A Radical Reassessment of the Body in Social Cognition

Objective: Current understanding of cognitive functioning in body dysmorphic disorder is limited, owing to few studies, small sample sizes and assessment across only limited cognitive domains. Existing research has also shown inconsistent findings, with both intact and impaired cognition reported in body dysmorphic disorder, which might point towards cognitive heterogeneity in the disorder. This study aimed to examine the cognitive profile of body dysmorphic disorder in a large sample across eight cognitive domains, and to explore whether cognitive subgroups might be identified within body dysmorphic disorder. Method: Cognitive domains of inhibition/flexibility, working memory, speed of processing, reasoning and problem-solving, visual and verbal learning, attention/vigilance and social cognition were assessed and compared between 65 body dysmorphic disorder patients and 70 healthy controls. Then, hierarchical clustering analysis was conducted on the body dysmorphic disorder group’s cognitive data. Results: Group-average comparisons demonstrated significantly poorer cognitive functioning in body dysmorphic disorder than healthy controls in all domains except for attention/vigilance and social cognition. Cluster analysis identified two divergent cognitive subgroups within our body dysmorphic disorder cohort characterised by (1) broadly intact cognitive function with mild selective impairments (72.3%), and (2) broadly impaired cognitive function (27.7%). However, the clusters did not significantly differ on clinical parameters or most sociodemographic characteristics. Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate considerable cognitive heterogeneity among persons with body dysmorphic disorder, rather than uniform deficits. Poor performances in the broadly impaired subgroup may have driven group-level differences. However, our findings also suggest a dissociation between cognitive functioning and clinical characteristics in body dysmorphic disorder that has implications for current aetiological models. Additional research is needed to clarify why some people with body dysmorphic disorder demonstrate cognitive deficits while others do not.

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Looping Effects and the Cognitive Science of Mindfulness Meditation

10.1093/oso/9780190495794.003.0003 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Evan Thompson

Keyword(s):

Neural Networks ◽

Social Cognition ◽

Cognitive Science ◽

Embodied Cognition ◽

Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

Mindfulness Meditation ◽

The Body ◽

Cultural Environment ◽

Directed Action ◽

The Brain

Cognitive neuroscience tends to conceptualize mindfulness meditation as inner observation of a private mental realm of thoughts, feelings, and body sensations, and tries to model mindfulness as instantiated in neural networks visible through brain imaging tools such as EEG and fMRI. This approach confuses the biological conditions for mindfulness with mindfulness itself, which, as classically described, consists in the integrated exercise of a whole host of cognitive and bodily skills in situated and ethically directed action. From an enactive perspective, mindfulness depends on internalized social cognition and is a mode of skillful, embodied cognition that depends directly not only on the brain, but also on the rest of the body and the physical, social, and cultural environment.

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Development of social cognition rooted in the body

The Proceedings of the Annual Convention of the Japanese Psychological Association ◽

10.4992/pacjpa.83.0_itl-006 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 83 (0) ◽

pp. ITL-006-ITL-006

Author(s):

Masahiro Hirai ◽

Shoji Itakura

Keyword(s):

Social Cognition ◽

The Body

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Development of Social Cognition in Adolescence and the Importance of Mating

10.1093/oso/9780198843290.003.0004 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 70-95

Author(s):

Sarah Donaldson ◽

Kathryn Mills

Keyword(s):

Social Cognition ◽

Romantic Relationships ◽

Face Perception ◽

Current Literature ◽

Rapid Growth ◽

Emotional Regulation ◽

The Body ◽

Biological Processes ◽

Human Environment ◽

The Mind

Adolescents experience rapid growth in biology, cognition, and behaviours, which are essential for navigating social complexity within the human environment. One added complexity includes the development of romantic relationships. The onset of puberty prepares the body for biological processes of reproduction, allowing for the ability to conceive, carry, and rear offspring. It follows that maturing cognitive and affective systems develop concurrently to support reproductive competence, transitioning the mind towards identifying and maintaining mating relationships. This chapter reviews current literature in the development of adolescent social cognition, and proposes ways in which these mechanisms also support the emergence of a mating-focused mentality in adolescent youth. Hormonal and neurological influences on social cognition during adolescence are discussed, followed by more focused assessments of research investigating (1) face perception, (2) mentalizing, and (3) emotional regulation/executive control. How these processes support the advancement of mating cognition across adolescence will be highlighted.

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A Tutorial towards Theory Formalization in (Social) Embodiment

10.31234/osf.io/htwmx ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Anna Szabelska ◽

Thorsten Michael Erle ◽

Olivier Dujols ◽

Hans IJzerman ◽

Alessandro Sparacio

Keyword(s):

Social Cognition ◽

Embodied Cognition ◽

Core Temperature ◽

Social Behaviors ◽

Psychological Research ◽

Grounded Cognition ◽

The Body ◽

Social Thermoregulation ◽

Human Thought

Embodied – or grounded - cognition frameworks assume that human thought is affected by inputs from the bodily modalities and the environment and emerged in response to amodal approaches. But the embodied cognition literature, generally speaking, lacks the formal theorizing that allows for specific predictions about relations between body and mind. This problem is amplified by the fact that psychological research has encountered replication problems, challenges to validity of measures and manipulations, and overgeneralization of obtained findings to populations and measures that were not tested. This chapter provides a tutorial on how the field can move towards formalized theories of embodied social cognition. We rely on research on social thermoregulation – the idea that social behaviors protect the body’s core temperature – as a template for this. The chapter addresses the important questions of how to separate noise from signal in embodiment research, how to create reliable and valid measures, and how to appropriately draw conclusions about the generalizability of obtained findings. We hope that following these recommendations will help theories in embodiment to become more formal, allowing for precise predictions about interactions between the body and human (social) cognition.

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Beyond Two Minds: Cognitive, Embodied, and Evaluative Processes in Creativity

Social Psychology Quarterly ◽

10.1177/0190272519851791 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 82 (4) ◽

pp. 340-366 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Vanina Leschziner ◽

Gordon Brett

Keyword(s):

Social Psychology ◽

Social Cognition ◽

Cognitive Processing ◽

Cognitive Processes ◽

Creative Process ◽

The Body ◽

Process Models ◽

Analytical Thinking ◽

Evaluative Processes ◽

And Control

Scholars in sociology and social psychology typically represent creativity as an imaginative and deliberate mental activity. Such a perspective has led to a view of creativity as disconnected from the body and the senses as well as from nonanalytic cognition. In this article, we demonstrate that creativity is more grounded in bodily and sensory experience and more reliant on a combination of cognitive processes than has been typically recognized. We use literature on social cognition and embodiment to build our arguments, specifically, the embodied simulation perspective and tripartite process models. We draw from data on elite chefs to show how actors rely on embodied simulations, continually switch between heuristic and analytical thinking, and monitor and control their cognitive processing during the creative process. We outline the implications of this study for the understanding of creativity and extant models of cognition and action more generally.

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To move or not to move

Interaction Studies ◽

10.1075/is.5.2.03lie ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

pp. 199-219 ◽

Cited By ~ 96

Author(s):

Katja Liebal ◽

Josep Call ◽

Michael Tomasello ◽

Simone Pika

Keyword(s):

Social Cognition ◽

Observational Study ◽

Species Differences ◽

Great Apes ◽

The Body ◽

Body Orientation ◽

The Subject

A previous observational study suggested that when faced with a partner with its back turned, chimpanzees tend to move around to the front of a non-attending partner and then gesture — rather than gesturing once to attract attention and then again to convey a specific intent. We investigated this preference experimentally by presenting six orangutans, five gorillas, nine chimpanzees, and four bonobos with a food begging situation in which we varied the body orientation of an experimenter (E) with respect to the subject (front vs. back) and the location of the food (in front or behind E). These manipulations allowed us to measure whether subjects preferred to move around to face E or to use signals to attract her attention before they begged for food. Results showed that all species moved around to face E and then produced visual gestures, instead of using tactile/ auditory gestures behind E to call her attention. Species differences were apparent particularly when the food and E were in different locations. Unlike gorillas and orangutans, chimpanzees and bonobos (from genus Pan) produced their gestures in front of E in all conditions, including that in which subjects had to leave the food behind to communicate with her. Implications of these results are discussed in the context of the evolution of social cognition in great apes.

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A neurobiological basis for decision making in language pragmatics

Pragmatics & Cognition ◽

10.1075/pc.7.2.03sch ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 7 (2) ◽

pp. 283-311 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

John H. Schumann

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Nervous System ◽

Social Cognition ◽

Affect Regulation ◽

Orbitofrontal Cortex ◽

The Body ◽

Conversational Interaction ◽

Social Decision ◽

Social Decisions ◽

Social Decision Making

In the nervous system, the orbitofrontal cortex, the amygdala, and the body proper are involved in personal and social decision making. Since normal conversational interaction involves making personal and social decisions on a moment to moment basis about what to say and how to say it, it is proposed that these areas of the nervous system, which subserve stimulus appraisal, attachment, affect regulation, and social cognition, also subserve decision making in language pragmatics.

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