scholarly journals Seeing minds in others: Mind perception modulates social-cognitive performance and relates to ventromedial prefrontal structures

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Wiese ◽  
George Buzzell ◽  
Aziz Abubshait ◽  
Paul Beatty
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Perception Task ◽  
Gaze Cueing ◽  
Mind Perception ◽  
Internal States ◽  
Social Cognitive Processes

In social interactions, we rely on nonverbal cues like gaze direction to understand the behavior of others. How we react to these cues is affected by whether they are believed to originate from an entity with a mind, capable of having internal states (i.e., mind perception). While prior work has established a set of neural regions linked to social-cognitive processes like mind perception, the degree to which activation within this network relates to performance in subsequent social-cognitive tasks remains unclear. In the current study, participants performed a mind perception task (i.e. judging the likelihood that faces, varying in physical human-likeness, have internal states) while event-related fMRI was collected. Afterwards, participants performed a social-cognitive task outside the scanner, during which they were cued by the gaze of the same faces that they previously judged within the mind perception task. Parametric analyses of the fMRI data revealed activity within ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) to be related to both mind ratings inside the scanner and gaze-cueing performance outside the scanner. In addition, other social brain regions were related to gaze-cueing performance, including frontal areas like the left insula, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and inferior frontal gyrus, as well as temporal areas like the left temporo-parietal junction and bilateral temporal gyri. The findings suggest that functions subserved by the vmPFC are relevant to both mind perception and social attention, implicating a role of vmPFC in the top-down modulation of low-level social-cognitive processes.

Social-cognitive processes in preschoolers' selective trust: Three cultures compared.

2013 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 579-590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda J. Lucas ◽  
Charlie Lewis ◽  
F. Cansu Pala ◽  
Katie Wong ◽  
Damon Berridge
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Selective Trust ◽  
Social Cognitive Processes

Initial Impressions of Others

2012 ◽  
pp. 336-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
James S. Uleman ◽  
S. Adil Saribay
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Attribution Theory ◽  
Impression Formation ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Controlled Attention ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Cognitive Processes ◽  
The Many ◽  
And Control ◽  
Initial Impressions

“Initial impressions” bring together personality and social psychology like no other field of study—“personality” because (1) impressions are about personalities, and (2) perceivers’ personalities affect these impressions; and “social” because (3) social cognitive processes of impression formation, and (4) sociocultural contexts have major effects on impressions. To make these points, we first review how people explicitly describe others: the terms we use, how these descriptions reveal our theories about others, the important roles of traits and types (including stereotypes) in these descriptions, and other prominent frameworks (e.g., narratives and social roles). Then we highlight recent research on the social cognitive processes underlying these descriptions: automatic and controlled attention, the many effects of primes (semantic and affective) and their dependence on contexts, the acquisition of valence, spontaneous inferences about others, and the interplay of automatic and control processes. Third, we examine how accurate initial impressions are, and what accuracy means, as well as deception and motivated biases and distortions. Fourth, we review recent research on effects of target features, perceiver features, and relations between targets and perceivers. Finally, we look at frameworks for understanding explanations, as distinct from descriptions: attribution theory, theory of mind, and simulation theory.

Effects of left dlPFC modulation on social cognitive processes following food sampling

Appetite ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 126 ◽  
pp. 73-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter A. Hall ◽  
Cassandra J. Lowe ◽  
Adrian B. Safati ◽  
Huaqi Li ◽  
Emilia B. Klassen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Left Dlpfc ◽  
Social Cognitive Processes

scholarly journals Longitudinal Relations Between Self-Defining Memories and Self-Esteem: Mediating Roles of Meaning-Making and Memory Function

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 318-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hsiao-Wen Liao ◽  
Susan Bluck ◽  
Gerben J. Westerhof
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Longitudinal Design ◽  
Memory Function ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Adult Lifespan ◽  
Social Cognitive Processes

The present study examines Hsiao-Wen Liao is now at the Department of Psychology, Stanford University, CA, USA. the role of self-defining memories in predicting self-esteem using a 1-year longitudinal design with an adult lifespan sample ( N = 1,216; age range 18–92; Mage = 49.52; SDage = 17.25). The interplay between narrators’ personality at the life story level and two social-cognitive processes, meaning-making and functional memory use, is investigated. Participants provided three self-defining memories, and their personality positivity was assessed in terms of the ratio of positive-to-all memories. Memory narratives were reliably coded for meaning-making, and participants reported the extent to which they use each remembered event to serve adaptive functions. One year later, participants completed a measure of self-esteem. Personality positivity at Time 1 predicts greater self-esteem at Time 2. The effect of personality positivity occurs, however, completely through creating positive meaning and using memories functionally. The findings contribute to the literature on narrative identity and autobiographical memory by delineating how memory processes relate to self-regulation over time. The relative roles of personality and social-cognitive processes in autobiographical narratives in linking to self-esteem are discussed.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document