How do shared-representations and emotional processes cooperate in response to social threat signals?

Abstract

Research in social cognition has mainly focused on the detection and comprehension of others’ mental and emotional states. Doing so, past studies have adopted a “contemplative” view of the role of the observer engaged in a social interaction. However, the adaptive problem posed by the social environment is first and foremost that of coordination, which demands more of social cognition beyond mere detection and comprehension of others’ hidden states. Offering a theoretical framework that takes into account the dynamical aspect of social interaction – notably by accounting for constant interplay between emotional appraisal and motor processes in socially engaged human brain – thus constitutes an important challenge for the field of social cognition. Here, we propose that our social environment can be seen as presenting opportunities for actions regarding others. Within such a framework, non-verbal social signals such as emotional displays are considered to have evolved to influence the observer in consistent ways. Consequently, social signals can modulate motor responses in observers. In line with this theoretical framework we provide evidence that emotional and motor processes are actually tightly linked during the perception of threat signals. This is ultimately reflected in the human brain by constant interplay between limbic and motor areas.