of time-lagged logistic models applied to these data revealed asymmetric patterns of associations between analogy and conflict. Within-domain analogies, but not within-discipline or outside-discipline analogies, preceded science and work process conflicts, suggesting that in multidisciplinary teams, representational gaps in very close domains will be more likely to spark conflict. But analogies also occurred in reaction to conflict: Process and negative conflicts, but not task conflicts, preceded within-discipline analogies, but not to within-domain or outside-discipline analogies. This study demonstrates ways in which cognition can be bidirectionally tied to social processes and discourse. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Pattern of brain activation during social cognitive tasks is related to social competence in siblings discordant for schizophrenia.

PubMed

Villarreal, Mirta F; Drucaroff, Lucas J; Goldschmidt, Micaela G; de Achával, Delfina; Costanzo, Elsa Y; Castro, Mariana N; Ladrón-de-Guevara, M Soledad; Busatto Filho, Geraldo; Nemeroff, Charles B; Guinjoan, Salvador M

2014-09-01

Measures of social competence are closely related to actual community functioning in patients with schizophrenia. However, the neurobiological mechanisms underlying competence in schizophrenia are not fully understood. We hypothesized that social deficits in schizophrenia are explained, at least in part, by abnormally lateralized patterns of brain activation in response to tasks engaging social cognition, as compared to healthy individuals. We predicted such patterns would be partly heritable, and therefore affected in patients' nonpsychotic siblings as well. We used a functional magnetic resonance image paradigm to characterize brain activation induced by theory of mind tasks, and two tests of social competence, the Test of Adaptive Behavior in Schizophrenia (TABS), and the Social Skills Performance Assessment (SSPA) in siblings discordant for schizophrenia and comparable healthy controls (n = 14 per group). Healthy individuals showed the strongest correlation between social competence and activation of right hemisphere structures involved in social cognitive processing, whereas in patients, the correlation pattern was lateralized to left hemisphere areas. Unaffected siblings of patients exhibited a pattern intermediate between the other groups. These results support the hypothesis that schizophrenia may be characterized by an abnormal functioning of nondominant hemisphere structures involved in the processing of socially salient information. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The new hybrids: Continuing debates on social perception.

PubMed

Gallagher, Shaun

2015-11-01

I evaluate several attempts to integrate standard theories of social cognition, either theory theory or simulation theory, with aspects of interaction theory, and especially with the concept of direct social perception. I refer to these as new hybrid theories of social cognition. One of the new hybrids accomplishes the integration only by weakening the concept of mindreading or by understanding mindreading as targeting the shared situation rather than the other's mental states. Hybrids that attempt to accommodate the idea of direct perception of mental states grant a phenomenological directness only by maintaining tacit (theory-based) inferences on the subpersonal level. If such inferential processes are thought to be extra-perceptual, then perception is neither sufficient nor direct for an understanding of intentions and emotions. Moreover, insistence on top-down inferential processes trades off against the possibility of plasticity in the perceptual system itself. I suggest that a better model than a hybrid theory would be a pluralist one. A pluralist approach to social cognition would treat theoretical inference, simulation, direct perception, interactive skills, etc. as different strategies. The real challenge is to work out a pluralist account of subpersonal processes. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Attitude change: persuasion and social influence.

PubMed

Wood, W

2000-01-01

This chapter reviews empirical and theoretical developments in research on social influence and message-based persuasion. The review emphasizes research published during the period from 1996-1998. Across these literatures, three central motives have been identified that generate attitude change and resistance. These involve concerns with the self, with others and the rewards/punishments they can provide, and with a valid understanding of reality. The motives have implications for information processing and for attitude change in public and private contexts. Motives in persuasion also have been investigated in research on attitude functions and cognitive dissonance theory. In addition, the chapter reviews the relatively unique aspects of each literature: In persuasion, it considers the cognitive and affective mechanisms underlying attitude change, especially dual-mode processing models, recipients' affective reactions, and biased processing. In social influence, the chapter considers how attitudes are embedded in social relations, including social identity theory and majority/minority group influence.

Commentary: Should Gender Differences Be Included in the Evolutionary Upgrade to Cognitive Load Theory?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bevilacqua, Andy

2017-01-01

Recent upgrades to cognitive load theory suggest that evolutionary processes have shaped the way that working memory processes cultural and social information. According to evolutionarily educational psychologists, some forms of information are processed with lower working memory loads than other forms. The former are evolutionarily salient and…

Cognitive Benefits of Online Social Networking for Healthy Older Adults.

PubMed

Myhre, Janelle W; Mehl, Matthias R; Glisky, Elizabeth L

2017-09-01

Research suggests that older adults who remain socially active and cognitively engaged have better cognitive function than those who are isolated and disengaged. This study examined the efficacy of learning and using an online social networking website, Facebook.com, as an intervention to maintain or enhance cognitive function in older adults. Forty-one older adults were assigned to learn and use Facebook (n = 14) or an online diary website (active control, n = 13) for 8 weeks or placed on a waitlist (n = 14). Outcome measures included neuropsychological tests of executive functions, memory, and processing speed and self-report questionnaires about social engagement. The Facebook group showed a significant increase in a composite measure of updating, an executive function factor associated with complex working memory tasks, compared to no significant change in the control groups. Other measures of cognitive function and social support showed no differential improvement in the Facebook group. Learning and using an online social networking site may provide specific benefits for complex working memory in a group of healthy older adults. This may reflect the particular cognitive demands associated with online social networking and/or the benefits of social engagement more generally. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Tracking the dynamics of the social brain: ERP approaches for social cognitive and affective neuroscience

PubMed Central

Amodio, David M.; Ito, Tiffany A.

2014-01-01

Event-related potential (ERP) approaches to social cognitive and affective neuroscience (SCAN) are not as widely used as other neuroimaging techniques, yet they offer several unique advantages. In particular, the high temporal resolution of ERP measures of neural activity make them ideally suited for studying the dynamic interplay of rapidly unfolding cognitive and affective processes. In this article, we highlight the utility of ERP methods for scientists investigating questions of SCAN. We begin with a brief description of the physiological basis of ERPs and discussion of methodological practices. We then discuss how ERPs may be used to address a range of questions concerning social perception, social cognition, attitudes, affect and self-regulation, with examples of research that has used the ERP approach to contribute important theoretical advances in these areas. Whether used alone or in combination with other techniques, the ERP is an indispensable part of the social and affective neuroscientist’s methodological toolkit. PMID:24319116

The etiology of social change.

PubMed

Carley, Kathleen M; Martin, Michael K; Hirshman, Brian R

2009-10-01

A fundamental aspect of human beings is that they learn. The process of learning and what is learned are impacted by a number of factors, both cognitive and social; that is, humans are boundedly rational. Cognitive and social limitations interact, making it difficult to reason about how to provide information to impact what humans know, believe, and do. Herein, we use a multi-agent dynamic-network simulation system, Construct, to conduct such reasoning. In particular, we ask, What media should be used to provide information to most impact what people know, believe, and do, given diverse social structures? All simulated agents are boundedly rational both at the cognitive and social level, and so are subject to factors such as literacy, education, and the breadth of their social network. We find that there is no one most effective intervention; rather, to be effective, messages and the media used to spread the message need to be selected for the population being addressed. Typically, a multimedia campaign is critical. Copyright © 2009 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Tracking the dynamics of the social brain: ERP approaches for social cognitive and affective neuroscience.

PubMed

Amodio, David M; Bartholow, Bruce D; Ito, Tiffany A

2014-03-01

Event-related potential (ERP) approaches to social cognitive and affective neuroscience (SCAN) are not as widely used as other neuroimaging techniques, yet they offer several unique advantages. In particular, the high temporal resolution of ERP measures of neural activity make them ideally suited for studying the dynamic interplay of rapidly unfolding cognitive and affective processes. In this article, we highlight the utility of ERP methods for scientists investigating questions of SCAN. We begin with a brief description of the physiological basis of ERPs and discussion of methodological practices. We then discuss how ERPs may be used to address a range of questions concerning social perception, social cognition, attitudes, affect and self-regulation, with examples of research that has used the ERP approach to contribute important theoretical advances in these areas. Whether used alone or in combination with other techniques, the ERP is an indispensable part of the social and affective neuroscientist's methodological toolkit.

Emotion Perception or Social Cognitive Complexity: What Drives Face Processing Deficits in Autism Spectrum Disorder?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Walsh, Jennifer A.; Creighton, Sarah E.; Rutherford, M. D.

2016-01-01

Some, but not all, relevant studies have revealed face processing deficits among those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In particular, deficits are revealed in face processing tasks that involve emotion perception. The current study examined whether either deficits in processing emotional expression or deficits in processing social cognitive…

Visual processing and social cognition in schizophrenia: relationships among eye movements, biological motion perception, and empathy.

PubMed

Matsumoto, Yukiko; Takahashi, Hideyuki; Murai, Toshiya; Takahashi, Hidehiko

2015-01-01

Schizophrenia patients have impairments at several levels of cognition including visual attention (eye movements), perception, and social cognition. However, it remains unclear how lower-level cognitive deficits influence higher-level cognition. To elucidate the hierarchical path linking deficient cognitions, we focused on biological motion perception, which is involved in both the early stage of visual perception (attention) and higher social cognition, and is impaired in schizophrenia. Seventeen schizophrenia patients and 18 healthy controls participated in the study. Using point-light walker stimuli, we examined eye movements during biological motion perception in schizophrenia. We assessed relationships among eye movements, biological motion perception and empathy. In the biological motion detection task, schizophrenia patients showed lower accuracy and fixated longer than healthy controls. As opposed to controls, patients exhibiting longer fixation durations and fewer numbers of fixations demonstrated higher accuracy. Additionally, in the patient group, the correlations between accuracy and affective empathy index and between eye movement index and affective empathy index were significant. The altered gaze patterns in patients indicate that top-down attention compensates for impaired bottom-up attention. Furthermore, aberrant eye movements might lead to deficits in biological motion perception and finally link to social cognitive impairments. The current findings merit further investigation for understanding the mechanism of social cognitive training and its development. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd and the Japan Neuroscience Society. All rights reserved.

Predictors of response to cognitive remediation in service recipients with severe mental illness.

PubMed

Lindenmayer, Jean-Pierre; Ozog, Veronica Anna; Khan, Anzalee; Ljuri, Isidora; Fregenti, Samantha; McGurk, Susan R

2017-03-01

Cognitive challenges are prominent features of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia, impairing occupational, social, and economic functioning. These challenges are predictive of social and work outcomes. Cognitive remediation has been shown to be effective in improving both cognitive and social functions. However, cognitive remediation does not produce improvement in all participants. We investigated demographic, neurocognitive, and psychopathological predictors associated with improvement following cognitive remediation interventions in service recipients with severe mental illnesses. One hundred thirty-seven adult participants with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, or bipolar disorder according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., text rev.) were enrolled in 12-week cognitive remediation programs. Assessments of demographic and illness variables, together with baseline and end point assessment of psychopathology (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale [PANSS]), neurocognition (Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia [MATRICS] Consensus Cognitive Battery [MCBB]), and social functions (Personal and Social Performance Scale [PSP]) were conducted. Change in cognitive domains was calculated using the reliable change index. Logistic regression analysis was used to assess predictors of cognitive improvement after the intervention. Sixty-two percent of participants improved on at least 1 of the MCCB domains. Higher baseline speed of processing, attention or vigilance, and working memory predicted a positive response to cognitive remediation. Younger age, higher education level, shorter length of stay, and lower PANSS Negative and Disorganized factors were additional predictors. Our results indicate the clinical usefulness of cognitive remediation and identified a pattern of clinical and cognitive predictors of good response to the intervention. Identification of these predictive factors by clinicians may enhance the outcome and aid in the development of individualized rehabilitative cognitive remediation treatment plans. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Integrating automatic and controlled processes into neurocognitive models of social cognition.

PubMed

Satpute, Ajay B; Lieberman, Matthew D

2006-03-24

Interest in the neural systems underlying social perception has expanded tremendously over the past few decades. However, gaps between behavioral literatures in social perception and neuroscience are still abundant. In this article, we apply the concept of dual-process models to neural systems in an effort to bridge the gap between many of these behavioral studies and neural systems underlying social perception. We describe and provide support for a neural division between reflexive and reflective systems. Reflexive systems correspond to automatic processes and include the amygdala, basal ganglia, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and lateral temporal cortex. Reflective systems correspond to controlled processes and include lateral prefrontal cortex, posterior parietal cortex, medial prefrontal cortex, rostral anterior cingulate cortex, and the hippocampus and surrounding medial temporal lobe region. This framework is considered to be a working model rather than a finished product. Finally, the utility of this model and its application to other social cognitive domains such as Theory of Mind are discussed.

Anticipatory processing in social anxiety: Investigation using attentional control theory.

PubMed

Sluis, Rachel A; Boschen, Mark J; Neumann, David L; Murphy, Karen

2017-12-01

Cognitive models of social anxiety disorder (SAD) emphasize anticipatory processing as a prominent maintaining factor occurring before social-evaluative events. While anticipatory processing is a maladaptive process, the cognitive mechanisms that underlie ineffective control of attention are still unclear. The present study tested predictions derived from attentional control theory in a sample of undergraduate students high and low on social anxiety symptoms. Participants were randomly assigned to either engage in anticipatory processing prior to a threat of a speech task or a control condition with no social evaluative threat. After completing a series of questionnaires, participants performed pro-saccades and antisaccades in response to peripherally presented facial expressions presented in either single-task or mixed-task blocks. Correct antisaccade latencies were longer than correct pro-saccade latencies in-line with attentional control theory. High socially anxious individuals who anticipated did not exhibit impairment on the inhibition and shifting functions compared to high socially anxious individuals who did not anticipate or low socially anxious individuals in either the anticipatory or control condition. Low socially anxious individuals who anticipated exhibited shorter antisaccade latencies and a switch benefit compared to low socially anxious individuals in the control condition. The study used an analogue sample; however findings from analogue samples are generally consistent with clinical samples. The findings suggest that social threat induced anticipatory processing facilitates executive functioning for low socially anxious individuals when anticipating a social-evaluative situation. Crown Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Social Cognition in Children with High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Associations with Executive Functions.

PubMed

Miranda, Ana; Berenguer, Carmen; Roselló, Belén; Baixauli, Inmaculada; Colomer, Carla

2017-01-01

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by social impairments. The first objective of this study was to analyze social cognition deficits of children with ADHD, high-functioning ASD (HFASD), and typical development (TD) in their performance on explicit and applied measures of theory of mind (ToM). The second objective was to investigate the relationships between executive functions and social cognition in HFASD and ADHD. One hundred and twenty-six 7- to 11-year old children, 52 with HFASD, 35 with ADHD, and 39 with TD, performed the NEPSY-II social perception subtests. Parents estimated their children's ToM skills using the Theory of Mind Inventory (ToMI). Teacher-reported data from the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) were also obtained. The HFASD and ADHD groups showed worse performance on the verbal ToM task than the TD group, and only the performance of the HFASD group was significantly lower than the TD group on the contextual ToM task. Parents also estimated that the HFASD group had more difficulties on the applied ToM than the ADHD and TD groups. Furthermore, there is a different executive function-theory of mind link in the HFASD and ADHD groups: behavioral regulation processes such as inhibition and emotional control are more associated with social cognition in children with ADHD, whereas metacognitive processes such as initiation and planning have a strong association with social cognition in children with HFASD. These findings have implications for understanding social perception deficits in neurodevelopmental disorders, highlighting the need for early intervention.

Social Cognition in Children with High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Associations with Executive Functions

PubMed Central

Miranda, Ana; Berenguer, Carmen; Roselló, Belén; Baixauli, Inmaculada; Colomer, Carla

2017-01-01

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by social impairments. The first objective of this study was to analyze social cognition deficits of children with ADHD, high-functioning ASD (HFASD), and typical development (TD) in their performance on explicit and applied measures of theory of mind (ToM). The second objective was to investigate the relationships between executive functions and social cognition in HFASD and ADHD. One hundred and twenty-six 7- to 11-year old children, 52 with HFASD, 35 with ADHD, and 39 with TD, performed the NEPSY-II social perception subtests. Parents estimated their children's ToM skills using the Theory of Mind Inventory (ToMI). Teacher-reported data from the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) were also obtained. The HFASD and ADHD groups showed worse performance on the verbal ToM task than the TD group, and only the performance of the HFASD group was significantly lower than the TD group on the contextual ToM task. Parents also estimated that the HFASD group had more difficulties on the applied ToM than the ADHD and TD groups. Furthermore, there is a different executive function-theory of mind link in the HFASD and ADHD groups: behavioral regulation processes such as inhibition and emotional control are more associated with social cognition in children with ADHD, whereas metacognitive processes such as initiation and planning have a strong association with social cognition in children with HFASD. These findings have implications for understanding social perception deficits in neurodevelopmental disorders, highlighting the need for early intervention. PMID:28690570

How Colours Are Semantically Construed in the Arabic and English Culture: A Comparative Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hasan, Amna A.; Al-Sammerai, Nabiha S. Mehdi; Kadir, Fakhrul Adabi Bin Abdul

2011-01-01

Most works in cognitive semantics have been focusing on the manner, in which an individual behaves--be it the mind, brain, or even computers, which process various kinds of information. Among humans, in particular, social life is richly cultured. Sociality and culture are made possible by cognitive studies; they provide specific inputs to…

A Truth that's Told with Bad Intent: An ERP Study of Deception

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carrion, Ricardo E.; Keenan, Julian P.; Sebanz, Natalie

2010-01-01

Human social cognition critically relies on the ability to deceive others. However, the cognitive and neural underpinnings of deception are still poorly understood. Why does lying place increased demands on cognitive control? The present study investigated whether cognitive control processes during deception are recruited due to the need to…

Imbalance in subregional connectivity of the right temporoparietal junction in major depression.

PubMed

Poeppl, Timm B; Müller, Veronika I; Hoffstaedter, Felix; Bzdok, Danilo; Laird, Angela R; Fox, Peter T; Langguth, Berthold; Rupprecht, Rainer; Sorg, Christian; Riedl, Valentin; Goya-Maldonado, Roberto; Gruber, Oliver; Eickhoff, Simon B

2016-08-01

Major depressive disorder (MDD) involves impairment in cognitive and interpersonal functioning. The right temporoparietal junction (RTPJ) is a key brain region subserving cognitive-attentional and social processes. Yet, findings on the involvement of the RTPJ in the pathophysiology of MDD have so far been controversial. Recent connectivity-based parcellation data revealed a topofunctional dualism within the RTPJ, linking its anterior and posterior part (aRTPJ/pRTPJ) to antagonistic brain networks for attentional and social processing, respectively. Comparing functional resting-state connectivity of the aRTPJ and pRTPJ in 72 MDD patients and 76 well-matched healthy controls, we found a seed (aRTPJ/pRTPJ) × diagnosis (MDD/controls) interaction in functional connectivity for eight regions. Employing meta-data from a large-scale neuroimaging database, functional characterization of these regions exhibiting differentially altered connectivity with the aRTPJ/pRTPJ revealed associations with cognitive (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, parahippocampus) and behavioral (posterior medial frontal cortex) control, visuospatial processing (dorsal visual cortex), reward (subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, medial orbitofrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex), as well as memory retrieval and social cognition (precuneus). These findings suggest that an imbalance in connectivity of subregions, rather than disturbed connectivity of the RTPJ as a whole, characterizes the connectional disruption of the RTPJ in MDD. This imbalance may account for key symptoms of MDD in cognitive, emotional, and social domains. Hum Brain Mapp 37:2931-2942, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Prefrontal mediation of emotion regulation in social anxiety disorder during laughter perception.

PubMed

Kreifelts, Benjamin; Brück, Carolin; Ethofer, Thomas; Ritter, Jan; Weigel, Lena; Erb, Michael; Wildgruber, Dirk

2017-02-01

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by negatively biased perception of social cues and deficits in emotion regulation. While negatively biased perception is thought to maintain social anxiety, emotion regulation represents an ability necessary to overcome both biased perception and social anxiety. Here, we used laughter as a social threat in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study to identify cerebral mediators linking SAD with attention and interpretation biases and their modification through cognitive emotion regulation in the form of reappraisal. We found that reappraisal abolished the negative laughter interpretation bias in SAD and that this process was directly mediated through activation patterns of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) serving as a cerebral pivot between biased social perception and its normalization through reappraisal. Connectivity analyses revealed reduced prefrontal control over threat-processing sensory cortices (here: the temporal voice area) during cognitive emotion regulation in SAD. Our results indicate a central role for the left DLPFC in SAD which might represent a valuable target for future research on interventions either aiming to directly modulate cognitive emotion regulation in SAD or to evaluate its potential as physiological marker for psychotherapeutic interventions relying on emotion regulation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Perception and motivation in face recognition: a critical review of theories of the Cross-Race Effect.

PubMed

Young, Steven G; Hugenberg, Kurt; Bernstein, Michael J; Sacco, Donald F

2012-05-01

Although humans possess well-developed face processing expertise, face processing is nevertheless subject to a variety of biases. Perhaps the best known of these biases is the Cross-Race Effect--the tendency to have more accurate recognition for same-race than cross-race faces. The current work reviews the evidence for and provides a critical review of theories of the Cross-Race Effect, including perceptual expertise and social cognitive accounts of the bias. The authors conclude that recent hybrid models of the Cross-Race Effect, which combine elements of both perceptual expertise and social cognitive frameworks, provide an opportunity for theoretical synthesis and advancement not afforded by independent expertise or social cognitive models. Finally, the authors suggest future research directions intended to further develop a comprehensive and integrative understanding of biases in face recognition.

Differentiating between appraisal process and product in cognitive theories of posttraumatic stress

PubMed Central

Nanney, John T.; Constans, Joseph I.; Kimbrell, Timothy A.; Kramer, Teresa L.; Pyne, Jeffrey M.

2014-01-01

Biased appraisal is central to cognitive theories of posttraumatic stress, but little research has examined the potentially distinct meanings of the term. The on-going process of appraising social information and the beliefs that emerge as products of that process can be distinguished conceptually. The present study sought to examine if these two meanings are empirically distinct as well, and if so, to begin exploring potential relations between these appraisal constructs and posttraumatic stress symptoms. Soldiers (N = 424) preparing for deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan were administered measures of each construct. Results of confirmatory factor analysis suggest that the appraisal process and the products of that process (i.e., beliefs) are indeed distinct. Structural equation models are consistent with cognitive bias and social information processing literatures which posit that a biased appraisal process may contribute to the development of dysfunctional beliefs and posttraumatic stress symptoms following trauma. The potential utility of distinctly conceptualizing and measuring the appraisal process in both clinical and research settings is discussed. PMID:26147520

Differentiating between appraisal process and product in cognitive theories of posttraumatic stress.

PubMed

Nanney, John T; Constans, Joseph I; Kimbrell, Timothy A; Kramer, Teresa L; Pyne, Jeffrey M

2015-07-01

Biased appraisal is central to cognitive theories of posttraumatic stress, but little research has examined the potentially distinct meanings of the term. The ongoing process of appraising social information and the beliefs that emerge as products of that process can be distinguished conceptually. This study sought to examine whether these 2 meanings are empirically distinct as well, and if so, to begin exploring potential relations between these appraisal constructs and posttraumatic stress symptoms. Soldiers (N = 424) preparing for deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan were administered measures of each construct. Results of confirmatory factor analysis suggest that the appraisal process and the products of that process (i.e., beliefs) are indeed distinct. Structural equation models are consistent with cognitive bias and social information processing literatures, which posit that a biased appraisal process may contribute to the development of dysfunctional beliefs and posttraumatic stress symptoms following trauma. The potential utility of distinctly conceptualizing and measuring the appraisal process in both clinical and research settings is discussed. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Abnormal emotion processing, but intact fairness and intentionality considerations during social decision-making in schizophrenia

PubMed Central

de la Asuncion, Javier; Docx, Lise; Sabbe, Bernard; Morrens, Manuel; de Bruijn, Ellen R. A.

2015-01-01

Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder that is highly characterized by social cognitive impairments. Most studies investigating these impairments focus on one specific social domain such as emotion recognition. However, in daily life, processing complex social situations relies on the combination of several social cognitive and affective processes simultaneously rather than one process alone. A modified version of the economically based Ultimatum Game was used to measure the interplay between fairness, intentionality, and emotion considerations during social decision-making. In this task, participants accept or reject fair and unfair monetary offers proposed intentionally or unintentionally by either angry, happy, neutral, or sad proposers. Behavioral data was collected from a group of schizophrenia patients (N = 35) and a group of healthy individuals (N = 30). Like healthy participants, schizophrenia patients differentiated between fair and unfair offers by rejecting unfair offers more compared to fair offers. However, overall patients did reject more fair offers, indicating that their construct of fairness operates within different margins. In both groups, intentional unfair offers were rejected more compared to unintentional ones, indicating a normal integration of intentionality considerations in schizophrenia. Importantly, healthy subjects also differentiated between proposers’ emotion when rejecting unfair offers (more rejections from proposers depicting angry faces compared to proposers depicting, happy, neutral, or sad faces). Schizophrenia patients’ decision behavior on the other hand, was not affected by the proposers’ emotions. The current study thus shows that schizophrenia patients have specific problems with processing and integrating emotional information. Importantly, the finding that patients display normal fairness and intentionality considerations emphasizes preservation of central social cognitive processes in schizophrenia. PMID:26257699

Thinking Socially: Teaching Social Knowledge to Foster Social Behavioral Change

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crooke, Pamela J.; Winner, Michelle Garcia; Olswang, Lesley B.

2016-01-01

This article addresses the complexity of what it means to "be social" from the perspective of social thinking. This perspective recognizes social cognitive processing abilities as the foundation for social knowledge and, in turn, social behaviors. The article further describes variables that influence how one understands how to do what…

Social support, posttraumatic cognitions, and PTSD: The influence of family, friends, and a close other in an interpersonal and non-interpersonal trauma group.

PubMed

Woodward, Matthew J; Eddinger, Jasmine; Henschel, Aisling V; Dodson, Thomas S; Tran, Han N; Beck, J Gayle

2015-10-01

Research has suggested that social support can shape posttraumatic cognitions and PTSD. However, research has yet to compare the influence of separate domains of support on posttraumatic cognitions. Multiple-group path analysis was used to examine a model in a sample of 170 victims of intimate partner violence and 208 motor vehicle accident victims in which support from friends, family, and a close other were each predicted to influence posttraumatic cognitions, which were in turn predicted to influence PTSD. Analyses revealed that support from family and friends were each negatively correlated with posttraumatic cognitions, which in turn were positively associated with PTSD. Social support from a close other was not associated with posttraumatic cognitions. No significant differences in the model were found between trauma groups. Findings identify which relationships are likely to influence posttraumatic cognitions and are discussed with regard to interpersonal processes in the development and maintenance of PTSD. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Socially Shared Regulation in Collaborative Groups: An Analysis of the Interplay between Quality of Social Regulation and Group Processes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rogat, Toni Kempler; Linnenbrink-Garcia, Lisa

2011-01-01

This study extends prior research on both individual self-regulation and socially shared regulation during group learning to examine the range and quality of the cognitive and behavioral social regulatory sub-processes employed by six small collaborative groups of upper-elementary students (n = 24). Qualitative analyses were conducted based on…

Adolescent Social Defeat Induced Alterations in Social Behavior and Cognitive Flexibility in Adult Mice: Effects of Developmental Stage and Social Condition

PubMed Central

Zhang, Fan; Yuan, Sanna; Shao, Feng; Wang, Weiwen

2016-01-01

Negative social experiences during adolescence increase the risk of psychiatric disorders in adulthood. Using “resident-intruder” stress, the present study aimed to investigate the effects of adolescent social defeat on emotional and cognitive symptoms associated with psychiatric disorders during adulthood and the effects of the developmental stage and social condition on this process. In Experiment 1, animals were exposed to social defeat or manipulation for 10 days during early adolescence (EA, postnatal days [PND] 28–37), late adolescence (LA, PND 38–47), and adulthood (ADULT, PND 70–79) and then singly housed until the behavioral tests. Behaviors, including social avoidance of the defeat context and cortically mediated cognitive flexibility in an attentional set-shifting task (AST), were assessed during the week following stress or after 6 weeks during adulthood. We determined that social defeat induced significant and continuous social avoidance across age groups at both time points. The mice that experienced social defeat during adulthood exhibited short-term impairments in reversal learning (RL) on the AST that dissipated after 6 weeks. In contrast, social defeat during EA but not LA induced a delayed deficit in extra-dimensional set-shifting (EDS) in adulthood but not during adolescence. In Experiment 2, we further examined the effects of social condition (isolation or social housing after stress) on the alterations induced by social defeat during EA in adult mice. The adult mice that had experienced stress during EA exhibited social avoidance similar to the avoidance identified in Experiment 1 regardless of the isolation or social housing after the stress. However, social housing after the stress ameliorated the cognitive flexibility deficits induced by early adolescent social defeat in the adult mice, and the social condition had no effect on cognitive function. These findings suggest that the effects of social defeat on emotion and cognitive function are differentially affected by the developmental stage and social condition. EA may comprise a particularly sensitive developmental period in which social defeat may produce a delayed impairment in cognitive flexibility during adulthood, and the social condition following stress appears to play an important intermediary role in the development of these cognitive deficits. PMID:27489540

Implicit cognitive aggression among young male prisoners: Association with dispositional and current aggression.

PubMed

Ireland, Jane L; Adams, Christine

2015-01-01

The current study explores associations between implicit and explicit aggression in young adult male prisoners, seeking to apply the Reflection-Impulsive Model and indicate parity with elements of the General Aggression Model and social cognition. Implicit cognitive aggressive processing is not an area that has been examined among prisoners. Two hundred and sixty two prisoners completed an implicit cognitive aggression measure (Puzzle Test) and explicit aggression measures, covering current behaviour (DIPC-R) and aggression disposition (AQ). It was predicted that dispositional aggression would be predicted by implicit cognitive aggression, and that implicit cognitive aggression would predict current engagement in aggressive behaviour. It was also predicted that more impulsive implicit cognitive processing would associate with aggressive behaviour whereas cognitively effortful implicit cognitive processing would not. Implicit aggressive cognitive processing was associated with increased dispositional aggression but not current reports of aggressive behaviour. Impulsive implicit cognitive processing of an aggressive nature predicted increased dispositional aggression whereas more cognitively effortful implicit cognitive aggression did not. The article concludes by outlining the importance of accounting for implicit cognitive processing among prisoners and the need to separate such processing into facets (i.e. impulsive vs. cognitively effortful). Implications for future research and practice in this novel area of study are indicated. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Disentangling the Relations between Social Identity and Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior in Competitive Youth Sport.

PubMed

Bruner, Mark W; Boardley, Ian D; Benson, Alex J; Wilson, Kathleen S; Root, Zachary; Turnnidge, Jennifer; Sutcliffe, Jordan; Côté, Jean

2018-05-01

The social identities formed through membership on extracurricular activity groups may contribute to the frequency with which youth engage in prosocial and antisocial behavior. However, researchers have yet to disentangle the individual- and group-level processes social identification effects operate through; sex and perceived norms may also moderate such effects. Thus, we investigated the hierarchical and conditional relations between three dimensions of social identity (i.e., ingroup ties, cognitive centrality, ingroup affect) and prosocial and antisocial behavior in youth ice hockey players (N = 376; 33% female). Multilevel analyses demonstrated antisocial teammate and opponent behavior were predicted by cognitive centrality at the team level. Further, prosocial teammate behavior was predicted by cognitive centrality and ingroup ties at the individual-level. Also, perceived norms for prosocial teammate behavior moderated the relations between ingroup ties, cognitive centrality, and ingroup affect and prosocial teammate behaviour. Finally, sex moderated the relations between cognitive centrality/ingroup affect and antisocial opponent behavior. This work demonstrates the multilevel and conditional nature of how social identity dimensions relate to youth prosocial and antisocial behavior.

The Whole Student: Cognition, Emotion, and Information Literacy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Matteson, Miriam L.

2014-01-01

Information literacy skill acquisition is a form of learning that is influenced by cognitive, emotional, and social processes. This research studied how two emotional constructs (emotional intelligence and dispositional affect) and two cognitive constructs (motivation and coping skills) interacted with students' information literacy scores. Two…

Emotional engagements predict and enhance social cognition in young chimpanzees.

PubMed

Bard, Kim A; Bakeman, Roger; Boysen, Sarah T; Leavens, David A

2014-09-01

Social cognition in infancy is evident in coordinated triadic engagements, that is, infants attending jointly with social partners and objects. Current evolutionary theories of primate social cognition tend to highlight species differences in cognition based on human-unique cooperative motives. We consider a developmental model in which engagement experiences produce differential outcomes. We conducted a 10-year-long study in which two groups of laboratory-raised chimpanzee infants were given quantifiably different engagement experiences. Joint attention, cooperativeness, affect, and different levels of cognition were measured in 5- to 12-month-old chimpanzees, and compared to outcomes derived from a normative human database. We found that joint attention skills significantly improved across development for all infants, but by 12 months, the humans significantly surpassed the chimpanzees. We found that cooperativeness was stable in the humans, but by 12 months, the chimpanzee group given enriched engagement experiences significantly surpassed the humans. Past engagement experiences and concurrent affect were significant unique predictors of both joint attention and cooperativeness in 5- to 12-month-old chimpanzees. When engagement experiences and concurrent affect were statistically controlled, joint attention and cooperation were not associated. We explain differential social cognition outcomes in terms of the significant influences of previous engagement experiences and affect, in addition to cognition. Our study highlights developmental processes that underpin the emergence of social cognition in support of evolutionary continuity. © 2014 The Authors. Developmental Science Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Social hierarchies and emotions: cortical prefrontal activity, facial feedback (EMG), and cognitive performance in a dynamic interaction.

PubMed

Balconi, Michela; Pagani, Silvia

2015-04-01

In the present research, we manipulated the perceived superior/inferior status during a competitive cognitive task. In two experiments, we created an explicit and strongly reinforced social hierarchy based on incidental rating on an attentional task. Based on our hypotheses, social rank may influence nonverbal cues (such as facial mimic related to emotional response), cortical lateralized activity in frontal areas (brain oscillations), and cognitive outcomes in response to rank modulation. Thus, the facial mimic (corrugators vs. zygomatic muscle activity), frequency bands (delta, theta, alpha, beta), and real cognitive performance [(error rate (ER); response times (RTs)] were considered. Specifically, a peer-group comparison was enrolled and an improved (experiment 1, N = 29) or decreased (experiment 2, N = 31) performance was artificially manipulated by the experimenter. Results showed a significant improved cognitive performance (decreased ER and RTs), an increased zygomatic activity (positive emotions), and a more prefrontal left-lateralized cortical response in the case of a perceived increased social ranking. On the contrary, a significant decreased cognitive performance (increased ER and RTs), an increased corrugators activity (negative emotions), and a less left-lateralized cortical response were observed as a consequence of a perceived decreased social ranking. Moreover, the correlational values revealed a consistent trend between behavioral (RTs) and EMG and EEG measures for both experiments. The present results suggest that social status not only guides social behavior, but it also influences cognitive processes and subjects' performance.

The Social Meaning of Sharing and Geocoding: Features and Social Processes in Online Communities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Xiong, Li

2012-01-01

This study examines how emergent communities might show different patterns of uses and perceptions for communication and profile features when geolocation features are used. It explores the ways that location awareness moderates the social and cognitive processes that motivate people's participation in the sharing of personal information…

Interpersonal and Emotional Processes in Generalized Anxiety Disorder Analogues during Social Interaction Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Erickson, Thane M.; Newman, Michelle G.

2007-01-01

Persons with chronic worry and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) report maladaptive social cognitions, interpersonal behaviors, and emotional regulation. Because research has neither investigated these processes in actual social situations nor explored whether they take heterogeneous forms, the present study provides the first attempt to do so in…

Cluster B personality symptoms in persons at genetic risk for schizophrenia are associated with social competence and activation of the right temporo-parietal junction during emotion processing.

PubMed

Goldschmidt, Micaela Giuliana; Villarreal, Mirta Fabiana; de Achával, Delfina; Drucaroff, Lucas Javier; Costanzo, Elsa Yolanda; Castro, Mariana Nair; Pahissa, Jaime; Camprodon, Joan; Nemeroff, Charles; Guinjoan, Salvador Martín

2014-01-30

Personality disorders are common in nonpsychotic siblings of patients with schizophrenia, and some personality traits in this group may be associated with an increased risk for full-blown psychosis. We sought to establish if faulty right-hemisphere activation induced by social cognitive tasks, as previously described in patients with schizophrenia, is associated with specific personality symptoms in their unaffected siblings. We observed that cluster B personality symptoms in this group were inversely related to activation in the right temporo parietal junction (rTPJ, a structure critical in social cognitive processing) in response to a basic emotion processing task and also to social competence, whereas in contrast to our initial hypothesis, cluster A traits were not associated with right hemisphere activation during emotion processing or with social competence. These findings suggest the existence of clinical traits in at-risk individuals which share a common neurobiological substrate with schizophrenia, in regards to social performance. © 2013 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

Why do providers contribute to disparities and what can be done about it?

PubMed

Burgess, Diana J; Fu, Steven S; van Ryn, Michelle

2004-11-01

This paper applies social cognition research to understanding and ameliorating the provider contribution to racial/ethnic disparities in health care. We discuss how fundamental cognitive mechanisms such as automatic, unconscious processes (e.g., stereotyping) can help explain provider bias. Even well-intentioned providers who are motivated to be nonprejudiced may stereotype racial/ethnic minority members, particularly under conditions of that diminish cognitive capacity. These conditions-time pressure, fatigue, and information overload-are frequently found in health care settings. We conclude with implications of the social-cognitive perspective for developing interventions to reduce provider bias.

Why Do Providers Contribute to Disparities and What Can Be Done About It?

PubMed Central

Burgess, Diana J; Fu, Steven S; van Ryn, Michelle

2004-01-01

This paper applies social cognition research to understanding and ameliorating the provider contribution to racial/ethnic disparities in health care. We discuss how fundamental cognitive mechanisms such as automatic, unconscious processes (e.g., stereotyping) can help explain provider bias. Even well-intentioned providers who are motivated to be nonprejudiced may stereotype racial/ethnic minority members, particularly under conditions of that diminish cognitive capacity. These conditions—time pressure, fatigue, and information overload—are frequently found in health care settings. We conclude with implications of the social-cognitive perspective for developing interventions to reduce provider bias. PMID:15566446

Self-referenced memory, social cognition, and symptom presentation in autism.

PubMed

Henderson, Heather A; Zahka, Nicole E; Kojkowski, Nicole M; Inge, Anne P; Schwartz, Caley B; Hileman, Camilla M; Coman, Drew C; Mundy, Peter C

2009-07-01

We examined performance on a self-referenced memory (SRM) task for higher-functioning children with autism (HFA) and a matched comparison group. SRM performance was examined in relation to symptom severity and social cognitive tests of mentalizing. Sixty-two children (31 HFA, 31 comparison; 8-16 years) completed a SRM task in which they read a list of words and decided whether the word described something about them, something about Harry Potter, or contained a certain number of letters. They then identified words that were familiar from a longer list. Dependent measures were memory performance (d') in each of the three encoding conditions as well as a self-memory bias score (d' self-d' other). Children completed The Strange Stories Task and The Children's Eyes Test as measures of social cognition. Parents completed the SCQ and ASSQ as measures of symptom severity. Children in the comparison sample showed the standard SRM effect in which they recognized significantly more self-referenced words relative to words in the other-referenced and letter conditions. In contrast, HFA children showed comparable rates of recognition for self- and other-referenced words. For all children, SRM performance improved with age and enhanced SRM performance was related to lower levels of social problems. These associations were not accounted for by performance on the mentalizing tasks. Children with HFA did not show the standard enhanced processing of self- vs. other-relevant information. Individual differences in the tendency to preferentially process self-relevant information may be associated with social cognitive processes that serve to modify the expression of social symptoms in children with autism.

Infant Joint Attention, Neural Networks and Social Cognition

PubMed Central

Mundy, Peter; Jarrold, William

2010-01-01

Neural network models of attention can provide a unifying approach to the study of human cognitive and emotional development (Posner & Rothbart, 2007). This paper we argue that a neural networks approach to the infant development of joint attention can inform our understanding of the nature of human social learning, symbolic thought process and social cognition. At its most basic, joint attention involves the capacity to coordinate one’s own visual attention with that of another person. We propose that joint attention development involves increments in the capacity to engage in simultaneous or parallel processing of information about one’s own attention and the attention of other people. Infant practice with joint attention is both a consequence and organizer of the development of a distributed and integrated brain network involving frontal and parietal cortical systems. This executive distributed network first serves to regulate the capacity of infants to respond to and direct the overt behavior of other people in order to share experience with others through the social coordination of visual attention. In this paper we describe this parallel and distributed neural network model of joint attention development and discuss two hypotheses that stem from this model. One is that activation of this distributed network during coordinated attention enhances to depth of information processing and encoding beginning in the first year of life. We also propose that with development joint attention becomes internalized as the capacity to socially coordinate mental attention to internal representations. As this occurs the executive joint attention network makes vital contributions to the development of human symbolic thinking and social cognition. PMID:20884172

Developmental trajectories of aggression, prosocial behavior, and social-cognitive problem solving in emerging adolescents with clinically elevated attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms.

PubMed

Kofler, Michael J; Larsen, Ross; Sarver, Dustin E; Tolan, Patrick H

2015-11-01

Middle school is a critical yet understudied period of social behavioral risks and opportunities that may be particularly difficult for emerging adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) given their childhood social difficulties. Relatively few ADHD studies have examined social behavior and social-cognitive problem solving beyond the elementary years, or examined aspects of positive (prosocial) behavior. The current study examined how middle school students with clinically elevated ADHD symptoms differ from their non-ADHD peers on baseline (6th grade) and age-related changes in prosocial and aggressive behavior, and the extent to which social-cognitive problem solving strategies mediate these relations. Emerging adolescents with (n = 178) and without (n = 3,806) clinically elevated, teacher-reported ADHD-combined symptoms were compared longitudinally across 6th through 8th grades using parallel process latent growth curve modeling, accounting for student demographic characteristics, oppositional-defiant disorder (ODD) symptoms, deviant peer association, school climate, and parental monitoring. Sixth graders with elevated ADHD symptoms engaged in somewhat fewer prosocial behaviors (d = -0.44) and more aggressive behavior (d = 0.20) relative to their peers. These small social behavioral deficits decreased but were not normalized across the middle school years. Contrary to hypotheses, social-cognitive problem solving was not impaired in the ADHD group after accounting for co-occurring ODD symptoms and did not mediate the association between ADHD and social behavior during the middle school years. ADHD and social-cognitive problem solving contributed independently to social behavior, both in 6th grade and across the middle school years; the influence of social-cognitive problem solving on social behavior was highly similar for the ADHD and non-ADHD groups. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Can cognitive science create a cognitive economics?

PubMed

Chater, Nick

2015-02-01

Cognitive science can intersect with economics in at least three productive ways: by providing richer models of individual behaviour for use in economic analysis; by drawing from economic theory in order to model distributed cognition; and jointly to create more powerful 'rational' models of cognitive processes and social interaction. There is the prospect of moving from behavioural economics to a genuinely cognitive economics. Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Neural systems for social cognition in Klinefelter syndrome (47,XXY): evidence from fMRI.

PubMed

van Rijn, Sophie; Swaab, Hanna; Baas, Daan; de Haan, Edward; Kahn, René S; Aleman, André

2012-08-01

Klinefelter syndrome (KS) is a chromosomal condition (47, XXY) that may help us to unravel gene-brain behavior pathways to psychopathology. The phenotype includes social cognitive impairments and increased risk for autism traits. We used functional MRI to study neural mechanisms underlying social information processing. Eighteen nonclinical controls and thirteen men with XXY were scanned during judgments of faces with regard to trustworthiness and age. While judging faces as untrustworthy in comparison to trustworthy, men with XXY displayed less activation than controls in (i) the amygdala, which plays a key role in screening information for socio-emotional significance, (ii) the insula, which plays a role in subjective emotional experience, as well as (iii) the fusiform gyrus and (iv) the superior temporal sulcus, which are both involved in the perceptual processing of faces and which were also less involved during age judgments in men with XXY. This is the first study showing that KS can be associated with reduced involvement of the neural network subserving social cognition. Studying KS may increase our understanding of the genetic and hormonal basis of neural dysfunctions contributing to abnormalities in social cognition and behavior, which are considered core abnormalities in psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.

The role of emotional maltreatment and looming cognitive style in the development of social anxiety symptoms in late adolescents.

PubMed

González-Díez, Zahira; Orue, Izaskun; Calvete, Esther

2017-01-01

Social looming constitutes a specific cognitive vulnerability that acts as a danger schema and biases the processing of threat-related information associated with the development of social anxiety disorder. This model characterizes early negative experiences as critical to the formation of looming cognitive style. Furthermore, research has found links between parental emotional abuse and peer victimization and social anxiety. A three-wave longitudinal design was used to analyze the role of parents' emotional abuse and peer victimization in the onset of social anxiety symptoms through the development of this cognitive style. The final sample was made up of 307 females and 243 males (M age  = 16.97, SD age  = .81). Perceived parents' emotional abuse and peer victimization by participants were measured at Time 1, social looming was measured at Time 1 and 2, and social anxiety symptoms were measured at Times 1, 2, and 3. Parents' emotional abuse and peer victimization were related to social anxiety cross-sectionally. Longitudinally, social looming acted as a mediator in the relationship between parents' emotional abuse and social anxiety. These findings highlight the need to better understand the mechanisms through which emotional abuse and peer victimization impact social looming and contribute to social anxiety.

Oxytocin, testosterone, and human social cognition.

PubMed

Crespi, Bernard J

2016-05-01

I describe an integrative social-evolutionary model for the adaptive significance of the human oxytocinergic system. The model is based on a role for this hormone in the generation and maintenance of social familiarity and affiliation across five homologous, functionally similar, and sequentially co-opted contexts: mothers with offspring, female and male mates, kin groups, individuals with reciprocity partners, and individuals within cooperating and competing social groups defined by culture. In each situation, oxytocin motivates, mediates and rewards the cognitive and behavioural processes that underlie the formation and dynamics of a more or less stable social group, and promotes a relationship between two or more individuals. Such relationships may be positive (eliciting neurological reward, reducing anxiety and thus indicating fitness-enhancing effects), or negative (increasing anxiety and distress, and thus motivating attempts to alleviate a problematic, fitness-reducing social situation). I also present evidence that testosterone exhibits opposite effects from oxytocin on diverse aspects of cognition and behaviour, most generally by favouring self-oriented, asocial and antisocial behaviours. I apply this model for effects of oxytocin and testosterone to understanding human psychological disorders centrally involving social behaviour. Reduced oxytocin and higher testosterone levels have been associated with under-developed social cognition, especially in autism. By contrast, some combination of oxytocin increased above normal levels, and lower testosterone, has been reported in a notable number of studies of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression, and, in some cases, higher oxytocin involves maladaptively 'hyper-developed' social cognition in these conditions. This pattern of findings suggests that human social cognition and behaviour are structured, in part, by joint and opposing effects of oxytocin and testosterone, and that extremes of such joint effects partially mediate risks and phenotypes of autism and psychotic-affective conditions. These considerations have direct implications for the development of therapies for alleviating disorders of social cognition, and for understanding how such disorders are associated with the evolution of human cognitive-affective architecture. © 2015 Cambridge Philosophical Society.

A new test of advanced theory of mind: The "Strange Stories Film Task" captures social processing differences in adults with autism spectrum disorders.

PubMed

Murray, Kim; Johnston, Kate; Cunnane, Helen; Kerr, Charlotte; Spain, Debbie; Gillan, Nicola; Hammond, Neil; Murphy, Declan; Happé, Francesca

2017-06-01

Real-life social processing abilities of adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) can be hard to capture in lab-based experimental tasks. A novel measure of social cognition, the "Strange Stories Film task' (SSFt), was designed to overcome limitations of available measures in the field. Brief films were made based on the scenarios from the Strange Stories task (Happé) and designed to capture the subtle social-cognitive difficulties observed in ASD adults. Twenty neurotypical adults were recruited to pilot the new measure. A final test set was produced and administered to a group of 20 adults with ASD and 20 matched controls, alongside established social cognition tasks and questionnaire measures of empathy, alexithymia and ASD traits. The SSFt was more effective than existing measures at differentiating the ASD group from the control group. In the ASD group, the SSFt was associated with the Strange Stories task. The SSFt is a potentially useful tool to identify social cognitive dis/abilities in ASD, with preliminary evidence of adequate convergent validity. Future research directions are discussed. Autism Res 2017. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1120-1132. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Reward circuitry activation reflects social preferences in the face of cognitive effort.

PubMed

Sullivan-Toole, Holly; Dobryakova, Ekaterina; DePasque, Samantha; Tricomi, Elizabeth

2018-06-12

Research at the intersection of social neuroscience and cognitive effort is an interesting new area for exploration. There is great potential to broaden our understanding of how social context and cognitive effort processes, currently addressed in disparate literatures, interact with one another. In this paper, we briefly review the literature on cognitive effort, focusing on effort-linked valuation and the gap in the literature regarding cognitive effort in the social domain. Next, we present a study designed to explore valuation processes linked to cognitive effort within the social context of an inequality manipulation. More specifically, we created monetary inequality among the participant (SELF, endowed with $50) and two confederates: one also endowed with $50 (OTHER HIGH) and another with only $5 (OTHER LOW). We then scanned participants using fMRI as they attempted to earn bonus payments for themselves and others through a cognitively effortful feedback-based learning task. Positive feedback produced significantly greater activation than negative feedback in key valuation regions, the ventral striatum (VS) and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), both when participants were performing the task on their own behalf and when earning rewards for others. While reward-related activity in the VS was exaggerated for SELF compared to OTHER HIGH for both positive and negative feedback, activity in the vmPFC did not distinguish between recipients in the group-level results. Furthermore, participants naturally fell into two groups: those most engaged when playing for themselves and those who reported engagement for others. While Self-Engaged participants showed differences between the SELF and both OTHER conditions in the VS and vmPFC, Other-Engaged participants only showed an attenuated response to negative feedback for OTHER HIGH compared to SELF in the VS and no differences between recipient conditions in the vmPFC. Together, this work shows the importance of individual differences and the fragility of advantageous inequality aversion in the face of cognitive effort, highlighting the need to study cognitive effort in the social domain. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Does Writing as Process = Writing as Social Practice?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cazden, Courtney B.

The workplace research of Sylvia Scribner provides a model with which to study relationships between socially and institutionally organized practices and individual cognitive processes as well as to explore relationships between practices and processes in writing and the teaching of writing. Observations and conversations in one inner-city,…

White matter tract signatures of impaired social cognition in frontotemporal lobar degeneration

PubMed Central

Downey, Laura E.; Mahoney, Colin J.; Buckley, Aisling H.; Golden, Hannah L.; Henley, Susie M.; Schmitz, Nicole; Schott, Jonathan M.; Simpson, Ivor J.; Ourselin, Sebastien; Fox, Nick C.; Crutch, Sebastian J.; Warren, Jason D.

2015-01-01

Impairments of social cognition are often leading features in frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and likely to reflect large-scale brain network disintegration. However, the neuroanatomical basis of impaired social cognition in FTLD and the role of white matter connections have not been defined. Here we assessed social cognition in a cohort of patients representing two core syndromes of FTLD, behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD; n = 29) and semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA; n = 15), relative to healthy older individuals (n = 37) using two components of the Awareness of Social Inference Test, canonical emotion identification and sarcasm identification. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was used to derive white matter tract correlates of social cognition performance and compared with the distribution of grey matter atrophy on voxel-based morphometry. The bvFTD and svPPA groups showed comparably severe deficits for identification of canonical emotions and sarcasm, and these deficits were correlated with distributed and overlapping white matter tract alterations particularly affecting frontotemporal connections in the right cerebral hemisphere. The most robust DTI associations were identified in white matter tracts linking cognitive and evaluative processing with emotional responses: anterior thalamic radiation, fornix (emotion identification) and uncinate fasciculus (sarcasm identification). DTI associations of impaired social cognition were more consistent than corresponding grey matter associations. These findings delineate a brain network substrate for the social impairment that characterises FTLD syndromes. The findings further suggest that DTI can generate sensitive and functionally relevant indexes of white matter damage in FTLD, with potential to transcend conventional syndrome boundaries. PMID:26236629

Emotional Processing, Recognition, Empathy and Evoked Facial Expression in Eating Disorders: An Experimental Study to Map Deficits in Social Cognition

PubMed Central

Cardi, Valentina; Corfield, Freya; Leppanen, Jenni; Rhind, Charlotte; Deriziotis, Stephanie; Hadjimichalis, Alexandra; Hibbs, Rebecca; Micali, Nadia; Treasure, Janet

2015-01-01

Background Difficulties in social cognition have been identified in eating disorders (EDs), but the exact profile of these abnormalities is unclear. The aim of this study is to examine distinct processes of social-cognition in this patient group, including attentional processing and recognition, empathic reaction and evoked facial expression in response to discrete vignettes of others displaying positive (i.e. happiness) or negative (i.e. sadness and anger) emotions. Method One hundred and thirty-eight female participants were included in the study: 73 healthy controls (HCs) and 65 individuals with an ED (49 with Anorexia Nervosa and 16 with Bulimia Nervosa). Self-report and behavioural measures were used. Results Participants with EDs did not display specific abnormalities in emotional processing, recognition and empathic response to others’ basic discrete emotions. However, they had poorer facial expressivity and a tendency to turn away from emotional displays. Conclusion Treatments focusing on the development of non-verbal emotional communication skills might be of benefit for patients with EDs. PMID:26252220

Alpha oscillations and their impairment in affective and post-traumatic stress disorders.

PubMed

Eidelman-Rothman, Moranne; Levy, Jonathan; Feldman, Ruth

2016-09-01

Affective and anxiety disorders are debilitating conditions characterized by impairments in cognitive and social functioning. Elucidating their neural underpinnings may assist in improving diagnosis and developing targeted interventions. Neural oscillations are fundamental for brain functioning. Specifically, oscillations in the alpha frequency range (alpha rhythms) are prevalent in the awake, conscious brain and play an important role in supporting perceptual, cognitive, and social processes. We review studies utilizing various alpha power measurements to assess abnormalities in brain functioning in affective and anxiety disorders as well as obsessive compulsive and post-traumatic stress disorders. Despite some inconsistencies, studies demonstrate associations between aberrant alpha patterns and these disorders both in response to specific cognitive and emotional tasks and during a resting state. We conclude by discussing methodological considerations and future directions, and underscore the need for much further research on the role of alpha functionality in social contexts. As social dysfunction accompanies most psychiatric conditions, research on alpha's involvement in social processes may provide a unique window into the neural mechanisms underlying these disorders. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

On Dual Processing and Heuristic Approaches to Moral Cognition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lapsley, Daniel K.; Hill, Patrick L.

2008-01-01

We examine the implications of dual-processing theories of cognition for the moral domain, with particular emphasis upon "System 1" theories: the Social Intuitionist Model (Haidt), moral heuristics (Sunstein), fast-and-frugal moral heuristics (Gigerenzer), schema accessibility (Lapsley & Narvaez) and moral expertise (Narvaez). We argue that these…

Cognitive and Affective Processes Underlying Career Change

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Muja, Naser; Appelbaum, Steven H.

2012-01-01

Purpose: Aligning social identity and career identity has become increasingly complex due to growth in the pursuit of meaningful careers that offer very long-term personal satisfaction and stability. This paper aims to explore the complex cognitive and affective thought process involved in the conscious planning of voluntary career change.…

Positive Affect and Negative Affect as Modulators of Cognition and Motivation: The Rediscovery of Affect in Achievement Goal Theory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bjornebekk, Gunnar

2008-01-01

A central hypothesis of classical motivation theory is that affect underlies motivation and its behavioural manifestations. However, this has been largely ignored in the past 30 years because social cognitivism has been the dominant theory. As a result, studies have concentrated on social cognitive processes when analysing those factors that…

Communication by Children and Adults: Social Cognitive and Strategic Processes. Sage Series in Interpersonal Communication, Volume 5.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sypher, Howard E., Ed.; Applegate, James L., Ed.

Employing a variety of perspectives and methodological techniques, the chapters in this book focus on an area of research concerned with analyzing the organization of and relationship between qualities of social cognition and communicative interaction. The 11 chapters of the book discuss the following topics: (1) the development of children's…

Divergent Patterns of Social Cognition Performance in Autism and 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome (22q11DS)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCabe, Kathryn L.; Melville, Jessica L.; Rich, Dominique; Strutt, Paul A.; Cooper, Gavin; Loughland, Carmel M.; Schall, Ulrich; Campbell, Linda E.

2013-01-01

Individuals with developmental disorders frequently report a range of social cognition deficits including difficulties identifying facial displays of emotion. This study examined the specificity of face emotion processing deficits in adolescents with either autism or 22q11DS compared to typically developing (TD) controls. Two tasks (face emotion…

Social implications arise in embodied music cognition research which can counter musicological “individualism”

PubMed Central

Moran, Nikki

2014-01-01

The agenda in music research that is broadly recognized as embodied music cognition has arrived hand-in-hand with a social interpretation of music, focusing on the real-world basis of its performance, and fostering an empirical approach to musician movement regarding the communicative function and potential of those movements. However, embodied cognition emerged from traditional cognitivism, which produced a body of scientific explanation of music-theoretic concepts. The analytical object of this corpus is based on the particular imagined encounter of a listener responding to an idealized “work.” Although this problem of essentialism has been identified within mainstream musicology, the lingering effects may spill over into interdisciplinary, empirical research. This paper defines the situation according to its legacy of individualism, and offers an alternative sketch of musical activity as performance event, a model that highlights the social interaction processes at the heart of musical behavior. I describe some recent empirical work based on interaction-oriented approaches, arguing that this particular focus – on the social interaction process itself – creates a distinctive and promising agenda for further research into embodied music cognition. PMID:25101011

Assessment of Social Information Processing in Early Childhood: Development and Initial Validation of the Schultz Test of Emotion Processing--Preliminary Version

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schultz, David; Ambike, Archana; Logie, Sean Kevin; Bohner, Katherine E.; Stapleton, Laura M.; VanderWalde, Holly; Min, Christopher B.; Betkowski, Jennifer A.

2010-01-01

Crick and Dodge's (Psychological Bulletin 115:74-101, 1994) social information processing model has proven very useful in guiding research focused on aggressive and peer-rejected children's social-cognitive functioning. Its application to early childhood, however, has been much more limited. The present study responds to this gap by developing and…

A Proposal for Evaluating Cognition in Assertiveness

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vagos, Paula; Pereira, Anabela

2010-01-01

This article presents the development process and initial psychometric features of an instrument for evaluating cognition in assertiveness. This is an essential social skill for adolescent development and seems to encompass emotional, behavioral, and cognitive aspects. The instrument was created by combining both empirical and theoretical methods…

One Teacher's Identity, Emotions, and Commitment to Change: A Case Study into the Cognitive-Affective Processes of a Secondary School Teacher in the Context of Reforms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van Veen, Klaas; Sleegers, Peter; van de Ven, Piet-Hein

2005-01-01

This paper presents a cognitive social-psychological theoretical framework on emotions, derived from Richard Lazarus, to understand how teachers' identity can be affected in a context of reforms. The emphasis of this approach is on the cognitive-affective processes of individual teachers, enabling us to gain a detailed understanding of what…

Motivation and Social Capital among prospective blood donors in three large blood centers in Brazil

PubMed Central

Gonçalez, Thelma T.; Di Lorenzo Oliveira, Claudia; Carneiro-Proietti, Anna Barbara F.; Moreno, Elizabeth C.; Miranda, Carolina; Larsen, Nina; Wright, David; Leão, Silvana; Loureiro, Paula; de Almeida-Neto, Cesar; Lopes, Maria-Inês; Proietti, Fernando A.; Custer, Brian; Sabino, Ester

2012-01-01

Background Studies analyzing motivation factors that lead to blood donation have found altruism to be the primary motivation factor; however social capital has not been analyzed in this context. Our study examines the association between motivation factors (altruism, self-interest and response to direct appeal) and social capital (cognitive and structural) across three large blood centers in Brazil. Study Design and Methods We conducted a cross-sectional survey of 7,635 donor candidates from October 15 through November 20, 2009. Participants completed self-administered questionnaires on demographics, previous blood donation, HIV testing and knowledge, social capital and donor motivations. Enrollment was determined prior to the donor screening process. Results Among participants, 43.5% and 41.7% expressed high levels of altruism and response to direct appeal respectively, while only 26.9% expressed high levels of self-interest. More high self-interest was observed at Hemope-Recife (41.7%). Of participants, 37.4% expressed high levels of cognitive social capital while 19.2% expressed high levels of structural social capital. More high cognitive and structural social capital was observed at Hemope-Recife (47.3% and 21.3%, respectively). High cognitive social capital was associated with high levels of altruism, self-interest and response to direct appeal. Philanthropic and high social altruism was associated with high levels of altruism and response to direct appeal. Conclusion Cognitive and structural social capital and social altruism are associated with altruism and response to direct appeal, while only cognitive social capital is associated with self-interest. Designing marketing campaigns with these aspects in mind may help blood banks attract potential blood donors more efficiently. PMID:22998740

Motivation and social capital among prospective blood donors in three large blood centers in Brazil.

PubMed

Gonçalez, Thelma T; Di Lorenzo Oliveira, Claudia; Carneiro-Proietti, Anna Barbara F; Moreno, Elizabeth C; Miranda, Carolina; Larsen, Nina; Wright, David; Leão, Silvana; Loureiro, Paula; de Almeida-Neto, Cesar; Lopes, Maria-Inês; Proietti, Fernando A; Custer, Brian; Sabino, Ester

2013-06-01

Studies analyzing motivation factors that lead to blood donation have found altruism to be the primary motivation factor; however, social capital has not been analyzed in this context. Our study examines the association between motivation factors (altruism, self-interest, and response to direct appeal) and social capital (cognitive and structural) across three large blood centers in Brazil. We conducted a cross-sectional survey of 7635 donor candidates from October 15 through November 20, 2009. Participants completed self-administered questionnaires on demographics, previous blood donation, human immunodeficiency virus testing and knowledge, social capital, and donor motivations. Enrollment was determined before the donor screening process. Among participants, 43.5 and 41.7% expressed high levels of altruism and response to direct appeal, respectively, while only 26.9% expressed high levels of self-interest. More high self-interest was observed at Hemope-Recife (41.7%). Of participants, 37.4% expressed high levels of cognitive social capital while 19.2% expressed high levels of structural social capital. More high cognitive and structural social capital was observed at Hemope-Recife (47.3 and 21.3%, respectively). High cognitive social capital was associated with high levels of altruism, self-interest, and response to direct appeal. Philanthropic and high social altruism were associated with high levels of altruism and response to direct appeal. Cognitive and structural social capital and social altruism are associated with altruism and response to direct appeal, while only cognitive social capital is associated with self-interest. Designing marketing campaigns with these aspects in mind may help blood banks attract potential blood donors more efficiently. © 2012 American Association of Blood Banks.

[Social cognition disorders in Klinefelter syndrome: A specific phenotype? (KS)].

PubMed

Babinet, M-N; Rigard, C; Peyroux, É; Dragomir, A-R; Plotton, I; Lejeune, H; Demily, C

2017-10-01

The Klinefelter syndrome (KS) is a genetic condition characterized by an X supernumerary sex chromosome in males. The syndrome is frequently associated with cognitive impairment. Indeed, the different areas of the executive sphere can be affected such as inhibition, cognitive flexibility but also attentional and visual-spatial domain. Social cognition disorders, predominantly on emotional recognition processes, have also been documented. In addition, the syndrome may be associated with psychiatric symptoms. Our study aims to characterize of the various components of social cognition in the SK: facial emotional recognition, theory of mind and attributional style. For this two groups (SK group versus control group) of participants (n=16) matched for age and sociocultural level were recruited. Participants with intellectual disabilities, psychiatric or neurological disorders were excluded. Three social cognition tests were available: the TREF, the MASC, the AIHQ. Neurocognitive functions were assessed by the fNart, the subtest "logical memory" of the MEM-III, the subtests of the two VOSP battery, the d2, the TMT and the Stroop test. The SK group had specific social cognition disorders in comparison to the control group. Two emotions in particular were less well recognized: fear and contempt. In addition, the SK group had significantly lower results in theory of mind. Regarding the hostile attribution bias, no significant difference was found. Finally, the results showed correlations between specific attentional disorders and facial emotional recognition. Our study emphasizes social cognition disorders in SK. These disorders could be considered as a phenotypic trait in the syndrome. The interest of better characterizing the cognitive phenotype of genetic disorders that can affect the neurodevelopment is to offer specific cognitive remediation strategies. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS.

Combined Audience and Video Feedback With Cognitive Review Improves State Anxiety and Self-Perceptions During Speech Tasks in Socially Anxious Individuals.

PubMed

Chen, Junwen; McLean, Jordan E; Kemps, Eva

2018-03-01

This study investigated the effects of combined audience feedback with video feedback plus cognitive preparation, and cognitive review (enabling deeper processing of feedback) on state anxiety and self-perceptions including perception of performance and perceived probability of negative evaluation in socially anxious individuals during a speech performance. One hundred and forty socially anxious students were randomly assigned to four conditions: Cognitive Preparation + Video Feedback + Audience Feedback + Cognitive Review (CP+VF+AF+CR), Cognitive Preparation + Video Feedback + Cognitive Review (CP+VF+CR), Cognitive Preparation + Video Feedback only (CP+VF), and Control. They were asked to deliver two impromptu speeches that were evaluated by confederates. Participants' levels of anxiety and self-perceptions pertaining to the speech task were assessed before and after feedback, and after the second speech. Compared to participants in the other conditions, participants in the CP+VF+AF+CR condition reported a significant decrease in their state anxiety and perceived probability of negative evaluation scores, and a significant increase in their positive perception of speech performance from before to after the feedback. These effects generalized to the second speech. Our results suggest that adding audience feedback to video feedback plus cognitive preparation and cognitive review may improve the effects of existing video feedback procedures in reducing anxiety symptoms and distorted self-representations in socially anxious individuals. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Social Cognition Dysfunctions in Neurodegenerative Diseases: Neuroanatomical Correlates and Clinical Implications.

PubMed

Christidi, Foteini; Migliaccio, Raffaella; Santamaría-García, Hernando; Santangelo, Gabriella; Trojsi, Francesca

2018-01-01

Social cognitive function, involved in the perception, processing, and interpretation of social information, has been shown to be crucial for successful communication and interpersonal relationships, thereby significantly impacting mental health, well-being, and quality of life. In this regard, assessment of social cognition, mainly focusing on four key domains, such as theory of mind (ToM), emotional empathy, and social perception and behavior, has been increasingly evaluated in clinical settings, given the potential implications of impairments of these skills for therapeutic decision-making. With regard to neurodegenerative diseases (NDs), most disorders, characterized by variable disease phenotypes and progression, although similar for the unfavorable prognosis, are associated to impairments of social cognitive function, with consequent negative effects on patients' management. Specifically, in some NDs these deficits may represent core diagnostic criteria, such as for behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), or may emerge during the disease course as critical aspects, such as for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. On this background, we aimed to revise the most updated evidence on the neurobiological hypotheses derived from network-based approaches, clinical manifestations, and assessment tools of social cognitive dysfunctions in NDs, also prospecting potential benefits on patients' well-being, quality of life, and outcome derived from potential therapeutic perspectives of these deficits.

Social Cognition Dysfunctions in Neurodegenerative Diseases: Neuroanatomical Correlates and Clinical Implications

PubMed Central

Santamaría-García, Hernando; Santangelo, Gabriella

2018-01-01

Social cognitive function, involved in the perception, processing, and interpretation of social information, has been shown to be crucial for successful communication and interpersonal relationships, thereby significantly impacting mental health, well-being, and quality of life. In this regard, assessment of social cognition, mainly focusing on four key domains, such as theory of mind (ToM), emotional empathy, and social perception and behavior, has been increasingly evaluated in clinical settings, given the potential implications of impairments of these skills for therapeutic decision-making. With regard to neurodegenerative diseases (NDs), most disorders, characterized by variable disease phenotypes and progression, although similar for the unfavorable prognosis, are associated to impairments of social cognitive function, with consequent negative effects on patients' management. Specifically, in some NDs these deficits may represent core diagnostic criteria, such as for behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), or may emerge during the disease course as critical aspects, such as for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. On this background, we aimed to revise the most updated evidence on the neurobiological hypotheses derived from network-based approaches, clinical manifestations, and assessment tools of social cognitive dysfunctions in NDs, also prospecting potential benefits on patients' well-being, quality of life, and outcome derived from potential therapeutic perspectives of these deficits. PMID:29854017

Turning eating psychopathology risk factors into action. The pervasive effect of body image-related cognitive fusion.

PubMed

Ferreira, Cláudia; Palmeira, Lara; Trindade, Inês A

2014-09-01

Body image dissatisfaction and unfavourable social comparisons are significant risk factors to eating psychopathology. Nevertheless, the impact of these negative experiences depends on the cognitive and emotional processes involved. Previous research has shown that cognitive fusion is a nuclear process linked to psychological inflexibility, but its role on body image and eating difficulties remains unclear. This study aims to explore a model of the mediational role of body image-related cognitive fusion (CF-BI) on the relationship between body dissatisfaction, unfavourable social comparisons, and eating psychopathology in a sample of 345 female students. Results from path analyses show that the impact of unfavourable social comparisons on eating psychopathology is fully mediated by CF-BI. Moreover, CF-BI also revealed a mediational effect on the relationship between body image dissatisfaction and the severity of eating symptoms, in spite of the fact that a direct effect of body dissatisfaction still exists. The tested model highlights the crucial role that cognitive fusion, in the specific domain of body image, plays in the relationship between risk factors and the severity of disordered eating attitudes and behaviours. Furthermore, these findings present empirical support for the relevance of addressing acceptance and cognitive defusion techniques to prevent and treat eating disorders. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Culture, attribution and automaticity: a social cognitive neuroscience view

PubMed Central

Morris, Michael W.

2010-01-01

A fundamental challenge facing social perceivers is identifying the cause underlying other people’s behavior. Evidence indicates that East Asian perceivers are more likely than Western perceivers to reference the social context when attributing a cause to a target person’s actions. One outstanding question is whether this reflects a culture’s influence on automatic or on controlled components of causal attribution. After reviewing behavioral evidence that culture can shape automatic mental processes as well as controlled reasoning, we discuss the evidence in favor of cultural differences in automatic and controlled components of causal attribution more specifically. We contend that insights emerging from social cognitive neuroscience research can inform this debate. After introducing an attribution framework popular among social neuroscientists, we consider findings relevant to the automaticity of attribution, before speculating how one could use a social neuroscience approach to clarify whether culture affects automatic, controlled or both types of attribution processes. PMID:20460302

Beyond learning fixed rules and social cues: abstraction in the social arena.

PubMed Central

Call, Joseph

2003-01-01

Abstraction is a central idea in many areas of physical comparative cognition such as categorization, numerical competence or problem solving. This idea, however, has rarely been applied to comparative social cognition. In this paper, I propose that the notion of abstraction can be applied to the social arena and become an important tool to investigate the social cognition and behaviour processes in animals. To make this point, I present recent evidence showing that chimpanzees know about what others can see and about what others intend. These data do not fit either low-level mechanisms based on stimulus-response associations or high-level explanations based on metarepresentational mechanisms such as false belief attribution. Instead, I argue that social abstraction, in particular the development of concepts such as seeing in others, is key to explaining the behaviour of our closest relative in a variety of situations. PMID:12903652

Hypernatural Monitoring: A Social Rehearsal Account of Smartphone Addiction

PubMed Central

Veissière, Samuel P. L.; Stendel, Moriah

2018-01-01

We present a deflationary account of smartphone addiction by situating this purportedly antisocial phenomenon within the fundamentally social dispositions of our species. While we agree with contemporary critics that the hyper-connectedness and unpredictable rewards of mobile technology can modulate negative affect, we propose to place the locus of addiction on an evolutionarily older mechanism: the human need to monitor and be monitored by others. Drawing from key findings in evolutionary anthropology and the cognitive science of religion, we articulate a hypernatural monitoring model of smartphone addiction grounded in a general social rehearsal theory of human cognition. Building on recent predictive-processing views of perception and addiction in cognitive neuroscience, we describe the role of social reward anticipation and prediction errors in mediating dysfunctional smartphone use. We conclude with insights from contemplative philosophies and harm-reduction models on finding the right rituals for honoring social connections and setting intentional protocols for the consumption of social information. PMID:29515480

Hypernatural Monitoring: A Social Rehearsal Account of Smartphone Addiction.

PubMed

Veissière, Samuel P L; Stendel, Moriah

2018-01-01

We present a deflationary account of smartphone addiction by situating this purportedly antisocial phenomenon within the fundamentally social dispositions of our species. While we agree with contemporary critics that the hyper-connectedness and unpredictable rewards of mobile technology can modulate negative affect, we propose to place the locus of addiction on an evolutionarily older mechanism: the human need to monitor and be monitored by others. Drawing from key findings in evolutionary anthropology and the cognitive science of religion, we articulate a hypernatural monitoring model of smartphone addiction grounded in a general social rehearsal theory of human cognition. Building on recent predictive-processing views of perception and addiction in cognitive neuroscience, we describe the role of social reward anticipation and prediction errors in mediating dysfunctional smartphone use. We conclude with insights from contemplative philosophies and harm-reduction models on finding the right rituals for honoring social connections and setting intentional protocols for the consumption of social information.

Moral Cognition and Multiple Sclerosis: A Neuropsychological Study.

PubMed

Realmuto, Sabrina; Dodich, Alessandra; Meli, Riccardo; Canessa, Nicola; Ragonese, Paolo; Salemi, Giuseppe; Cerami, Chiara

2018-05-30

Recent literature proved that social cognition impairments may characterize the neuropsychological profile of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients. However, little is still known about moral cognition in MS. In this study, we evaluated non-social, social, and moral cognitive performances in 45 relapsing-remitting MS patients. Patients underwent the Brief International Cognitive Assessment for Multiple Sclerosis battery, the Cognitive Estimation and Stroop tasks, the Ekman-60 Faces test, the Reading the Mind in the Eye and Story-based Empathy task. Additionally, a task of moral dilemmas including both "instrumental" and "incidental" conditions was administered to patients. Forty-five age-, gender- and education-matched healthy control subjects (HC) were enrolled for comparisons. The majority of patients (i.e., 77.6%) showed deficits at non-social tasks, particularly in the executive domains. A subset of MS sample (i.e., 24%) presented with emotion recognition and socio-affective processing impairments. Overall, MS patients showed comparable levels of moral judgment with respect to HC. The rate of yes/no response in resolution of moral dilemmas and scores of attribution of emotional valence were comparable between groups. Nevertheless, lower moral permissibility and emotional arousal, particularly for the instrumental dilemmas, characterized the MS profile. Significant correlations between the attribution of emotional valence to moral actions and mentalizing scores emerged. Our findings expand current literature on MS supporting not only deficits in executive and socio-emotional domains but also low levels of permissibility of immoral actions and emotional detachment in the moral judgment process.

Emotion processing fails to modulate putative mirror neuron response to trained visuomotor associations.

PubMed

Fitzgibbon, Bernadette M; Kirkovski, Melissa; Fornito, Alex; Paton, Bryan; Fitzgerald, Paul B; Enticott, Peter G

2016-04-01

Recent neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that activation of the putative human mirror neuron system (MNS) can be elicited via visuomotor training. This is generally interpreted as supporting an associative learning account of the mirror neuron system (MNS) that argues against the ontogeny of the MNS to be an evolutionary adaptation for social cognition. The current study assessed whether a central component of social cognition, emotion processing, would influence the MNS activity to trained visuomotor associations, which could support a broader role of the MNS in social cognition. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we assessed repetition suppression to the presentation of stimulus pairs involving a simple hand action and a geometric shape that was either congruent or incongruent with earlier association training. Each pair was preceded by an image of positive, negative, or neutral emotionality. In support of an associative learning account of the MNS, repetition suppression was greater for trained pairs compared with untrained pairs in several regions, primarily supplementary motor area (SMA) and right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG). This response, however, was not modulated by the valence of the emotional images. These findings argue against a fundamental role of emotion processing in the mirror neuron response, and are inconsistent with theoretical accounts linking mirror neurons to social cognition. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The roots of modern justice: cognitive and neural foundations of social norms and their enforcement.

PubMed

Buckholtz, Joshua W; Marois, René

2012-04-15

Among animals, Homo sapiens is unique in its capacity for widespread cooperation and prosocial behavior among large and genetically heterogeneous groups of individuals. This ultra-sociality figures largely in our success as a species. It is also an enduring evolutionary mystery. There is considerable support for the hypothesis that this facility is a function of our ability to establish, and enforce through sanctions, social norms. Third-party punishment of norm violations ("I punish you because you harmed him") seems especially crucial for the evolutionary stability of cooperation and is the cornerstone of modern systems of criminal justice. In this commentary, we outline some potential cognitive and neural processes that may underlie the ability to learn norms, to follow norms and to enforce norms through third-party punishment. We propose that such processes depend on several domain-general cognitive functions that have been repurposed, through evolution's thrift, to perform these roles.

Comparison of attention training and cognitive therapy in the treatment of social phobia: a preliminary investigation.

PubMed

Donald, Juliet; Abbott, Maree J; Smith, Evelyn

2014-01-01

Prominent models of social phobia highlight the role played by attentional factors, such as self-focused attention, in the development and maintenance of social phobia. Elevated self-focused attention is associated with increases in self-rated anxiety. Treatments that aim to modify and change attentional processes, specifically self-focused attention, will have a direct effect on social phobia symptoms. Thus, Attention Training targets attentional focus. The present study aimed to investigate the efficacy of Attention Training in comparison to an established treatment for social phobia, Cognitive Therapy. Participants (Intention-to-treat = 45; completers = 30) were allocated to either 6 weeks of Attention Training or Cognitive Therapy. It was hypothesized that both treatments would be effective in reducing social phobia symptoms, but that Attention Training would work primarily by reducing levels of self-focused attention. The results found an overall effectiveness of both treatment conditions in reducing social phobia symptoms. However, Attention Training significantly improved scores on the Self-Focused Attention questionnaire and the Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation questionnaire compared to Cognitive Therapy. Attention Training seems to be a promising treatment for social phobia.

Predictors of affect following treatment decision-making for prostate cancer: conversations, cognitive processing, and coping.

PubMed

Christie, Kysa M; Meyerowitz, Beth E; Giedzinska-Simons, Antoinette; Gross, Mitchell; Agus, David B

2009-05-01

Research suggests that cancer patients who are more involved in treatment decision-making (TDM) report better quality of life following treatment. This study examines the association and possible mechanisms between prostate cancer patient's discussions about TDM and affect following treatment. We predicted that the length of time patients spent discussing treatment options with social networks and physicians prior to treatment would predict emotional adjustment after treatment. We further predicted that cognitive processing, coping, and patient understanding of treatment options would mediate this association. Fifty-seven patients completed questionnaires prior to treatment and at 1 and 6 months following treatment completion. Findings from the present study suggest that discussing treatment options with others, prior to beginning treatment for prostate cancer, significantly contributed to improvements in affect 1 and 6 months following treatment. Residualized regression analyses indicated that discussing treatment options with patient's social networks predicted a decrease in negative affect 1 and 6 months following treatment, while discussions with physicians predicted an increase in positive affect 1 month following treatment. Patients who spent more time discussing treatment options with family and friends also reported greater pre-treatment social support and emotional expression. Mediation analyses indicated that these coping strategies facilitated cognitive processing (as measured by a decrease in intrusive thoughts) and that cognitive processing predicted improvement in affect. Greater time spent talking with family and friends about treatment options may provide opportunities for patients to cope with their cancer diagnosis and facilitate cognitive processing, which may improve patient distress over time. Copyright (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Mediation of Changes in Anxiety and Depression During Treatment of Social Phobia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moscovitch, David A.; Stefan G. Hofmann, Michael K.; Suvak, Michael K.; In-Albon, Tina

2005-01-01

To investigate the interactive process of changes in social anxiety and depression during treatment, the authors assessed weekly symptoms in 66 adult outpatients with social phobia (social anxiety disorder) who participated in cognitive- behavioral group therapy. Multilevel mediational analyses revealed that improvements in social anxiety mediated…

The impact of social exclusion on anticipatory attentional processing.

PubMed

Kiat, John E; Cheadle, Jacob E; Goosby, Bridget J

2018-01-01

The importance of understanding how we anticipate and prepare for social rejection is underscored by the mental and physical toll of continual social vigilance. In this study, we investigate the impact of social rejection on anticipatory attentional processes using the well-known Cyberball task, a paradigm in which participants engage in a game of catch with virtual avatars who after an initial period of fair-play (inclusion condition) then exclude the participant from the game (exclusion condition). The degree of anticipatory attention allocated by subjects towards the avatars was assessed by measuring P3b responses towards the avatars' preparatory actions (i.e. the phase preceding their exclusionary actions) using high density EEG. The results of the study show that relative to the inclusion, participants exhibit elevated levels of anticipatory attentional allocation towards the avatars during the exclusion block. This shift was however significantly moderated by participants' self-reported cognitive regulation tendencies. Participants with higher levels of self-reported cognitive reappraisal tendencies showed larger anticipatory P3b increases from the inclusion to exclusion block relative to participants with reduced levels of reappraisal tendencies. These results highlight the impact of social exclusion on anticipatory neural processing and the moderating role of cognitive reappraisal on these effects. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Suspicious spirits, flexible minds: when distrust enhances creativity.

PubMed

Mayer, Jennifer; Mussweiler, Thomas

2011-12-01

Intuitively, as well as in light of prior research, distrust and creativity appear incompatible. The social consequences of distrust include reluctance to share information, a quality detrimental to creativity in social settings. At the same time, the cognitive concomitants of distrust bear resemblance to creative cognition: Distrust seems to foster thinking about nonobvious alternatives to potentially deceptive appearances. These cognitive underpinnings of distrust hold the provocative implication that distrust may foster creativity. Mirroring these contradictory findings, we suggest that the social versus cognitive consequences of distrust have diverging implications for creativity. We address this question in Study 1 by introducing private/public as a moderating variable for effects of distrust on creativity. Consistent with distrust's social consequences, subliminal distrust (vs. trust) priming had detrimental effects on creative generation presumed to be public. Consistent with distrust's cognitive consequences, though, an opposite tendency emerged in private. Study 2 confirmed a beneficial effect of distrust on private creative generation with a different priming method and pointed to cognitive flexibility as the mediating process. Studies 3 and 4 showed increased category inclusiveness versus increased remote semantic spread after distrust priming, consistent with enhanced cognitive flexibility as a consequence of distrust. Taken together, these results provide evidence for the creativity-enhancing potential of distrust and suggest cognitive flexibility as its underlying mechanism.

Cognitive and Emotion Regulation Change Processes in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder.

PubMed

O'Toole, Mia S; Mennin, Douglas S; Hougaard, Esben; Zachariae, Robert; Rosenberg, Nicole K

2015-01-01

The objective of the study was to investigate variables, derived from both cognitive and emotion regulation conceptualizations of social anxiety disorder (SAD), as possible change processes in cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for SAD. Several proposed change processes were investigated: estimated probability, estimated cost, safety behaviours, acceptance of emotions, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Participants were 50 patients with SAD, receiving a standard manualized CBT program, conducted in groups or individually. All variables were measured pre-therapy, mid-therapy and post-therapy. Lower level mediation models revealed that while a change in most process measures significantly predicted clinical improvement, only changes in estimated probability and cost and acceptance of emotions showed significant indirect effects of CBT for SAD. The results are in accordance with previous studies supporting the mediating role of changes in cognitive distortions in CBT for SAD. In addition, acceptance of emotions may also be a critical component to clinical improvement in SAD during CBT, although more research is needed on which elements of acceptance are most helpful for individuals with SAD. The study's lack of a control condition limits any conclusion regarding the specificity of the findings to CBT. Change in estimated probability and cost, and acceptance of emotions showed an indirect effect of CBT for SAD. Cognitive distortions appear relevant to target with cognitive restructuring techniques. Finding acceptance to have an indirect effect could be interpreted as support for contemporary CBT approaches that include acceptance-based strategies. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The behavioural immune system and the psychology of human sociality.

PubMed

Schaller, Mark

2011-12-12

Because immunological defence against pathogens is costly and merely reactive, human anti-pathogen defence is also characterized by proactive behavioural mechanisms that inhibit contact with pathogens in the first place. This behavioural immune system comprises psychological processes that infer infection risk from perceptual cues, and that respond to these perceptual cues through the activation of aversive emotions, cognitions and behavioural impulses. These processes are engaged flexibly, producing context-contingent variation in the nature and magnitude of aversive responses. These processes have important implications for human social cognition and social behaviour-including implications for social gregariousness, person perception, intergroup prejudice, mate preferences, sexual behaviour and conformity. Empirical evidence bearing on these many implications is reviewed and discussed. This review also identifies important directions for future research on the human behavioural immune system--including the need for enquiry into underlying mechanisms, additional behavioural consequences and implications for human health and well-being.

The behavioural immune system and the psychology of human sociality

PubMed Central

Schaller, Mark

2011-01-01

Because immunological defence against pathogens is costly and merely reactive, human anti-pathogen defence is also characterized by proactive behavioural mechanisms that inhibit contact with pathogens in the first place. This behavioural immune system comprises psychological processes that infer infection risk from perceptual cues, and that respond to these perceptual cues through the activation of aversive emotions, cognitions and behavioural impulses. These processes are engaged flexibly, producing context–contingent variation in the nature and magnitude of aversive responses. These processes have important implications for human social cognition and social behaviour—including implications for social gregariousness, person perception, intergroup prejudice, mate preferences, sexual behaviour and conformity. Empirical evidence bearing on these many implications is reviewed and discussed. This review also identifies important directions for future research on the human behavioural immune system—including the need for enquiry into underlying mechanisms, additional behavioural consequences and implications for human health and well-being. PMID:22042918

The dynamics of meaningful social interactions and the emergence of collective knowledge

PubMed Central

Dankulov, Marija Mitrović; Melnik, Roderick; Tadić, Bosiljka

2015-01-01

Collective knowledge as a social value may arise in cooperation among actors whose individual expertise is limited. The process of knowledge creation requires meaningful, logically coordinated interactions, which represents a challenging problem to physics and social dynamics modeling. By combining two-scale dynamics model with empirical data analysis from a well-known Questions & Answers system Mathematics, we show that this process occurs as a collective phenomenon in an enlarged network (of actors and their artifacts) where the cognitive recognition interactions are properly encoded. The emergent behavior is quantified by the information divergence and innovation advancing of knowledge over time and the signatures of self-organization and knowledge sharing communities. These measures elucidate the impact of each cognitive element and the individual actor’s expertise in the collective dynamics. The results are relevant to stochastic processes involving smart components and to collaborative social endeavors, for instance, crowdsourcing scientific knowledge production with online games. PMID:26174482

The dynamics of meaningful social interactions and the emergence of collective knowledge

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dankulov, Marija Mitrović; Melnik, Roderick; Tadić, Bosiljka

2015-07-01

Collective knowledge as a social value may arise in cooperation among actors whose individual expertise is limited. The process of knowledge creation requires meaningful, logically coordinated interactions, which represents a challenging problem to physics and social dynamics modeling. By combining two-scale dynamics model with empirical data analysis from a well-known Questions & Answers system Mathematics, we show that this process occurs as a collective phenomenon in an enlarged network (of actors and their artifacts) where the cognitive recognition interactions are properly encoded. The emergent behavior is quantified by the information divergence and innovation advancing of knowledge over time and the signatures of self-organization and knowledge sharing communities. These measures elucidate the impact of each cognitive element and the individual actor’s expertise in the collective dynamics. The results are relevant to stochastic processes involving smart components and to collaborative social endeavors, for instance, crowdsourcing scientific knowledge production with online games.

The dynamics of meaningful social interactions and the emergence of collective knowledge.

PubMed

Dankulov, Marija Mitrović; Melnik, Roderick; Tadić, Bosiljka

2015-07-15

Collective knowledge as a social value may arise in cooperation among actors whose individual expertise is limited. The process of knowledge creation requires meaningful, logically coordinated interactions, which represents a challenging problem to physics and social dynamics modeling. By combining two-scale dynamics model with empirical data analysis from a well-known Questions &Answers system Mathematics, we show that this process occurs as a collective phenomenon in an enlarged network (of actors and their artifacts) where the cognitive recognition interactions are properly encoded. The emergent behavior is quantified by the information divergence and innovation advancing of knowledge over time and the signatures of self-organization and knowledge sharing communities. These measures elucidate the impact of each cognitive element and the individual actor's expertise in the collective dynamics. The results are relevant to stochastic processes involving smart components and to collaborative social endeavors, for instance, crowdsourcing scientific knowledge production with online games.

Writing for Whom? Cognition, Motivation, and a Writer's Audience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Magnifico, Alecia Marie

2010-01-01

When writers write, how do they decide to whom they are speaking? How does this decision affect writers' cognition about writing? Their motivation to write? In this article, I review literature on cognitive and social processes of writing, conceptualizations of audience, writing across distinct learning environments, and writers' motivations. I…

Social Cognition in Children with Down's Syndrome: Challenges to Research and Theory Building

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cebula, K. R.; Moore, D. G.; Wishart, J. G.

2010-01-01

Characterising how socio-cognitive abilities develop has been crucial to understanding the wider development of typically developing children. It is equally central to understanding developmental pathways in children with intellectual disabilities such as Down's syndrome. While the process of acquisition of socio-cognitive abilities in typical…

Implicit Attitudes toward Violence among Male Perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence: A Preliminary Investigation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eckhardt, Christopher I.; Samper, Rita; Suhr, Laura; Holtzworth-Munroe, Amy

2012-01-01

Whereas cognitive variables are hypothesized to play an important role in intimate partner violence (IPV) etiology and intervention, cognitive assessment methods have largely targeted offenders' explicit, controlled cognitive processing using paper-and-pencil questionnaires prone to social desirability biases. Using an implicit measure of…

Cognitive rehabilitation for patients with schizophrenia in Korea.

PubMed

Lee, Won Hye; Lee, Woo Kyeong

2017-02-01

Psychosocial rehabilitation programs received mental health professional support in addition to traditional medication therapy. Many psychosocial programs were developed since the 1990s, including cognitive remediation therapy. In this review, we focus on cognitive remediation therapy in Korea since the 1990s. We review several cognitive rehabilitation programs developed in Korea and their outcome studies and suggest future research directions and prospects. We reviewed cognitive rehabilitation programs including social cognitive training as well as more recent forms of computerized cognitive rehabilitation. Although there are differences in cognitive domains by training targets, almost all neurocognitive remediation trainings in Korea have beneficial effects on early visual processing, various attention types, and executive function. Future studies need to investigate the mechanisms and various mediators underlying the relationships between cognitive functions and functional outcomes. With more comprehensive cognitive and social cognitive programs, we can enhance both cognition and functional outcomes of the patients with schizophrenia. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The "Word Game": An Innovative Strategy for Assessing Implicit Processes in Parents at Risk for Child Physical Abuse

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crouch, Julie L.; Irwin, Lauren M.; Wells, Brett M.; Shelton, Christopher R.; Skowronski, John J.; Milner, Joel S.

2012-01-01

Objective: Contemporary theories of child physical abuse (CPA) emphasize the proximal role of social cognitive processes (many of which are implicit in nature) in the occurrence of parental aggression. However, methods that allow for the systematic examination of implicit cognitive processes during the course of aggressive interactions are needed.…

Self-Enhancement on a Self-Categorization Leash: Evidence for a Dual-Process Model of First-and Third-Person Perceptions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhang, Jinguang

2010-01-01

Research suggests that first- and third-person perceptions are driven by the motive to self-enhance and cognitive processes involving the perception of social norms. This article proposes and tests a dual-process model that predicts an interaction between cognition and motivation. Consistent with the model, Experiment 1 (N = 112) showed that…

Maladaptive social information processing in childhood predicts young men’s atypical amygdala reactivity to threat

PubMed Central

Choe, Daniel Ewon; Shaw, Daniel S.; Forbes, Erika E.

2014-01-01

Background Maladaptive social information processing, such as hostile attributional bias and aggressive response generation, is associated with childhood maladjustment. Although social information processing problems are correlated with heightened physiological responses to social threat, few studies have examined their associations with neural threat circuitry, specifically amygdala activation to social threat. Methods A cohort of 310 boys participated in an ongoing longitudinal study and completed questionnaires and laboratory tasks assessing their social and cognitive characteristics between 10- and 12-years-old. At age 20, 178 of these young men underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging and a social threat task. At age 22, adult criminal arrest records and self-reports of impulsiveness were obtained. Results Path models indicated that maladaptive social information processing at ages 10 and 11 predicted increased left amygdala reactivity to fear faces, an ambiguous threat, at age 20 while accounting for childhood antisocial behavior, empathy, IQ, and socioeconomic status. Exploratory analyses indicated that aggressive response generation—the tendency to respond to threat with reactive aggression—predicted left amygdala reactivity to fear faces and was concurrently associated with empathy, antisocial behavior, and hostile attributional bias, whereas hostile attributional bias correlated with IQ. Although unrelated to social information processing problems, bilateral amygdala reactivity to anger faces at age 20 was unexpectedly predicted by low IQ at age 11. Amygdala activation did not mediate associations between social information processing and number of criminal arrests, but both impulsiveness at age 22 and arrests were correlated with right amygdala reactivity to anger facial expressions at age 20. Conclusions Childhood social information processing and IQ predicted young men’s amygdala response to threat a decade later, which suggests that childhood social-cognitive characteristics are associated with the development of neural threat processing and adult adjustment. PMID:25142952

Social comparisons with media images are cognitively inefficient even for women who say they feel pressure from the media.

PubMed

Want, Stephen C; Saiphoo, Alyssa

2017-03-01

The present study investigated whether social comparisons with media images are cognitively efficient (demanding minimal mental effort) or cognitively effortful processes, in a sample of female undergraduate students (N=151) who reported feeling pressure from the media regarding their appearance. Two groups were shown 12 images of thin and attractive female models. One group was asked to memorize a complex 8-digit number during exposure to the images (Cognitively Busy condition), while the other memorized a much simpler number (Free View condition). A third group (Control condition) viewed images without people. Participants in the Free View condition demonstrated significantly increased negative mood and lowered appearance satisfaction from before to after exposure, while participants in the Cognitively Busy and Control conditions did not. We argue that these results suggest social comparisons with media images are at least somewhat cognitively effortful even among women who say they feel pressure from the media. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The relative contribution of neurocognition and social cognition to 6-month vocational outcomes following Individual Placement and Support in first-episode psychosis.

PubMed

Allott, Kelly A; Cotton, Susan M; Chinnery, Gina L; Baksheev, Gennady N; Massey, Jessica; Sun, Pamela; Collins, Zoe; Barlow, Emma; Broussard, Christina; Wahid, Tasha; Proffitt, Tina-Marie; Jackson, Henry J; Killackey, Eoin

2013-10-01

To examine whether baseline neurocognition and social cognition predict vocational outcomes over 6 months in patients with first-episode psychosis (FEP) enrolled in a randomised controlled trial of Individual Placement and Support (IPS) versus treatment as usual (TAU). 135 FEP participants (IPS n=69; TAU n=66) completed a comprehensive neurocognitive and social cognitive battery. Principal axis factor analysis using PROMAX rotation was used to determine the underlying cognitive structure of the battery. Setwise (hierarchical) logistic and multivariate linear regressions were used to examine predictors of: (a) enrolment in education and employment; and (b) hours of employment over 6 months. Neurocognition and social cognition factors were entered into the models after accounting for premorbid IQ, baseline functioning and treatment group. Six cognitive factors were extracted: (i) social cognition; (ii) information processing speed; (iii) verbal learning and memory; (iv) attention and working memory; (v) visual organisation and memory; and (vi) verbal comprehension. Enrolment in education over 6 months was predicted by enrolment in education at baseline (p=.002) and poorer visual organisation and memory (p=.024). Employment over 6 months was predicted by employment at baseline (p=.041) and receiving IPS (p=.020). Better visual organisation and memory predicted total hours of paid work over 6 months (p<.001). Visual organisation and memory predicted the enrolment in education and duration of employment, after accounting for premorbid IQ, baseline functioning and treatment. Social cognition did not contribute to the prediction of vocational outcomes. Neurocognitive interventions may enhance employment duration in FEP. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Distinct neural correlates of emotional and cognitive empathy in older adults

PubMed Central

Moore, Raeanne C.; Dev, Sheena I.; Jeste, Dilip V.; Dziobek, Isabel; Eyler, Lisa T.

2014-01-01

Empathy is thought to be a mechanism underlying prosocial behavior across the lifespan, yet little is known about how levels of empathy relate to individual differences in brain functioning among older adults. In this exploratory study, we examined the neural correlates of affective and cognitive empathy in older adults. Thirty older adults (M=79 years) underwent fMRI scanning and neuropsychological testing and completed a test of affective and cognitive empathy. Brain response during processing of cognitive and emotional stimuli was measured by fMRI in a priori and task-related regions and was correlated with levels of empathy. Older adults with higher levels of affective empathy showed more deactivation in the amygdala and insula during a working memory task, whereas those with higher cognitive empathy showed greater insula activation during a response inhibition task. Our preliminary findings suggest that brain systems linked to emotional and social processing respond differently among older adults with more or less affective and cognitive empathy. That these relationships can be seen both during affective and non-emotional tasks of “cold” cognitive abilities suggests that empathy may impact social behavior through both emotional and cognitive mechanisms. PMID:25770039

Distinct neural correlates of emotional and cognitive empathy in older adults.

PubMed

Moore, Raeanne C; Dev, Sheena I; Jeste, Dilip V; Dziobek, Isabel; Eyler, Lisa T

2015-04-30

Empathy is thought to be a mechanism underlying prosocial behavior across the lifespan, yet little is known about how levels of empathy relate to individual differences in brain functioning among older adults. In this exploratory study, we examined the neural correlates of affective and cognitive empathy in older adults. Thirty older adults (M=79 years) underwent fMRI scanning and neuropsychological testing and completed a test of affective and cognitive empathy. Brain response during processing of cognitive and emotional stimuli was measured by fMRI in a priori and task-related regions and was correlated with levels of empathy. Older adults with higher levels of affective empathy showed more deactivation in the amygdala and insula during a working memory task, whereas those with higher cognitive empathy showed greater insula activation during a response inhibition task. Our preliminary findings suggest that brain systems linked to emotional and social processing respond differently among older adults with more or less affective and cognitive empathy. That these relationships can be seen both during affective and non-emotional tasks of "cold" cognitive abilities suggests that empathy may impact social behavior through both emotional and cognitive mechanisms. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

[Negative symptoms, emotion and cognition in schizophrenia].

PubMed

Fakra, E; Belzeaux, R; Azorin, J-M; Adida, M

2015-12-01

For a long time, treatment of schizophrenia has been essentially focussed on positive symptoms managing. Yet, even if these symptoms are the most noticeable, negative symptoms are more enduring, resistant to pharmacological treatment and associated with a worse prognosis. In the two last decades, attention has shift towards cognitive deficit, as this deficit is most robustly associated to functional outcome. But it appears that the modest improvement in cognition, obtained in schizophrenia through pharmacological treatment or, more purposely, by cognitive enhancement therapy, has only lead to limited amelioration of functional outcome. Authors have claimed that pure cognitive processes, such as those evaluated and trained in lots of these programs, may be too distant from real-life conditions, as the latter are largely based on social interactions. Consequently, the field of social cognition, at the interface of cognition and emotion, has emerged. In a first part of this article we examined the links, in schizophrenia, between negative symptoms, cognition and emotions from a therapeutic standpoint. Nonetheless, investigation of emotion in schizophrenia may also hold relevant premises for understanding the physiopathology of this disorder. In a second part, we propose to illustrate this research by relying on the heuristic value of an elementary marker of social cognition, facial affect recognition. Facial affect recognition has been repeatedly reported to be impaired in schizophrenia and some authors have argued that this deficit could constitute an endophenotype of the illness. We here examined how facial affect processing has been used to explore broader emotion dysfunction in schizophrenia, through behavioural and imaging studies. In particular, fMRI paradigms using facial affect have shown particular patterns of amygdala engagement in schizophrenia, suggesting an intact potential to elicit the limbic system which may however not be advantageous. Finally, we analysed facial affect processing on a cognitive-perceptual level, and the aptitude in schizophrenia to manipulate featural and configural information in faces. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Dissociation between Key Processes of Social Cognition in Autism: Impaired Mentalizing but Intact Sense of Agency

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

David, Nicole; Gawronski, Astrid; Santos, Natacha S.; Huff, Wolfgang; Lehnhardt, Fritz-Georg; Newen, Albert; Vogeley, Kai

2008-01-01

Deficits in social cognition and interaction, such as in mentalizing and imitation behavior, are hallmark features of autism spectrum disorders. Both imitation and mentalizing are at the core of the sense of agency, the awareness that we are the initiators of our own behavior. Little evidence exists regarding the sense of agency in autism. Thus,…

Nailing the Coffin Shut on Doubts that Violent Video Games Stimulate Aggression: Comment on Anderson et al. (2010)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huesmann, L. Rowell

2010-01-01

Over the past half century the mass media, including video games, have become important socializers of children. Observational learning theory has evolved into social-cognitive information processing models that explain that what a child observes in any venue has both short-term and long-term influences on the child's behaviors and cognitions. C.…

Emotional Intelligence in Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum.

PubMed

Anderson, Luke B; Paul, Lynn K; Brown, Warren S

2017-05-01

People with agenesis of the corpus callosum (AgCC) with normal general intelligence have deficits in complex cognitive processing, as well as in social cognition. It is uncertain the extent to which impoverished processing of emotions may contribute to social processing deficiencies. We used the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test to clarify the nature of emotional intelligence in 16 adults with AgCC. As hypothesized, persons with AgCC exhibited greater disparities from norms on tests involving more socially complex aspects of emotions. The AgCC group did not differ from norms on the Experiential subscale, but they were significantly below norms on the Strategic subscale. These findings suggest that the corpus callosum is not essential for experiencing and thinking about basic emotions in a "normal" way, but is necessary for more complex processes involving emotions in the context of social interactions. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

A Parallel and Distributed Processing Model of Joint Attention, Social-Cognition and Autism

PubMed Central

Mundy, Peter; Sullivan, Lisa; Mastergeorge, Ann M.

2009-01-01

Scientific Abstract The impaired development of joint attention is a cardinal feature of autism. Therefore, understanding the nature of joint attention is a central to research on this disorder. Joint attention may be best defined in terms of an information processing system that begins to develop by 4–6 months of age. This system integrates the parallel processing of internal information about one’s own visual attention with external information about the visual attention of other people. This type of joint encoding of information about self and other attention requires the activation of a distributed anterior and posterior cortical attention network. Genetic regulation, in conjunction with self-organizing behavioral activity guides the development of functional connectivity in this network. With practice in infancy the joint processing of self-other attention becomes automatically engaged as an executive function. It can be argued that this executive joint-attention is fundamental to human learning, as well as the development of symbolic thought, social-cognition and social-competence throughout the life span. One advantage of this parallel and distributed processing model of joint attention (PDPM) is that it directly connects theory on social pathology to a range of phenomenon in autism associated with neural connectivity, constructivist and connectionist models of cognitive development, early intervention, activity-dependent gene expression, and atypical ocular motor control. PMID:19358304

Empathy and contextual social cognition.

PubMed

Melloni, Margherita; Lopez, Vladimir; Ibanez, Agustin

2014-03-01

Empathy is a highly flexible and adaptive process that allows for the interplay of prosocial behavior in many different social contexts. Empathy appears to be a very situated cognitive process, embedded with specific contextual cues that trigger different automatic and controlled responses. In this review, we summarize relevant evidence regarding social context modulation of empathy for pain. Several contextual factors, such as stimulus reality and personal experience, affectively link with other factors, emotional cues, threat information, group membership, and attitudes toward others to influence the affective, sensorimotor, and cognitive processing of empathy. Thus, we propose that the frontoinsular-temporal network, the so-called social context network model (SCNM), is recruited during the contextual processing of empathy. This network would (1) update the contextual cues and use them to construct fast predictions (frontal regions), (2) coordinate the internal (body) and external milieus (insula), and (3) consolidate the context-target associative learning of empathic processes (temporal sites). Furthermore, we propose these context-dependent effects of empathy in the framework of the frontoinsular-temporal network and examine the behavioral and neural evidence of three neuropsychiatric conditions (Asperger syndrome, schizophrenia, and the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia), which simultaneously present with empathy and contextual integration impairments. We suggest potential advantages of a situated approach to empathy in the assessment of these neuropsychiatric disorders, as well as their relationship with the SCNM.

Reputation Management in Children on the Autism Spectrum.

PubMed

Cage, Eilidh; Bird, Geoffrey; Pellicano, Elizabeth

2016-12-01

Being able to manage reputation is an important social skill, but it is unclear whether autistic children can manage reputation. This study investigated whether 33 autistic children matched to 33 typical children could implicitly or explicitly manage reputation. Further, we examined whether cognitive processes-theory of mind, social motivation, inhibitory control and reciprocity-contribute to reputation management. Results showed that neither group implicitly managed reputation, and there was no group difference in explicit reputation management. Results suggested different mechanisms contribute to reputation management in these groups-social motivation in typical children and reciprocity in autistic children. Explicit reputation management is achievable for autistic children, and there are individual differences in its relationship to underlying cognitive processes.

Schizotypal personality traits and social cognition are associated with childhood trauma exposure.

PubMed

Quidé, Yann; Cohen-Woods, Sarah; O'Reilly, Nicole; Carr, Vaughan J; Elzinga, Bernet M; Green, Melissa J

2018-06-20

Childhood trauma is a common risk factor for adult psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar-I disorder (BD). However, its association with schizotypal personality traits, as well as cognitive and social cognitive abilities, is less well studied in these populations. In a cohort of 79 SZ cases, 84 BD cases, and 75 healthy controls (HCs), clinically significant levels of childhood trauma exposure (according to scores on the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire; CTQ) were evident in 54 SZ, 55 BD, and 26 HC individuals. Trauma-exposed and non-exposed groups were compared on schizotypal personality features (schizotypy) measured with the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ). Cognitive assessments included executive function, working memory, attention, and immediate and delayed memory. Social cognitive measures assessed facial emotion processing and theory-of-mind abilities. Trauma-exposed participants showed higher levels of schizotypy, especially suspiciousness, relative to non-exposed individuals, regardless of clinical or HC status. Furthermore, trauma-exposed individuals showed deficits specifically in social cognitive, but not general cognitive abilities, regardless of clinical or HC status. These trauma-related results were found in the context of higher schizotypy levels in both SZ and BD relative to HC, and lower cognitive and social cognitive performance in SZ, relative to BD and HC groups. These findings suggest that childhood trauma exposure impacts long-term schizotypy outcomes, especially paranoid ideation (suspiciousness), as well as complex social cognitive abilities in both healthy and psychotic populations. However, cognitive deficits associated with psychotic illness may not be distinguishable from those related to trauma exposure in previous studies. Findings Childhood trauma exposure is associated with increased schizotypal features (in particular paranoid ideation) and complex social cognitive abilities, independently of the diagnosis of psychotic disorder. Cognitive and social cognitive deficits were larger in schizophrenia compared to bipolar-I cases and healthy controls, but increased schizotypal features were observed in both schizophrenia and bipolar-I disorder relative to healthy controls. Limitations We were unable to distinguish the specific effects of particular childhood trauma exposures due to the high rate of exposure to more than one type of maltreatment. Retrospective assessment of childhood trauma in adulthood cannot be externally validated, and associations with behavioural traits in later life may be confounded by other factors not studied here. © 2018 The British Psychological Society.

Social cognition in schizophrenia and healthy aging: differences and similarities.

PubMed

Silver, Henry; Bilker, Warren B

2014-12-01

Social cognition is impaired in schizophrenia but it is not clear whether this is specific for the illness and whether emotion perception is selectively affected. To study this we examined the perception of emotional and non-emotional clues in facial expressions, a key social cognitive skill, in schizophrenia patients and old healthy individuals using young healthy individuals as reference. Tests of object recognition, visual orientation, psychomotor speed, and working memory were included to allow multivariate analysis taking into account other cognitive functions Schizophrenia patients showed impairments in recognition of identity and emotional facial clues compared to young and old healthy groups. Severity was similar to that for object recognition and visuospatial processing. Older and younger healthy groups did not differ from each other on these tests. Schizophrenia patients and old healthy individuals were similarly impaired in the ability to automatically learn new faces during the testing procedure (measured by the CSTFAC index) compared to young healthy individuals. Social cognition is distinctly impaired in schizophrenia compared to healthy aging. Further study is needed to identify the mechanisms of automatic social cognitive learning impairment in schizophrenia patients and healthy aging individuals and determine whether similar neural systems are affected. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Social cognition dysfunction in adolescents with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (velo-cardio-facial syndrome): relationship with executive functioning and social competence/functioning.

PubMed

Campbell, L E; McCabe, K L; Melville, J L; Strutt, P A; Schall, U

2015-09-01

Social difficulties are often noted among people with intellectual disabilities. Children and adults with 22q.11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS) often have poorer social competence as well as poorer performance on measures of executive and social-cognitive skills compared with typically developing young people. However, the relationship between social functioning and more basic processes of social cognition and executive functioning are not well understood in 22q11DS. The present study examined the relationship between social-cognitive measures of emotion attribution and theory of mind with executive functioning and their contribution to social competence in 22q11DS. The present cross-sectional study measured social cognition and executive performance of 24 adolescents with 22q11DS compared with 27 age-matched typically developing controls. Social cognition was tested using the emotion attribution task (EAT) and a picture sequencing task (PST), which tested mentalising (false-belief), sequencing, cause and effect, and inhibition. Executive functioning was assessed using computerised versions of the Tower of London task and working memory measures of spatial and non-spatial ability. Social competence was also assessed using the parent-reported Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Adolescents with 22q11DS showed impaired false-belief, emotion attribution and executive functioning compared with typically developing control participants. Poorer performance was reported on all story types in the PST, although, patterns of errors and response times across story types were similar in both groups. General sequencing ability was the strongest predictor of false-belief, and performance on the false-belief task predicted emotion attribution accuracy. Intellectual functioning, rather than theory of mind or executive functioning, predicted social competence in 22q11DS. Performance on social-cognitive tasks of theory of mind indicate evidence of a general underlying dysfunction in 22q11DS that includes executive ability to understand cause and effect, to logically reason about social scenarios and also to inhibit responses to salient, but misleading cues. However, general intellectual ability is closely related to actual social competence suggesting that a generalised intellectual deficit coupled with more specific executive impairments may best explain poor social cognition in 22q11DS. © 2015 MENCAP and International Association of the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Right fronto-limbic atrophy is associated with reduced empathy in refractory unilateral mesial temporal lobe epilepsy.

PubMed

Toller, Gianina; Adhimoolam, Babu; Rankin, Katherine P; Huppertz, Hans-Jürgen; Kurthen, Martin; Jokeit, Hennric

2015-11-01

Refractory mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) is the most frequent focal epilepsy and is often accompanied by deficits in social cognition including emotion recognition, theory of mind, and empathy. Consistent with the neuronal networks that are crucial for normal social-cognitive processing, these impairments have been associated with functional changes in fronto-temporal regions. However, although atrophy in unilateral MTLE also affects regions of the temporal and frontal lobes that underlie social cognition, little is known about the structural correlates of social-cognitive deficits in refractory MTLE. In the present study, a psychometrically validated empathy questionnaire was combined with whole-brain voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to investigate the relationship between self-reported affective and cognitive empathy and gray matter volume in 55 subjects (13 patients with right MTLE, 9 patients with left MTLE, and 33 healthy controls). Consistent with the brain regions underlying social cognition, our results show that lower affective and cognitive empathy was associated with smaller volume in predominantly right fronto-limbic regions, including the right hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, thalamus, fusiform gyrus, inferior temporal gyrus, dorsomedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, and in the bilateral midbrain. The only region that was associated with both affective and cognitive empathy was the right mesial temporal lobe. These findings indicate that patients with right MTLE are at increased risk for reduced empathy towards others' internal states and they shed new light on the structural correlates of impaired social cognition frequently accompanying refractory MTLE. In line with previous evidence from patients with neurodegenerative disease and stroke, the present study suggests that empathy depends upon the integrity of right fronto-limbic and brainstem regions and highlights the importance of the right mesial temporal lobe and midbrain structures for human empathy. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Self-Referenced Memory, Social Cognition, and Symptom Presentation in Autism

PubMed Central

Henderson, Heather A.; Zahka, Nicole E.; Kojkowski, Nicole M.; Inge, Anne P.; Schwartz, Caley B.; Hileman, Camilla M.; Coman, Drew C.; Mundy, Peter C.

2009-01-01

Background We examined performance on a self-referenced memory (SRM) task for higher functioning children with autism (HFA) and a matched comparison group. SRM performance was examined in relation to symptom severity and social cognitive tests of mentalizing. Method Sixty-two children (31 HFA, 31 comparison; 8–16 years) completed a SRM task in which they read a list of words and decided whether the word described something about them, something about Harry Potter, or contained a certain number of letters. They then identified words that were familiar from a longer list. Dependent measures were memory performance (d′) in each of the three encoding conditions as well as a self-memory bias score (d′ self-d′ other). Children completed The Strange Stories Task and The Children’s Eyes Test as measures of social cognition. Parents completed the SCQ and ASSQ as measures of symptom severity. Results Children in the comparison sample showed the standard SRM effect in which they recognized significantly more self-referenced words relative to words in the other-referenced and letter conditions. In contrast, HFA children showed comparable rates of recognition for self- and other-referenced words. For all children, SRM performance improved with age and enhanced SRM performance was related to lower levels of social problems. These associations were not accounted for by performance on the mentalizing tasks. Conclusions Children with HFA did not show the standard enhanced processing of self- vs. other-relevant information. Individual differences in the tendency to preferentially process self-relevant information may be associated with social cognitive processes that serve to modify the expression of social symptoms in children with autism. PMID:19298471

Infant joint attention, neural networks and social cognition.

PubMed

Mundy, Peter; Jarrold, William

2010-01-01

Neural network models of attention can provide a unifying approach to the study of human cognitive and emotional development (Posner & Rothbart, 2007). In this paper we argue that a neural network approach to the infant development of joint attention can inform our understanding of the nature of human social learning, symbolic thought process and social cognition. At its most basic, joint attention involves the capacity to coordinate one's own visual attention with that of another person. We propose that joint attention development involves increments in the capacity to engage in simultaneous or parallel processing of information about one's own attention and the attention of other people. Infant practice with joint attention is both a consequence and an organizer of the development of a distributed and integrated brain network involving frontal and parietal cortical systems. This executive distributed network first serves to regulate the capacity of infants to respond to and direct the overt behavior of other people in order to share experience with others through the social coordination of visual attention. In this paper we describe this parallel and distributed neural network model of joint attention development and discuss two hypotheses that stem from this model. One is that activation of this distributed network during coordinated attention enhances the depth of information processing and encoding beginning in the first year of life. We also propose that with development, joint attention becomes internalized as the capacity to socially coordinate mental attention to internal representations. As this occurs the executive joint attention network makes vital contributions to the development of human symbolic thinking and social cognition. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Social cognition and the cerebellum: a meta-analysis of over 350 fMRI studies.

PubMed

Van Overwalle, Frank; Baetens, Kris; Mariën, Peter; Vandekerckhove, Marie

2014-02-01

This meta-analysis explores the role of the cerebellum in social cognition. Recent meta-analyses of neuroimaging studies since 2008 demonstrate that the cerebellum is only marginally involved in social cognition and emotionality, with a few meta-analyses pointing to an involvement of at most 54% of the individual studies. In this study, novel meta-analyses of over 350 fMRI studies, dividing up the domain of social cognition in homogeneous subdomains, confirmed this low involvement of the cerebellum in conditions that trigger the mirror network (e.g., when familiar movements of body parts are observed) and the mentalizing network (when no moving body parts or unfamiliar movements are present). There is, however, one set of mentalizing conditions that strongly involve the cerebellum in 50-100% of the individual studies. In particular, when the level of abstraction is high, such as when behaviors are described in terms of traits or permanent characteristics, in terms of groups rather than individuals, in terms of the past (episodic autobiographic memory) or the future rather than the present, or in terms of hypothetical events that may happen. An activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis conducted in this study reveals that the cerebellum is critically implicated in social cognition and that the areas of the cerebellum which are consistently involved in social cognitive processes show extensive overlap with the areas involved in sensorimotor (during mirror and self-judgments tasks) as well as in executive functioning (across all tasks). We discuss the role of the cerebellum in social cognition in general and in higher abstraction mentalizing in particular. We also point out a number of methodological limitations of some available studies on the social brain that hamper the detection of cerebellar activity. © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A cognitive-consistency based model of population wide attitude change.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lakkaraju, Kiran; Speed, Ann Elizabeth

Attitudes play a significant role in determining how individuals process information and behave. In this paper we have developed a new computational model of population wide attitude change that captures the social level: how individuals interact and communicate information, and the cognitive level: how attitudes and concept interact with each other. The model captures the cognitive aspect by representing each individuals as a parallel constraint satisfaction network. The dynamics of this model are explored through a simple attitude change experiment where we vary the social network and distribution of attitudes in a population.

Neural Basis of Strategic Decision Making

PubMed Central

Lee, Daeyeol; Seo, Hyojung

2015-01-01

Human choice behaviors during social interactions often deviate from the predictions of game theory. This might arise partly from the limitations in cognitive abilities necessary for recursive reasoning about the behaviors of others. In addition, during iterative social interactions, choices might change dynamically, as knowledge about the intentions of others and estimates for choice outcomes are incrementally updated via reinforcement learning. Some of the brain circuits utilized during social decision making might be general-purpose and contribute to isomorphic individual and social decision making. By contrast, regions in the medial prefrontal cortex and temporal parietal junction might be recruited for cognitive processes unique to social decision making. PMID:26688301

Neural Mechanisms of Cognitive Reappraisal of Negative Self-Beliefs in Social Anxiety Disorder

PubMed Central

Goldin, Philippe R.; Ball, Tali M.; Werner, Kelly; Heimberg, Richard; Gross, James J.

2009-01-01

Background Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by distorted negative self-beliefs (NSBs) which are thought to enhance emotional reactivity, interfere with emotion regulation, and undermine social functioning. Cognitive reappraisal is a type of emotion regulation used to alter NSBs, with the goal of modulating emotional reactivity. Despite its relevance, little is known about the neural bases and temporal features of cognitive reappraisal in patients with SAD. Methods Twenty-seven patients with SAD and 27 healthy controls (HC) were trained to react and to implement cognitive reappraisal in order to down-regulate negative emotional reactivity to NSBs while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging and providing ratings of negative emotion experience. Results Behaviorally, compared with HC, patients with SAD reported greater negative emotion both while reacting to and reappraising NSBs. However, when cued, participants in both groups were able to use cognitive reappraisal to decrease emotion. Neurally, reacting to NSBs resulted in early amygdala response in both groups. Reappraising NSBs resulted in greater early cognitive control, language, and visual processing in HC, but greater late cognitive control, visceral, and visual processing in patients with SAD. Functional connectivity analysis during reappraisal identified more regulatory regions inversely related to left amygdala in HCs than in patients with SAD. Reappraisal-related brain regions that differentiated patients and controls were associated with negative emotion ratings and cognitive reappraisal self-efficacy. Conclusions Findings regarding cognitive reappraisal suggest neural timing, connectivity, and brain-behavioral associations specific to patients with SAD, and elucidate neural mechanisms that might serve as biomarkers of interventions for SAD. PMID:19717138

Community-Based Psychosocial Treatment Has an Impact on Social Processing and Functional Outcome in Schizophrenia.

PubMed

Varga, Eszter; Endre, Szilvia; Bugya, Titusz; Tényi, Tamás; Herold, Róbert

2018-01-01

Schizophrenic patients have serious impairments in social cognition, which often persists after significant reduction in clinical symptoms. Community-based psychosocial treatments aim to recover social functioning for mentally ill individuals. Our aim was to examine prospective changes in social cognition and functional outcomes in two groups of schizophrenic patients involved in two forms of community-based psychosocial treatments namely case management (CM) and community-based club (CC) compared to a matched, treatment as usual (TAU) group of patients. We hypothesized that CC and CM groups would exhibit better functional and social cognitive outcomes after a 6-month long psychosocial treatment period. Seventy-five patients participated either in CC, CM or TAU. Both CC and CM took part in community-based psychosocial treatment programs including trainings, such as communication and assertiveness trainings. In addition, CC provided group therapeutic treatments and a continuously available day care where patients had the possibility to participate in various social interactions. All participants were in remission, and on maintenance antipsychotic treatment. Participants were assessed on all study variables at two time points: baseline and after 6 months with a battery of questionnaires that examined affective face perception, affective prosody perception, pragmatic language comprehension and ToM. Our results showed that functional outcomes improved significantly in the CC as well as in the CM groups, in contrast to the TAU group. While analyzing summary scores of social cognition, it was found that only the CC group increased its performance in social cognition. In addition, a significant between-group difference in social cognitive function was found after 6 months between the three groups, with the CC group performing best. When investigating associations between changes in social cognition and changes in functional outcomes during a 6-month long treatment period, we found significant correlations between the two variables both in the CC and in the CM groups. Based on our results, we suggest that a rich interpersonal network and social support have highly beneficial effects on social cognition and we would like to emphasize the necessity of offering community-based psychosocial treatments beside antipsychotic medications as early as possible as a crucial part of the complex therapy of schizophrenia.

Viewing Social Scenes: A Visual Scan-Path Study Comparing Fragile X Syndrome and Williams Syndrome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Williams, Tracey A.; Porter, Melanie A.; Langdon, Robyn

2013-01-01

Fragile X syndrome (FXS) and Williams syndrome (WS) are both genetic disorders which present with similar cognitive-behavioral problems, but distinct social phenotypes. Despite these social differences both syndromes display poor social relations which may result from abnormal social processing. This study aimed to manipulate the location of…

Cognition and Emotions in Recurrent Depressive Disorders - The Role of Inflammation and the Kynurenine Pathway.

PubMed

Talarowska, Monika; Galecki, Piotr

2016-01-01

Separating emotions from cognition seems impossible in everyday experiences of a human being. Emotional processes have an impact on the ability of planning and solving problems, or decision-making skills. They are a valuable source of information about ourselves, our partners in interactions and the surrounding world. Recent years have shown that axial symptoms of depression are caused by emotion regulation disorders, dysfunctions in the reward system and deficits of cognitive processes. There is a few studies concerning a link between emotional and inflammatory processes in depression. The aim of this article is to present results of contemporary research studies over mutual connections between social cognition, cognitive processes and inflammatory factors significant for the aetiology of recurrent depressive disorders, with particular reference to the role of kynurenine pathways.

Joint Attention, Social-Cognition, and Recognition Memory in Adults

PubMed Central

Kim, Kwanguk; Mundy, Peter

2012-01-01

The early emerging capacity for Joint Attention (JA), or socially coordinated visual attention, is thought to be integral to the development of social-cognition in childhood. Recent studies have also begun to suggest that JA affects adult cognition as well, but methodological limitations hamper research on this topic. To address this issue we developed a novel virtual reality paradigm that integrates eye-tracking and virtual avatar technology to measure two types of JA in adults, Initiating Joint Attention (IJA) and Responding to Joint Attention (RJA). Distinguishing these types of JA in research is important because they are thought to reflect unique, as well as common constellations of processes involved in human social-cognition and social learning. We tested the validity of the differentiation of IJA and RJA in our paradigm in two studies of picture recognition memory in undergraduate students. Study 1 indicated that young adults correctly identified more pictures they had previously viewed in an IJA condition (67%) than in a RJA (58%) condition, η2 = 0.57. Study 2 controlled for IJA and RJA stimulus viewing time differences, and replicated the findings of Study 1. The implications of these results for the validity of the paradigm and research on the affects of JA on adult social-cognition are discussed. PMID:22712011

Social work perspectives on human behavior.

PubMed

Wodarski, J S

1993-01-01

This manuscript addresses recent developments in human behavior research that are relevant to social work practice. Specific items addressed are biological aspects of behavior, life span development, cognitive variables, the self-efficacy learning process, the perceptual process, the exchange model, group level variables, macro level variables, and gender and ethnic-racial variables. Where relevant, specific applications to social work practice are provided.

Performance perceptions and self-focused attention predict post-event processing after a real-life social performance situation.

PubMed

Helbig-Lang, Sylvia; Poels, Vanja; Lincoln, Tania M

2016-11-01

Cognitive approaches to social anxiety suggest that an excessive brooding about one's performance in a social situation (post-event processing; PEP) is involved in the maintenance of anxiety. To date, most studies investigating PEP were conducted in laboratory settings. The present study sought to replicate previous findings on predictors of PEP after a naturalistic social performance situation. Sixty-five students, who had to give an evaluated presentation for credits, completed measures of trait social anxiety. Immediately after their presentation, participants rated state anxiety and attentional focus during the presentation, and provided an overall evaluation of their performance. One week after the presentation, they rated PEP during the preceding week, and reappraised their performance. Regression analyses demonstrated that the performance ratings after and self-focused attention during the presentation were unique predictors of PEP over and above the effects of trait and state anxiety. There was no evidence that PEP was associated with a biased recall of individual performance evaluations. The results support cognitive theories that emphasize the importance of negative self-perceptions in the development of social anxiety and related processes, and underline self-focused attention and self-evaluative processes as important targets during treatment.

Practice Evaluation Strategies Among Social Workers: Why an Evidence-Informed Dual-Process Theory Still Matters.

PubMed

Davis, Thomas D

2017-01-01

Practice evaluation strategies range in style from the formal-analytic tools of single-subject designs, rapid assessment instruments, algorithmic steps in evidence-informed practice, and computer software applications, to the informal-interactive tools of clinical supervision, consultation with colleagues, use of client feedback, and clinical experience. The purpose of this article is to provide practice researchers in social work with an evidence-informed theory that is capable of explaining both how and why social workers use practice evaluation strategies to self-monitor the effectiveness of their interventions in terms of client change. The author delineates the theoretical contours and consequences of what is called dual-process theory. Drawing on evidence-informed advances in the cognitive and social neurosciences, the author identifies among everyday social workers a theoretically stable, informal-interactive tool preference that is a cognitively necessary, sufficient, and stand-alone preference that requires neither the supplementation nor balance of formal-analytic tools. The author's delineation of dual-process theory represents a theoretical contribution in the century-old attempt to understand how and why social workers evaluate their practice the way they do.

The "social brain" is highly sensitive to the mere presence of social information: An automated meta-analysis and an independent study.

PubMed

Tso, Ivy F; Rutherford, Saige; Fang, Yu; Angstadt, Mike; Taylor, Stephan F

2018-01-01

How the human brain processes social information is an increasingly researched topic in psychology and neuroscience, advancing our understanding of basic human cognition and psychopathologies. Neuroimaging studies typically seek to isolate one specific aspect of social cognition when trying to map its neural substrates. It is unclear if brain activation elicited by different social cognitive processes and task instructions are also spontaneously elicited by general social information. In this study, we investigated whether these brain regions are evoked by the mere presence of social information using an automated meta-analysis and confirmatory data from an independent study of simple appraisal of social vs. non-social images. Results of 1,000 published fMRI studies containing the keyword of "social" were subject to an automated meta-analysis (http://neurosynth.org). To confirm that significant brain regions in the meta-analysis were driven by a social effect, these brain regions were used as regions of interest (ROIs) to extract and compare BOLD fMRI signals of social vs. non-social conditions in the independent study. The NeuroSynth results indicated that the dorsal and ventral medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, bilateral amygdala, bilateral occipito-temporal junction, right fusiform gyrus, bilateral temporal pole, and right inferior frontal gyrus are commonly engaged in studies with a prominent social element. The social-non-social contrast in the independent study showed a strong resemblance to the NeuroSynth map. ROI analyses revealed that a social effect was credible in 9 out of the 11 NeuroSynth regions in the independent dataset. The findings support the conclusion that the "social brain" is highly sensitive to the mere presence of social information.

[Formula: see text]Executive functions and social information processing in adolescents with severe behavior problems.

PubMed

Van Nieuwenhuijzen, M; Van Rest, M M; Embregts, P J C M; Vriens, A; Oostermeijer, S; Van Bokhoven, I; Matthys, W

2017-02-01

One tradition in research for explaining aggression and antisocial behavior has focused on social information processing (SIP). Aggression and antisocial behavior have also been studied from the perspective of executive functions (EFs), the higher-order cognitive abilities that affect other cognitive processes, such as social cognitive processes. The main goal of the present study is to provide insight into the relation between EFs and SIP in adolescents with severe behavior problems. Because of the hierarchical relation between EFs and SIP, we examined EFs as predictors of SIP. We hypothesized that, first, focused attention predicts encoding and interpretation, second, inhibition predicts interpretation, response generation, evaluation, and selection, and third, working memory predicts response generation and selection. The participants consisted of 94 respondents living in residential facilities aged 12-20 years, all showing behavior problems in the clinical range according to care staff. EFs were assessed using subtests from the Amsterdam Neuropsychological Test battery. Focused attention was measured by the Flanker task, inhibition by the GoNoGo task, and working memory by the Visual Spatial Sequencing task. SIP was measured by video vignettes and a structured interview. The results indicate that positive evaluation of aggressive responses is predicted by impaired inhibition and selection of aggressive responses by a combination of impaired focused attention and inhibition. It is concluded that different components of EFs as higher-order cognitive abilities affect SIP.

Age-Related Developmental and Individual Differences in the Influence of Social and Non-social Distractors on Cognitive Performance.

PubMed

Tan, Patricia Z; Silk, Jennifer S; Dahl, Ronald E; Kronhaus, Dina; Ladouceur, Cecile D

2018-01-01

This study sought to examine age-related differences in the influences of social (neutral, emotional faces) and non-social/non-emotional (shapes) distractor stimuli in children, adolescents, and adults. To assess the degree to which distractor, or task-irrelevant, stimuli of varying social and emotional salience interfere with cognitive performance, children ( N = 12; 8-12y), adolescents ( N = 17; 13-17y), and adults ( N = 17; 18-52y) completed the Emotional Identification and Dynamic Faces (EIDF) task. This task included three types of dynamically-changing distractors: (1) neutral-social (neutral face changing into another face); (2) emotional-social (face changing from 0% emotional to 100% emotional); and (3) non-social/non-emotional (shapes changing from small to large) to index the influence of task-irrelevant social and emotional information on cognition. Results yielded no age-related differences in accuracy but showed an age-related linear reduction in correct reaction times across distractor conditions. An age-related effect in interference was observed, such that children and adults showed slower response times on correct trials with socially-salient distractors; whereas adolescents exhibited faster responses on trials with distractors that included faces rather than shapes. A secondary study goal was to explore individual differences in cognitive interference. Results suggested that regardless of age, low trait anxiety and high effortful control were associated with interference to angry faces. Implications for developmental differences in affective processing, notably the importance of considering the contexts in which purportedly irrelevant social and emotional information might impair, vs. improve cognitive control, are discussed.

Self-assessment of social cognitive ability in schizophrenia: Association with social cognitive test performance, informant assessments of social cognitive ability, and everyday outcomes.

PubMed

Silberstein, Juliet M; Pinkham, Amy E; Penn, David L; Harvey, Philip D

2018-04-17

Impairments in self-assessment are common in people with schizophrenia and impairments in self-assessment of cognitive ability have been found to predict impaired functional outcome. In this study, we examined self-assessment of social cognitive ability and related them to assessments of social cognition provided by informants, to performance on tests of social cognition, and to everyday outcomes. The difference between self-reported social cognition and informant ratings was used to predict everyday functioning. People with schizophrenia (n=135) performed 8 different tests of social cognition. They were asked to rate their social cognitive abilities on the Observable Social Cognition Rating Scale (OSCARs). High contact informants also rated social cognitive ability and everyday outcomes, while unaware of the patients' social cognitive performance and self-assessments. Social competence was measured with a performance-based assessment and clinical ratings of negative symptoms were also performed. Patient reports of their social cognitive abilities were uncorrelated with performance on social cognitive tests and with three of the four domains of functional outcomes. Differences between self-reported and informant rated social cognitive ability predicted impaired everyday functioning across all four functional domains. This difference score predicted disability even when the influences of social cognitive performance, social competence, and negative symptoms were considered. Mis-estimation of social cognitive ability was an important predictor of social and nonsocial outcomes in schizophrenia compared to performance on social cognitive tests. These results suggest that consideration of self-assessment is critical when attempting to evaluate the causes of disability and when trying to implement interventions targeting disability reduction. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Spanish Version of the Self-Statements during Public Speaking Scale: Validation in Adolescents

PubMed Central

Rivero, Raul; Garcia-Lopez, LuisJoaquin; Hofmann, Stefan G.

2009-01-01

Contemporary theories of social anxiety emphasize the role of cognitive processes. Although social anxiety disorder is one of the most common mental health problems in adolescents, there are very few self-report instruments available to measure cognitive processes related to social anxiety in adolescents, let alone non-English instruments. The Self-Statements during Public Speaking Scale (SSPS; Hofmann & DiBartolo, 2000) is a brief self-report measure designed to assess self-statements related to public speaking, the most commonly feared social performance situation. In order to fill this gap in the literature, we translated the SSPS into Spanish and administered it to 1,694 adolescents from a community sample, a clinical sample composed of 71 subjects with a principal diagnosis of social anxiety disorder; and a clinical control group consisting of 154 patients. The scale showed good psychometric properties, supporting the use of the Spanish version of the SSPS in adolescents. PMID:20490370

The Spanish Version of the Self-Statements during Public Speaking Scale: Validation in Adolescents.

PubMed

Rivero, Raul; Garcia-Lopez, Luisjoaquin; Hofmann, Stefan G

2010-01-01

Contemporary theories of social anxiety emphasize the role of cognitive processes. Although social anxiety disorder is one of the most common mental health problems in adolescents, there are very few self-report instruments available to measure cognitive processes related to social anxiety in adolescents, let alone non-English instruments. The Self-Statements during Public Speaking Scale (SSPS; Hofmann & DiBartolo, 2000) is a brief self-report measure designed to assess self-statements related to public speaking, the most commonly feared social performance situation. In order to fill this gap in the literature, we translated the SSPS into Spanish and administered it to 1,694 adolescents from a community sample, a clinical sample composed of 71 subjects with a principal diagnosis of social anxiety disorder; and a clinical control group consisting of 154 patients. The scale showed good psychometric properties, supporting the use of the Spanish version of the SSPS in adolescents.

Individual and Class Norms Differentially Predict Proactive and Reactive Aggression: A Functional Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Frey, Karin S.; Higheagle Strong, Zoe; Onyewuenyi, Adaurennaya C.

2017-01-01

Theory and research using a social-information processing framework indicate that reward-focused (proactive) aggression has different social consequences than defense-focused (reactive) aggression. Students use norms that identify expected and socially approved behaviors as guides to their own actions. Differences in social-cognitive processing…

Intercorporeality and aida: Developing an interaction theory of social cognition

PubMed Central

Tanaka, Shogo

2017-01-01

The aim of this article is to develop an interaction theory (IT) of social cognition. The central issue in the field of social cognition has been theory of mind (ToM), and there has been debate regarding its nature as either theory-theory or as simulation theory. Insights from phenomenology have brought a second-person perspective based on embodied interactions into the debate, thereby forming a third position known as IT. In this article, I examine how IT can be further elaborated by drawing on two phenomenological notions—Merleau-Ponty’s intercorporeality and Kimura’s aida. Both of these notions emphasize the sensory-motor, perceptual, and non-conceptual aspects of social understanding and describe a process of interpersonal coordination in which embodied interaction gains autonomy as an emergent system. From this perspective, detailed and nuanced social understanding is made possible through the embodied skill of synchronizing with others. PMID:28626341

Intercorporeality and aida: Developing an interaction theory of social cognition.

PubMed

Tanaka, Shogo

2017-06-01

The aim of this article is to develop an interaction theory (IT) of social cognition. The central issue in the field of social cognition has been theory of mind (ToM), and there has been debate regarding its nature as either theory-theory or as simulation theory. Insights from phenomenology have brought a second-person perspective based on embodied interactions into the debate, thereby forming a third position known as IT. In this article, I examine how IT can be further elaborated by drawing on two phenomenological notions-Merleau-Ponty's intercorporeality and Kimura's aida . Both of these notions emphasize the sensory-motor, perceptual, and non-conceptual aspects of social understanding and describe a process of interpersonal coordination in which embodied interaction gains autonomy as an emergent system. From this perspective, detailed and nuanced social understanding is made possible through the embodied skill of synchronizing with others.

Impairments in Episodic-Autobiographical Memory and Emotional and Social Information Processing in CADASIL during Mid-Adulthood.

PubMed

Staniloiu, Angelica; Woermann, Friedrich G; Markowitsch, Hans J

2014-01-01

Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) - is the most common genetic source of vascular dementia in adults, being caused by a mutation in NOTCH3 gene. Spontaneous de novo mutations may occur, but their frequency is largely unknown. Ischemic strokes and cognitive impairments are the most frequent manifestations, but seizures affect up to 10% of the patients. Herein, we describe a 47-year-old male scholar with a genetically confirmed diagnosis of CADASIL (Arg133Cys mutation in the NOTCH3 gene) and a seemingly negative family history of CADASIL illness, who was investigated with a comprehensive neuropsychological testing battery and neuroimaging methods. The patient demonstrated on one hand severe and accelerated deteriorations in multiple cognitive domains such as concentration, long-term memory (including the episodic-autobiographical memory domain), problem solving, cognitive flexibility and planning, affect recognition, discrimination and matching, and social cognition (theory of mind). Some of these impairments were even captured by abbreviated instruments for investigating suspicion of dementia. On the other hand the patient still possessed high crystallized (verbal) intelligence and a capacity to put forth a façade of well-preserved intellectual functioning. Although no definite conclusions can be drawn from a single case study, our findings point to the presence of additional cognitive changes in CADASIL in middle adulthood, in particular to impairments in the episodic-autobiographical memory domain and social information processing (e.g., social cognition). Whether these identified impairments are related to the patient's specific phenotype or to an ascertainment bias (e.g., a paucity of studies investigating these cognitive functions) requires elucidation by larger scale research.

Impairments in Episodic-Autobiographical Memory and Emotional and Social Information Processing in CADASIL during Mid-Adulthood

PubMed Central

Staniloiu, Angelica; Woermann, Friedrich G.; Markowitsch, Hans J.

2014-01-01

Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) – is the most common genetic source of vascular dementia in adults, being caused by a mutation in NOTCH3 gene. Spontaneous de novo mutations may occur, but their frequency is largely unknown. Ischemic strokes and cognitive impairments are the most frequent manifestations, but seizures affect up to 10% of the patients. Herein, we describe a 47-year-old male scholar with a genetically confirmed diagnosis of CADASIL (Arg133Cys mutation in the NOTCH3 gene) and a seemingly negative family history of CADASIL illness, who was investigated with a comprehensive neuropsychological testing battery and neuroimaging methods. The patient demonstrated on one hand severe and accelerated deteriorations in multiple cognitive domains such as concentration, long-term memory (including the episodic-autobiographical memory domain), problem solving, cognitive flexibility and planning, affect recognition, discrimination and matching, and social cognition (theory of mind). Some of these impairments were even captured by abbreviated instruments for investigating suspicion of dementia. On the other hand the patient still possessed high crystallized (verbal) intelligence and a capacity to put forth a façade of well-preserved intellectual functioning. Although no definite conclusions can be drawn from a single case study, our findings point to the presence of additional cognitive changes in CADASIL in middle adulthood, in particular to impairments in the episodic-autobiographical memory domain and social information processing (e.g., social cognition). Whether these identified impairments are related to the patient’s specific phenotype or to an ascertainment bias (e.g., a paucity of studies investigating these cognitive functions) requires elucidation by larger scale research. PMID:25009481

Elementary teachers' mental models of engineering design processes: A comparison of two communities of practice

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McMahon, Ann P.

Educating K-12 students in the processes of design engineering is gaining popularity in public schools. Several states have adopted standards for engineering design despite the fact that no common agreement exists on what should be included in the K-12 engineering design process. Furthermore, little pre-service and in-service professional development exists that will prepare teachers to teach a design process that is fundamentally different from the science teaching process found in typical public schools. This study provides a glimpse into what teachers think happens in engineering design compared to articulated best practices in engineering design. Wenger's communities of practice work and van Dijk's multidisciplinary theory of mental models provide the theoretical bases for comparing the mental models of two groups of elementary teachers (one group that teaches engineering and one that does not) to the mental models of design engineers (including this engineer/researcher/educator and professionals described elsewhere). The elementary school teachers and this engineer/researcher/educator observed the design engineering process enacted by professionals, then answered questions designed to elicit their mental models of the process they saw in terms of how they would teach it to elementary students. The key finding is this: Both groups of teachers embedded the cognitive steps of the design process into the matrix of the social and emotional roles and skills of students. Conversely, the engineers embedded the social and emotional aspects of the design process into the matrix of the cognitive steps of the design process. In other words, teachers' mental models show that they perceive that students' social and emotional communicative roles and skills in the classroom drive their cognitive understandings of the engineering process, while the mental models of this engineer/researcher/educator and the engineers in the video show that we perceive that cognitive understandings of the engineering process drive the social and emotional roles and skills used in that process. This comparison of mental models with the process that professional designers use defines a problem space for future studies that investigate how to incorporate engineering practices into elementary classrooms. Recommendations for engineering curriculum development and teacher professional development based on this study are presented.

Social exclusion modulates priorities of attention allocation in cognitive control

PubMed Central

Xu, Mengsi; Li, Zhiai; Diao, Liuting; Zhang, Lijie; Yuan, Jiajin; Ding, Cody; Yang, Dong

2016-01-01

Many studies have investigated how exclusion affects cognitive control and have reported inconsistent results. However, these studies usually treated cognitive control as a unitary concept, whereas it actually involved two main sub-processes: conflict detection and response implementation. Furthermore, existing studies have focused primarily on exclusion’s effects on conscious cognitive control, while recent studies have shown the existence of unconscious cognitive control. Therefore, the present study investigated whether and how exclusion affects the sub-processes underlying conscious and unconscious cognitive control differently. The Cyberball game was used to manipulate social exclusion and participants subsequently performed a masked Go/No-Go task during which event-related potentials were measured. For conscious cognitive control, excluded participants showed a larger N2 but smaller P3 effects than included participants, suggesting that excluded people invest more attention in conscious conflict detection, but less in conscious inhibition of impulsive responses. However, for unconscious cognitive control, excluded participants showed a smaller N2 but larger P3 effects than included participants, suggesting that excluded people invest less attention in unconscious conflict detection, but more in unconscious inhibition of impulsive responses. Together, these results suggest that exclusion causes people to rebalance attention allocation priorities for cognitive control according to a more flexible and adaptive strategy. PMID:27511746

Social exclusion modulates priorities of attention allocation in cognitive control

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xu, Mengsi; Li, Zhiai; Diao, Liuting; Zhang, Lijie; Yuan, Jiajin; Ding, Cody; Yang, Dong

2016-08-01

Many studies have investigated how exclusion affects cognitive control and have reported inconsistent results. However, these studies usually treated cognitive control as a unitary concept, whereas it actually involved two main sub-processes: conflict detection and response implementation. Furthermore, existing studies have focused primarily on exclusion’s effects on conscious cognitive control, while recent studies have shown the existence of unconscious cognitive control. Therefore, the present study investigated whether and how exclusion affects the sub-processes underlying conscious and unconscious cognitive control differently. The Cyberball game was used to manipulate social exclusion and participants subsequently performed a masked Go/No-Go task during which event-related potentials were measured. For conscious cognitive control, excluded participants showed a larger N2 but smaller P3 effects than included participants, suggesting that excluded people invest more attention in conscious conflict detection, but less in conscious inhibition of impulsive responses. However, for unconscious cognitive control, excluded participants showed a smaller N2 but larger P3 effects than included participants, suggesting that excluded people invest less attention in unconscious conflict detection, but more in unconscious inhibition of impulsive responses. Together, these results suggest that exclusion causes people to rebalance attention allocation priorities for cognitive control according to a more flexible and adaptive strategy.

Social exclusion modulates priorities of attention allocation in cognitive control.

PubMed

Xu, Mengsi; Li, Zhiai; Diao, Liuting; Zhang, Lijie; Yuan, Jiajin; Ding, Cody; Yang, Dong

2016-08-11

Many studies have investigated how exclusion affects cognitive control and have reported inconsistent results. However, these studies usually treated cognitive control as a unitary concept, whereas it actually involved two main sub-processes: conflict detection and response implementation. Furthermore, existing studies have focused primarily on exclusion's effects on conscious cognitive control, while recent studies have shown the existence of unconscious cognitive control. Therefore, the present study investigated whether and how exclusion affects the sub-processes underlying conscious and unconscious cognitive control differently. The Cyberball game was used to manipulate social exclusion and participants subsequently performed a masked Go/No-Go task during which event-related potentials were measured. For conscious cognitive control, excluded participants showed a larger N2 but smaller P3 effects than included participants, suggesting that excluded people invest more attention in conscious conflict detection, but less in conscious inhibition of impulsive responses. However, for unconscious cognitive control, excluded participants showed a smaller N2 but larger P3 effects than included participants, suggesting that excluded people invest less attention in unconscious conflict detection, but more in unconscious inhibition of impulsive responses. Together, these results suggest that exclusion causes people to rebalance attention allocation priorities for cognitive control according to a more flexible and adaptive strategy.

Poor health and loneliness in later life: the role of depressive symptoms, social resources, and rural environments.

PubMed

Burholt, Vanessa; Scharf, Thomas

2014-03-01

We draw on cognitive discrepancy theory to hypothesize and test a pathway from poor health to loneliness in later life. We hypothesize that poor health will have a negative influence on social participation and social resources, and these factors will mediate between health and loneliness. We hypothesize that rural environments will amplify any difficulties associated with social participation or accessing social resources and that depression will moderate how intensely people react to levels of social contact and support. We conceptualize a mediation model and a moderated-mediation model. Nationally representative data on older people living in the Republic of Ireland are used to validate the hypothesized pathways. In the mediation model, health has a significant indirect effect on loneliness through the mediating variables social resources and social participation. In the moderated-mediation model, rurality moderates the pathway between health and social resources but not social participation. Depressive symptoms moderate the effect of social resources on loneliness but not social participation. The results provide further credence to cognitive discrepancy theory, suggesting that depressive symptoms influence cognitive processes, interfering with judgments about the adequacy of social interaction. The theory is extended by demonstrating the impact of the environment on loneliness.

Neural processing of emotional facial and semantic expressions in euthymic bipolar disorder (BD) and its association with theory of mind (ToM).

PubMed

Ibanez, Agustin; Urquina, Hugo; Petroni, Agustín; Baez, Sandra; Lopez, Vladimir; do Nascimento, Micaela; Herrera, Eduar; Guex, Raphael; Hurtado, Esteban; Blenkmann, Alejandro; Beltrachini, Leandro; Gelormini, Carlos; Sigman, Mariano; Lischinsky, Alicia; Torralva, Teresa; Torrente, Fernando; Cetkovich, Marcelo; Manes, Facundo

2012-01-01

Adults with bipolar disorder (BD) have cognitive impairments that affect face processing and social cognition. However, it remains unknown whether these deficits in euthymic BD have impaired brain markers of emotional processing. We recruited twenty six participants, 13 controls subjects with an equal number of euthymic BD participants. We used an event-related potential (ERP) assessment of a dual valence task (DVT), in which faces (angry and happy), words (pleasant and unpleasant), and face-word simultaneous combinations are presented to test the effects of the stimulus type (face vs word) and valence (positive vs. negative). All participants received clinical, neuropsychological and social cognition evaluations. ERP analysis revealed that both groups showed N170 modulation of stimulus type effects (face > word). BD patients exhibited reduced and enhanced N170 to facial and semantic valence, respectively. The neural source estimation of N170 was a posterior section of the fusiform gyrus (FG), including the face fusiform area (FFA). Neural generators of N170 for faces (FG and FFA) were reduced in BD. In these patients, N170 modulation was associated with social cognition (theory of mind). This is the first report of euthymic BD exhibiting abnormal N170 emotional discrimination associated with theory of mind impairments.

Bridging Social Circles: Need for Cognition, Prejudicial Judgments, and Personal Social Network Characteristics

PubMed Central

Curşeu, Petru L.; de Jong, Jeroen P.

2017-01-01

Various factors pertaining to the social context (availability of plausible social contacts) as well as personality traits influence the emergence of social ties that ultimately compose one’s personal social network. We build on a situational selection model to argue that personality traits influence the cognitive processing of social cues that in turn influences the preference for particular social ties. More specifically, we use a cross-lagged design to test a mediation model explaining the effects of need for cognition (NFC) on egocentric network characteristics. We used the data available in the LISS panel, in which a probabilistic sample of Dutch participants were asked to fill in surveys annually. We tested our model on data collected in three successive years and our results show that people scoring high in NFC tend to revolve in information-rich egocentric networks, characterized by high demographic diversity, high interpersonal dissimilarity, and high average education. The results also show that the effect of NFC on social network characteristics is mediated by non-prejudicial judgments. PMID:28790948

Reflections of the social environment in chimpanzee memory: applying rational analysis beyond humans.

PubMed

Stevens, Jeffrey R; Marewski, Julian N; Schooler, Lael J; Gilby, Ian C

2016-08-01

In cognitive science, the rational analysis framework allows modelling of how physical and social environments impose information-processing demands onto cognitive systems. In humans, for example, past social contact among individuals predicts their future contact with linear and power functions. These features of the human environment constrain the optimal way to remember information and probably shape how memory records are retained and retrieved. We offer a primer on how biologists can apply rational analysis to study animal behaviour. Using chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes ) as a case study, we modelled 19 years of observational data on their social contact patterns. Much like humans, the frequency of past encounters in chimpanzees linearly predicted future encounters, and the recency of past encounters predicted future encounters with a power function. Consistent with the rational analyses carried out for human memory, these findings suggest that chimpanzee memory performance should reflect those environmental regularities. In re-analysing existing chimpanzee memory data, we found that chimpanzee memory patterns mirrored their social contact patterns. Our findings hint that human and chimpanzee memory systems may have evolved to solve similar information-processing problems. Overall, rational analysis offers novel theoretical and methodological avenues for the comparative study of cognition.

Reflections of the social environment in chimpanzee memory: applying rational analysis beyond humans

PubMed Central

Marewski, Julian N.; Schooler, Lael J.; Gilby, Ian C.

2016-01-01

In cognitive science, the rational analysis framework allows modelling of how physical and social environments impose information-processing demands onto cognitive systems. In humans, for example, past social contact among individuals predicts their future contact with linear and power functions. These features of the human environment constrain the optimal way to remember information and probably shape how memory records are retained and retrieved. We offer a primer on how biologists can apply rational analysis to study animal behaviour. Using chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) as a case study, we modelled 19 years of observational data on their social contact patterns. Much like humans, the frequency of past encounters in chimpanzees linearly predicted future encounters, and the recency of past encounters predicted future encounters with a power function. Consistent with the rational analyses carried out for human memory, these findings suggest that chimpanzee memory performance should reflect those environmental regularities. In re-analysing existing chimpanzee memory data, we found that chimpanzee memory patterns mirrored their social contact patterns. Our findings hint that human and chimpanzee memory systems may have evolved to solve similar information-processing problems. Overall, rational analysis offers novel theoretical and methodological avenues for the comparative study of cognition. PMID:27853606

Reduced embodied simulation in psychopathy.

PubMed

Mier, Daniela; Haddad, Leila; Diers, Kersten; Dressing, Harald; Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas; Kirsch, Peter

2014-08-01

Psychopathy is characterized by severe deficits in emotion processing and empathy. These emotional deficits might not only affect the feeling of own emotions, but also the understanding of others' emotional and mental states. The present study aims on identifying the neurobiological correlates of social-cognitive related alterations in psychopathy. We applied a social-cognitive paradigm for the investigation of face processing, emotion recognition, and affective Theory of Mind (ToM) to 11 imprisoned psychopaths and 18 healthy controls. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure task-related brain activation. While showing no overall behavioural deficit, psychopathy was associated with altered brain activation. Psychopaths had reduced fusiform activation related to face processing. Related to affective ToM, psychopaths had hypoactivation in amygdala, inferior prefrontal gyrus and superior temporal sulcus, areas associated with embodied simulation of emotions and intentions. Furthermore, psychopaths lacked connectivity between superior temporal sulcus and amygdala during affective ToM. These results replicate findings of alterations in basal face processing in psychopathy. In addition, they provide evidence for reduced embodied simulation in psychopathy in concert with a lack of communication between motor areas and amygdala which might provide the neural substrate of reduced feeling with others during social cognition.

Does prior psychotherapy experience affect the course of cognitive-behavioural group therapy for social anxiety disorder?

PubMed

Delsignore, Aba

2008-08-01

To examine whether and how different patterns of psychotherapy history (no prior therapy, successful therapy experience, and unsuccessful therapy experience) affect the outcome of future treatment among patients undergoing cognitive-behavioural group therapy for social anxiety disorder. Fifty-seven patients with varying histories of psychotherapy participating in cognitive-behavioural group treatment for social anxiety disorder were included in the study. Symptom severity (including anxiety, depression, self-efficacy, and global symptom severity) was assessed at pre- and posttreatment. A therapist-rated measure of patient therapy engagement was included as a process variable. First-time therapy patients showed more favourable pretreatment variables and achieved greater benefit from group therapy. Among patients with unsuccessful therapy experience, substantial gains were attained by those who were able to actively engage in the therapy process. Patients rating previous therapies as successful could benefit the least and tended to stagnate. Possible explanations for group differences and clinical implications are discussed. Prior psychotherapy experience affects the course of cognitive-behavioural group therapy in patients with social phobias. While patients with negative therapy experience may need extensive support in being and remaining actively engaged, those rating previous therapies as successful should be assessed very carefully and may benefit from a major focus on relational aspects.