Social cognition

…span language and communication, social cognition, concepts and numeracy, perception and learning, memory, executive function, metacognition, culture and comparative cognition. The conference is planned as an in-person meeting at CEU’s Budapest campus, with recordings afterward but no online discussion or participation. Invited speakers are Isabelle Dautriche, Willem Frankenhuis and Julian Jara-Ettinger. Beyza G. Çiftçi and Mariem Diané chair the meeting. Presentat

…maps to study collective behavior, social cognition, individuality, sex differences, and stress in Danionella fish.

Primates possess sophisticated social cognitive abilities, interpreting complex social cues and producing adaptive behaviors in real-time. These abilities are thought to rely on distributed circuits spanning sensory, limbic, and prefrontal brain regions. Despite some progress in identifying neural correlates of specific social features, such as gaze and social rank, a comprehensive computational framework linking social perception to behavior remains elusive; at least in part due to the high dimensionality of both the input space (complex social scenes) and the output space (diverse behavioral

Aims: Social cognition hinges on the fundamental capability to perceive the presence of others. Research indicates that the mere presence of conspecifics can enhance task performance, particularly in simpler tasks, and is closely associated with the activity of context-dependent neural subpopulations. While attentional modulation (attentional-conflict theory) has long been posited as the primary mechanism driving social facilitation, the literature on the neurobiological underpinnings of this modulation remains scant at best. Understanding these mechanisms could yield critical insights into so

This study investigates the neural dynamics of hand gesture recognition and execution in the context of social interaction. Our scalable experimental design (SED) considered from controlled laboratory environments to real-world settings, using the rock-paper-scissors (RPS) game. Electroencephalography (EEG) µ rhythm suppression in 23 participants (16 females, aged 18-50 years) was quantified on C3, Cz, and C4 sensors across four experiments: Gesture Identification (experiment 1: Baseline), Simulated Interaction A (experiment 2: versus Artificial Intelligence), Simulated Interaction B (experime

Social cognition refers to a range of processes that allow us to make sense of others' behaviors and engage in daily interactions. A key network supporting social cognition is the mirror neuron system (MNS), a set of fronto-parietal regions that allows inferring others' intentions through action observation. The MNS exhibits considerable plasticity based on an individual's motor repertoire, but little is known about its potential for reorganization in the presence of brain damage. To address this gap, we investigated the adaptive capacity of the MNS in patients with gliomas affecting key netwo

…alterations are in the processing of social information, but dedicated pharmacological interventions are missing. Serotonin (5HT) is classically associated with the processing of social information. However, the role of 5HT dynamic, the related circuits and their pharmacological manipulation are still understudied. The serotonin transporter (SERT) re-uptakes 5HT after synaptic release and is widely expressed in the serotonergic terminals projecting t

One reason for humans’ advanced social interaction skills is their capacity to continuously make predictions about the state of mind of others. Predictions (or expectations) about one’s social environment can be formed based on the perception of others’ actions, knowledge, and beliefs. A key region for this complex social ability in humans is the temporoparietal junction, and recent evidence suggests that the evolutionary origin of this area was already present in their close primate ancestors. Like humans, dogs are also sensitive to others' actions or intentions, but the neural mechanisms sup

Social cognition is believed to contribute to the collective success of groups. To learn from others, individuals must form representations of their own and conspecifics’ actions and outcomes, integrating this information to enhance their understanding of the environment. Neurons in the frontal cortex of socially interacting mice represent various aspects of conspecific behavior, including fear, pain, competition, and social hierarchy. However, whether these neural circuits are involved in observational reinforcement learning during goal-directed tasks remains to be determined. To investigate

Childhood maltreatment (CM), with its subtypes sexual, physical and emotional abuse or neglect, is highly prevalent in our society and may have specific, long-lasting effects on the function and structure of the adult brain depending on the type of maltreatment. This study aims to characterize the neurocognitive profile of individuals with a history of childhood emotional abuse (EA) - a CM subtype, which has previously been neglected, but is amongst the most prevalent of CM subtypes and exhibits a strong association with chronic depressive symptoms in adulthood. Previous theories and findings

To investigate the origins of social cognition, we need to look beyond the human species. Investigations within primates constrain us to a linear understanding of evolution. Dogs have emerged as an alternative animal model because our last common ancestor with them dates back 95-100 million years. They have advanced socio-cognitive skills, even when discounting recent domestication effects, not present in many other mammals, suggestive of convergent rather than linear evolution. Moreover, they can be trained to perform awake and unrestrained functional magnetic resonance imaging. To better und

Social behavior is defined as any communication or interaction between two conspecifics of a given species encompassing various forms and contexts. Previous studies have shown that mice have social cognition that enables them to integrate, interpret, and respond to social signals and use these signals for the guidance of flexible and appropriate responses in different social contexts. One brain region with established involvement in social cognition is the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). However, the exact role of the mPFC in social decision-making in different contexts remains poorly defined

The medial temporal lobe (MTL) is important for mnemonic processes, navigation and social cognition. At the basis of all these cognitive processes lies the integration of a multitude of stimuli and their classification into conceptual groups. Neurons in human MTL indeed show concept-specific activity profiles in that they fire specifically for pictures presenting concepts of animals, landscapes, faces, concept relations and their grade of novelty. How such representations are organized during moving scenes, where different concepts are presented simultaneously, has so far received little atten

…species have been ordered on a 4-grade social tolerance scale based on 18 behavioural traits, including counter-aggression and reconciliation rates (Grade 1, e.g., M. mulatta, to Grade 4, e.g., M. tonkeana). However, the neuroanatomical correlates of interspecific differences in macaques’ social behaviours remain unknown. To address this, we fostered a unique collection of 34 post-mortem samples from 11 macaque species, combining Strasbourg-based 7T MRI scans with data from existing databases (PRIMate Data Exchange, Japan Monkey Centre, Ox

Non-human great apes inform one another in ways that can seem very humanlike. Especially in the gestural domain, their behavior exhibits many similarities with human communication, meeting widely used empirical criteria for intentionality. At the same time, there remain some manifest differences. How to account for these similarities and differences in a unified way remains a major challenge. This presentation will summarise the arguments developed in a recent paper with Christophe Heintz. We make a key distinction between the expression of intentions (Ladyginian) and the expression of specifi

…development reveals about concepts and social cognition. Topics include open developmental datasets, the interplay of data-driven and theory-driven research, differences from language-model training, and the rational speech act framework for interpreting speakers' intentions.

Humans, as a social species, have an increased ability to detect and perceive visual elements involved in social exchanges, such as faces and eyes. The gaze, in particular, conveys information crucial for social interactions and social cognition. Researchers have hypothesized that in order to engage in dynamic face-to-face communication in real time, our brains must quickly and automatically process the direction of another person's gaze. There is evidence that direct gaze improves face encoding and attention capture and that direct gaze is perceived and processed more quickly than averted gaz

Uncertainty regarding which psychological mechanisms are fundamental in mediating SSRI treatment outcomes and wide-ranging variability in their efficacy has raised more questions than it has solved. Since subjective mood states are an abstract scientific construct, only available through self-report in humans, and likely involving input from multiple top-down and bottom-up signals, it has been difficult to model at what level SSRIs interact with this process. Converging translational evidence indicates a role for serotonin in modulating context-dependent parameters of action selection, affect,

I will present field experiments on vervet monkeys testing physical and social cognition, with a focus on social learning. The understanding of the emergence of cultural behaviours in animals has advanced significantly with contributions from complementary approaches: natural observations and controlled field experiments. Experiments with wild vervet monkeys highlight that monkeys are selective about ‘who’ they learn from socially and that they will abandon personal foraging preferences in favour of group norms new to them. The reported findings highlight the feasibility to study cognition und

What psychological mechanisms do primates use to engage in self-control, and what is the ultimate function of these skills? I will argue that a suite of decision-making capacities, including choices about the timing of benefits, evolved in the context of foraging behaviors and vary with ecological complexity across species. Then, I will examine how these foraging capacities can be generalized to solve novel problems posing temporal costs that are important for humans, such as cooking food, and can therefore underpin evolutionary transitions in behavior. Finally, I will present work testing the