You ≠ me: individual differences in the structure of social cognition.

This study investigated the structure of social cognition, and how it is influenced by personality; specifically, how various socio-cognitive capabilities, and the pattern of inter-relationships and co-dependencies among them differ between divergent personality styles. To measure social cognition, a large non-clinical sample (n = 290) undertook an extensive battery of self-report and performance-based measures of visual perspective taking, imitative tendencies, affective empathy, interoceptive accuracy, emotion regulation, and state affectivity. These same individuals then completed the Personality Styles and Disorders Inventory. Latent Profile Analysis revealed two dissociable personality profiles that exhibited contrasting cognitive and affective dispositions, and multivariate analyses indicated further that these profiles differed on measures of social cognition; individuals characterised by a flexible and adaptive personality profile expressed higher action orientation (emotion regulation) compared to those showing more inflexible tendencies, along with better visual perspective taking, superior interoceptive accuracy, less imitative tendencies, and lower personal distress and negativity. These characteristics point towards more efficient self-other distinction, and to higher cognitive control more generally. Moreover, low-level cognitive mechanisms served to mediate other higher level socio-emotional capabilities. Together, these findings elucidate the cognitive and affective underpinnings of individual differences in social behaviour, providing a data-driven model that should guide future research in this area.

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Heterogeneity of social cognition in temporo-parietal junction: Overlapping yet distinct representation between visual perspective-taking and theory of mind

10.1101/2022.01.04.474884 ◽

2022 ◽

Author(s):

Kenji Ogawa ◽

Yuiko Matsuyama

Keyword(s):

Social Cognition ◽

Theory Of Mind ◽

Perspective Taking ◽

Visual Motion ◽

Posterior Part ◽

Visual Perspective ◽

Activation Patterns ◽

Visual Perspective Taking ◽

Extrastriate Body Area ◽

Within Subjects

Visual perspective taking (VPT), particularly level 2 VPT (VPT2), which allows an individual to understand that the same object can be seen differently by others, is related to the theory of mind (ToM), because both functions require a decoupled representation from oneself. Although previous neuroimaging studies have shown that VPT and ToM activate the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), it is unclear whether common neural substrates are involved in VPT and ToM. To clarify this point, the present study directly compared the TPJ activation patterns of individual participants performing VPT2 and ToM tasks using functional magnetic resonance imaging and within-subjects design. VPT2-induced activations were compared with activations observed during a mental rotation task as a control task, whereas ToM-related activities were identified with a standard ToM localizer using false-belief stories. A whole-brain analysis revealed that VPT2 and ToM activated overlapping areas in the posterior part of the TPJ. By comparing the activations induced by VPT2 and ToM in individual participants, we found that the peak voxels induced by ToM were located significantly more anteriorly and dorsally within the bilateral TPJ than those measured during the VPT2 task. We further confirmed that these activity areas were spatially distinct from the nearby extrastriate body area (EBA), visual motion area (MT+), and the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) using independent localizer scans. Our findings revealed that VPT2 and ToM have distinct representations, albeit partially overlapping, indicating the functional heterogeneity of social cognition within the TPJ.

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Exploring the building blocks of social cognition: spontaneous agency perception and visual perspective taking in autism

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience ◽

10.1093/scan/nsq088 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 6 (5) ◽

pp. 564-571 ◽

Cited By ~ 43

Author(s):

Jan Zwickel ◽

Sarah J. White ◽

Devorah Coniston ◽

Atsushi Senju ◽

Uta Frith

Keyword(s):

Social Cognition ◽

Perspective Taking ◽

Building Blocks ◽

Visual Perspective ◽

Visual Perspective Taking

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Group membership and the effects on visual perspective taking

10.31234/osf.io/wnrk6 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Dana Schneider ◽

Anne Grigutsch ◽

Matthias Schurz ◽

Romi Zäske ◽

Stefan R. Schweinberger

Keyword(s):

Theory Of Mind ◽

Mental State ◽

Perspective Taking ◽

Visual Perspective ◽

Interference Effects ◽

Social Categories ◽

Visual Perspective Taking ◽

Mental State Ascription ◽

Ethnic Nationality ◽

Level 1

It has been hypothesized that visual perspective-taking, a basic Theory of Mind mechanism, might operate quite automatically particularly in terms of ´what´ someone else sees. As such we were interested in whether different social categories of an agent (e.g., gender, race, nationality) influence this mental state ascription mechanism. We tested this assumption by investigating the Samson level-1 visual perspective-taking paradigm using agents with different ethnic nationality appearances. A group of self-identified Turkish and German participants were asked to make visual perspective judgments from their own perspective (self-judgment) as well as from the perspective of a prototypical Turkish or German agent (other-judgment). The respective related interference effects - altercentric and egocentric interferences - were measured. When making other-judgments, German participants showed increased egocentric interferences for Turkish compared to German agents. Turkish participants showed no ethnic group influence for egocentric interferences and reported feeling associated with the German and Turkish nationality to a similar extent. For self-judgments, altercentric interferences were of similar magnitude for both ethnic agents in both participant groups. Overall this indicates that in level-1 visual perspective-taking, other-judgments and related egocentric interferences are sensitive to social categories and are better described as a flexible, controlled and deliberate mental state ascription mechanism. In contrast, self-judgments and related altercentric interference effects are better described as automatic, efficient and unconscious mental state ascription mechanisms. In a broader sense the current results suggest that we should stop considering automaticity an all-or-none principle when it comes theory of mind processes.

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