scholarly journals Hype, hyperscanning and embodied social neuroscience

Author(s):  
Antonia Hamilton

Hyperscanning has been hailed as a game-changing method which will allow us to understand the neuroscience of multi-person social interactions and create ‘second person neuroscience’. Here, I present a critical review of fNIRS hyperscanning studies, examining what they can and cannot tell us about social neuroscience. A key problem is that many current hyperscanning methods cannot distinguish a pure pattern of interpersonal coherence from effects driven by a common input. Limited data on participant behaviour during testing sessions compounds this problem, because it is not clear what behaviours might mediate the brain coherence patterns that are reported. Some studies respond to this problem by retreating from strong cognitive interpretations of hyperscanning data and measuring how overall levels of coherence differ with individual factors (such as age, gender, social relationships between people or clinical diagnosis). Here, I suggest that there is a better way to analyse and interpret hyperscanning studies. By tracking behaviour in detail, and analysing behaviour and brain activity patterns together, it will be possible to define what types of action, perception and mutual prediction arising in the interaction of two or more people can lead to coherent brain signals and why. This approach acknowledges that social brains are embodied and that coherent brain activity arises from the social behaviour of two people in an interaction. By integrating our study of the social brain and social behaviour, we will be able to strengthen the science of both.

Author(s):  
David López-Sanz ◽  
Jaisalmer de Frutos-Lucas ◽  
Gianluca Susi ◽  
Fernando Maestú

There are two basic ways Magnetoencephalography (MEG) has been applied. The most typical way is recording brain signals related to specific stimuli and tasks or signals indicative of focal pathology as in presurgical brain mapping and epilepsy localization. The second way is recording patterns of spontaneous activity characteristic of particular states or traits. An example of the latter application is described in this chapter that details efforts of deriving brain activity patterns characteristic of Alzheimer’s dementia. The derivation of such patterns will be of great value in diagnosis, prognosis, as well as monitoring progress (or the process of amelioration) of diseases.


2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 440-441
Author(s):  
Nicolas Vermeulen ◽  
Gordy Pleyers ◽  
Martial Mermillod

AbstractWe argue that Schilbach et al. have neglected an important part of the social neuroscience literature involving participants in social interactions. We also clarify some part of the models the authors discussed superficially. We finally propose that social neuroscience should take into consideration the effect of being observed and the complexity of the task as potentially influencing factors.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon Burns ◽  
Lianne N. Barnes ◽  
Ian A. McCulloh ◽  
Munqith M. Dagher ◽  
Emily B. Falk ◽  
...  

The large majority of social neuroscience research uses WEIRD populations – participants from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic locations. This makes it difficult to claim whether neuropsychological functions are universal or culture specific. In this study, we demonstrate one approach to addressing the imbalance by using portable neuroscience equipment in a study of persuasion conducted in Jordan with an Arabic-speaking sample. Participants were shown persuasive videos on various health and safety topics while their brain activity was measured using functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Self-reported persuasiveness ratings for each video were then recorded. Consistent with previous research conducted with American subjects, this work found that activity in the dorsomedial and ventromedial prefrontal cortex predicted how persuasive participants found the videos and how much they intended to engage in the messages’ endorsed behaviors. Further, activity in the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex was associated with persuasiveness ratings, but only in participants for whom the message was personally relevant. Implications for these results on the understanding of the brain basis of persuasion and on future directions for neuroimaging in diverse populations are discussed.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Joseph Van Bavel

We review literature from several fields to describe common experimental tasks used to measure human cooperation as well as the theoretical models that have been used to characterize cooperative decision-making, as well as brain regions implicated in cooperation. Building on work in neuroeconomics, we suggest a value-based account may provide the most powerful understanding the psychology and neuroscience of group cooperation. We also review the role of individual differences and social context in shaping the mental processes that underlie cooperation and consider gaps in the literature and potential directions for future research on the social neuroscience of cooperation. We suggest that this multi-level approach provides a more comprehensive understanding of the mental and neural processes that underlie the decision to cooperate with others.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Allen Thornton ◽  
Miriam E. Weaverdyck ◽  
Judith Mildner ◽  
Diana Tamir

One can never know the internal workings of another person – one can only infer others’ mental states based on external cues. In contrast, each person has direct access to the contents of their own mind. Here we test the hypothesis that this privileged access shapes the way people represent internal mental experiences, such that they represent their own mental states more distinctly than the states of others. Across four studies, participants considered their own and others’ mental states; analyses measured the distinctiveness of mental state representations. Two neuroimaging studies used representational similarity analyses to demonstrate that the social brain manifests more distinct activity patterns when thinking about one’s own states versus others’. Two behavioral studies support these findings. Further, they demonstrate that people differentiate between states less as social distance increases. Together these results suggest that we represent our own mind with greater granularity than the minds of others.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 80
Author(s):  
Arni Rahmah Wasdili ◽  
Iman Santoso

The tittle of this research is An AnalysisDeixis in “Nom nom’s Entourage” Manuscript on We are Bare BearsMovie Seaso. Deixis is one of branch from pragmatics that shown relation between language and context in that language it self. The aim from this research is to know and identify the type of deixis in Nom nom’s Entourage movie season. That have some steps to collecting the data firs is watching the We Are Bare Bears movie season with Nom nom’s Entourage title. Second is reading the script of that movie. Third, selecting and collect the data. Fourth is classifying the type of deixis and the last is produce the conclution. This research using descriptive qualitative method to analyze the data. The result from this research is that have five type of deixis there are person deixis, time deixis, place deixis, social deixis and discourse deixis. Person deixis divided to three part there are firs person as speaker, second person as hearer and third person as other, with 195 word in that movie. Time deixis shows a certain period of time, consist of 10 word in that movie. Place deixis describe the location in a conversation, consist of  26 word in that movie. Social deixis is show how the social differences when talking with other, consist of 18 word in that movie. Discourse deixis is show deitic expressions which point to prior succeeding parts of the discourse with 4 word in that movie. Keywords:  Pragmatics, Deixis, Movie


Author(s):  
Jeffrey P. Copeland ◽  
Arild Landa ◽  
Kimberly Heinemeyer ◽  
Keith B. Aubry ◽  
Jiska van Dijk ◽  
...  

Social behaviour in solitary carnivores has long been an active area of investigation but for many species remains largely founded in conjecture compared to our understanding of sociality in group-living species. The social organization of the wolverine has, until now, received little attention beyond its portrayal as a typical mustelid social system. In this chapter the authors compile observations of social interactions from multiple wolverine field studies, which are integrated into an ecological framework. An ethological model for the wolverine is proposed that reveals an intricate social organization, which is driven by variable resource availability within extremely large territories and supports social behaviour that underpins offspring development.


Author(s):  
Samir Okasha

Inclusive fitness theory, originally due to W. D. Hamilton, is a popular approach to the study of social evolution, but shrouded in controversy. The theory contains two distinct aspects: Hamilton’s rule (rB > C); and the idea that individuals will behave as if trying to maximize their inclusive fitness in social encounters. These two aspects of the theory are logically separable but often run together. A generalized version of Hamilton’s rule can be formulated that is always true, though whether it is causally meaningful is debatable. However, the individual maximization claim only holds true if the payoffs from the social encounter are additive. The notion that inclusive fitness is the ‘goal’ of individuals’ social behaviour is less robust than some of its advocates acknowledge.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Meir Meshulam ◽  
Liat Hasenfratz ◽  
Hanna Hillman ◽  
Yun-Fei Liu ◽  
Mai Nguyen ◽  
...  

AbstractDespite major advances in measuring human brain activity during and after educational experiences, it is unclear how learners internalize new content, especially in real-life and online settings. In this work, we introduce a neural approach to predicting and assessing learning outcomes in a real-life setting. Our approach hinges on the idea that successful learning involves forming the right set of neural representations, which are captured in canonical activity patterns shared across individuals. Specifically, we hypothesized that learning is mirrored in neural alignment: the degree to which an individual learner’s neural representations match those of experts, as well as those of other learners. We tested this hypothesis in a longitudinal functional MRI study that regularly scanned college students enrolled in an introduction to computer science course. We additionally scanned graduate student experts in computer science. We show that alignment among students successfully predicts overall performance in a final exam. Furthermore, within individual students, we find better learning outcomes for concepts that evoke better alignment with experts and with other students, revealing neural patterns associated with specific learned concepts in individuals.


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