The Social Brain

Reading Minds ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 113-123
Author(s):  
Henry M. Wellman
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Mind Reading ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
The Social ◽  
Brain Changes ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Time Theory

This chapter examines how children’s theory of mind springs from their social brains. Neuroscience shows that adults have a theory-of-mind neural network. Children’s developing theory of mind uses some of the same neural regions that are used by adults. But, it also shows considerable neural change over time. Theory of mind is a deeply developmental achievement, driven by experience and learning. Because the brain is plastic, that experience and learning also shape the structure and functioning of the brain. We experience and learn new things, and the brain changes in response. Indeed, theory-of-mind understandings and theory-of-mind brain activations change throughout childhood, together, step by step. There is no simple brain-tells-all story. Mind reading is learned; the social brain is a product of learning as well.

scholarly journals Seven Computations of the Social Brain

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanaz Molapour ◽  
Cindy C Hagan ◽  
Brian Silston ◽  
Haiyan Wu ◽  
Maxwell Ramstead ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social World ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Verbal Cues ◽  
True Nature ◽  
Multiple Modalities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Processing Demands ◽  
Social Signaling ◽  
The Brain

ABSTRACT The social environment presents the human brain with the most complex of information processing demands. The computations that the brain must perform occur in parallel, combine social and nonsocial cues, produce verbal and non-verbal signals, and involve multiple cognitive systems; including memory, attention, emotion, learning. This occurs dynamically and at timescales ranging from milliseconds to years. Here, we propose that during social interactions, seven core operations interact to underwrite coherent social functioning; these operations accumulate evidence efficiently – from multiple modalities – when inferring what to do next. We deconstruct the social brain and outline the key components entailed for successful human social interaction. These include (1) social perception; (2) social inferences, such as mentalizing; (3) social learning; (4) social signaling through verbal and non-verbal cues; (5) social drives (e.g., how to increase one’s status); (6) determining the social identity of agents, including oneself; and (7) minimizing uncertainty within the current social context by integrating sensory signals and inferences. We argue that while it is important to examine these distinct aspects of social inference, to understand the true nature of the human social brain, we must also explain how the brain integrates information from the social world.

scholarly journals Self-organizing dominance hierarchies in a wild primate population

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1814) ◽  
pp. 20151512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias Franz ◽  
Emily McLean ◽  
Jenny Tung ◽  
Jeanne Altmann ◽  
Susan C. Alberts
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Self Organization ◽  
Social Self ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Winner And Loser Effects ◽  
The Social ◽  
Over Time

Linear dominance hierarchies, which are common in social animals, can profoundly influence access to limited resources, reproductive opportunities and health. In spite of their importance, the mechanisms that govern the dynamics of such hierarchies remain unclear. Two hypotheses explain how linear hierarchies might emerge and change over time. The ‘prior attributes hypothesis’ posits that individual differences in fighting ability directly determine dominance ranks. By contrast, the ‘social dynamics hypothesis’ posits that dominance ranks emerge from social self-organization dynamics such as winner and loser effects. While the prior attributes hypothesis is well supported in the literature, current support for the social dynamics hypothesis is limited to experimental studies that artificially eliminate or minimize individual differences in fighting abilities. Here, we present the first evidence supporting the social dynamics hypothesis in a wild population. Specifically, we test for winner and loser effects on male hierarchy dynamics in wild baboons, using a novel statistical approach based on the Elo rating method for cardinal rank assignment, which enables the detection of winner and loser effects in uncontrolled group settings. Our results demonstrate (i) the presence of winner and loser effects, and (ii) that individual susceptibility to such effects may have a genetic basis. Taken together, our results show that both social self-organization dynamics and prior attributes can combine to influence hierarchy dynamics even when agonistic interactions are strongly influenced by differences in individual attributes. We hypothesize that, despite variation in individual attributes, winner and loser effects exist (i) because these effects could be particularly beneficial when fighting abilities in other group members change over time, and (ii) because the coevolution of prior attributes and winner and loser effects maintains a balance of both effects.

Sickness and the social brain: How the immune system regulates behavior across species

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin A. Devlin ◽  
Caroline J. Smith ◽  
Staci D. Bilbo
Keyword(s):  
Immune System ◽  
Social Behavior ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Behavior Changes ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Evolutionary Origins ◽  
Immune Mediators ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sickness Behaviors ◽  
The Brain

Many instances of sickness critically involve the immune system. The immune system talks to the brain in a bi-directional loop. This discourse affords the immune system immense control, such that it can influence behavior and optimize recovery from illness. These behavioral responses to infection are called sickness behaviors and can manifest in many ways, including changes in mood, motivation, or energy. Fascinatingly, most of these changes are conserved across species, and most organisms demonstrate some form of sickness behaviors. One of the most interesting sickness behaviors, and not immediately obvious, is altered sociability. Here, we discuss how the immune system impacts social behavior, by examining the brain regions and immune mediators involved in this process. We first outline how social behavior changes in response to infection in various species. Next, we explore which brain regions control social behavior and their evolutionary origins. Finally, we describe which immune mediators establish the link between illness and social behavior, in the context of both normal development and infection. Overall, we hope to make clear the striking similarities between the mechanisms that facilitate changes in sociability in derived and ancestral vertebrate, as well as invertebrate, species.

Apperception

2021 ◽  
pp. 218-238
Author(s):  
Richard Evans
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Logic Programming ◽  
Inductive Logic Programming ◽  
Inductive Logic ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Programming System ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
The Neural Network ◽  
Binary Neural Network ◽  
Over Time

This paper describes a neuro-symbolic system for distilling interpretable logical theories out of streams of raw, unprocessed sensory experience. We combine a binary neural network, that maps raw sensory input to concepts, with an inductive logic programming system, that combines concepts into declarative rules. Both the inductive logic programming system and the binary neural network are encoded as logic programs, so the weights of the neural network and the declarative rules of the theory can be solved jointly as a single SAT problem. This way, we are able to jointly learn how to perceive (mapping raw sensory information to concepts) and apperceive (combining concepts into declarative rules). We apply our system, the Apperception Engine, to the Sokoban domain. Given a sequence of noisy pixel images, the system has to construct objects that persist over time, extract attributes that change over time, and induce rules explaining how the attributes change over time. We compare our system with a neural network baseline, and show that the baseline is significantly outperformed by the Apperception Engine.

Introduction

2010 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela T. Ragusa
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Sandra Harding ◽  
The Social ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Over Time

Epistemology is the concept used to describe ways of knowing. In other words, how you know what you know. Sociologists have been interested in how knowledge is produced since the discipline was founded in the 19th Century. How we come to know our world and make sense of it are influenced by social institutions, individual attitudes and behaviors, and our demographic position within the social order. The social order is an historical product which continues to change over time. To facilitate our learning from our socio-historical experiences, sociologists frequently turn to ideas expressed by social theorists. Social theory, whether classical or contemporary, may thus be employed to help us make sense of changes in our social and material world. Although technology is arguably as ancient as our first ancestors, as the chapters in this book reveal, the characteristics of and communications within our postindustrial society vary greatly from those which occurred in the age of modernity. This introductory chapter identifies a few well-known social theorists who have historically attempted to explain how and why social systems, at macro and micro levels, change over time. Next, it contextualizes communication as a cultural product, arguing the best way to examine the topic is from multiple, local perspectives. In the feminist tradition of postmodernist Sandra Harding, it implores us to consider the premise and source of the knowledge sources we use and espouse while communicating and interacting in specific ways and environments. Finally, grounded in the systemic backdrop of social inequality, this chapter encourages readers to begin the task of critical thinking and reflecting about how each of us, as individuals and members of local communities, nations and the world, assuage or reproduces the structurally-derived inequalities which the globalization of communication and technical systems and interacting in a global environment manifests.

scholarly journals Telegraphic Realism: Henry James's In the Cage

PMLA ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 115 (5) ◽  
pp. 975-990 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Menke
Keyword(s):  
Charles Dickens ◽  
Henry James ◽  
Elizabeth Gaskell ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
The Social ◽  
Over Time

In setting his 1898 tale In the Cage in a telegraph office, Henry James was adapting and investigating a metaphor that earlier novelists had used for the workings of fiction. As invoked by writers such as Elizabeth Gaskell and Charles Dickens, the idealized image of the electric telegraph hints at some of the formal and ideological properties of Victorian realism. With In the Cage James proves to be more alert than such predecessors not only to the social and technological mechanics of telegraphy but also to the significance of mediation—in telegraphy as well as in realist fiction. Analyzing the conjunction this essay calls “telegraphic realism” indicates the ways in which a medium's imaginative possibilities may change over time and suggests the connections between the histories of media and of literature.

scholarly journals Causes and Consequences of Coalitional Cognition

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mina Cikara
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Intergroup Dynamics ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Coalitional Psychology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Category Labels ◽  
Over Time

What is a group? How do we know to which groups we belong? How do we assign others to groups? A great deal of theorizing across the social sciences has conceptualized ‘groups’ as synonymous with ‘categories,’ however there are a number of limitations to this approach: particularly for making predictions about novel intergroup contexts or about how intergroup dynamics will change over time. Here I join a growing chorus of researchers striving to systematize the conditions under which a generalized coalitional psychology gets activated—the recognition of another’s capacity for and likelihood of coordination not only with oneself but with others. First I review some recent developments in the cognitive processes that give rise to the inference of coalitions and group-biased preferences (even in the absence of category labels). Then I review downstream consequences of inferences about capacity and likelihood of coordination for valuation, emotions, attribution, and inter-coalitional harm. Finally I review examples of how we can use these psychological levers to attenuate intergroup hostility.

scholarly journals The Notion of Identity

2006 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 42-45
Author(s):  
Zeljka Babic
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Identities ◽  
Erik Erikson ◽  
Social Actor ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
The Social ◽  
Single Identity ◽  
Sense Of Identity ◽  
Modern Sense ◽  
Over Time

According to psychologist Erik Erikson, identity means, “a system of self-definitions of the social actor”. This modern sense of identity denotes not only “sameness”, but also an image according to which one associates and projects oneself. Michael Wintle said that the most important feature of identity is its multiple nature. It is possible to have a single identity but it will always be made up of several separate identifications, some of which might be contradictory. Some are stronger than the others and the pattern can change over time. People are often influenced by multiple identities that apply based on circumstances such as national, racial, social and language identities.

scholarly journals Self-other representation in the social brain reflects social connection

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea L. Courtney ◽  
Meghan L. Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Self ◽  
Social Connection ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Neural Representations ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Brain

Social connection is critical to well-being, yet how the brain reflects our attachment to other people remains largely unknown. We combined univariate and multivariate brain imaging analyses to assess whether and how the brain organizes representations of others based on how connected they are to our own identity. During an fMRI scan, participants (N=43) completed a self- and other-reflection task for 16 targets: the self, five close others, five acquaintances, and five celebrities. In addition, they reported their subjective closeness to each target and their own trait loneliness. We examined neural responses to the self and others in a brain region that has been associated with self-representation (medial prefrontal cortex; MPFC) and across the whole brain. The structure of self-other representation in the MPFC and across the social brain appeared to cluster targets into three social categories: the self, social network members (including close others and acquaintances), and celebrities. Moreover, both univariate activation in MPFC and multivariate self-other similarity in MPFC and across the social brain increased with subjective self-other closeness ratings. Critically, participants who were less socially connected (i.e. lonelier) showed altered self-other mapping in social brain regions. Most notably, in MPFC, loneliness was associated with reduced representational similarity between the self and others. The social brain apparently maintains information about broad social categories as well as closeness to the self. Moreover, these results point to the possibility that feelings of chronic social disconnection may be mirrored by a ‘lonelier’ neural self-representation.Significance StatementSocial connection is critical to well-being, yet how the brain reflects our attachment to people remains unclear. We found that the social brain stratifies neural representations of people based on our subjective connection to them, separately clustering people who are and are not in our social network. Moreover, the people we feel closest to are represented most closely to ourselves. Finally, lonelier individuals also appeared to have a ‘lonelier’ neural self-representation in the MPFC, as loneliness attenuated the closeness between self and other neural representations in this region. The social brain appears to map our interpersonal ties, and alterations in this map may help explain why lonely individuals endorse statements such as ‘people are around me but not with me’.

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