Neural and behavioral signature of human social perception

Ana Saitovitch,David Grévent,Hervé Lemaitre,Raphael Calmon,Monica Zilbovicius,Volodia Dangouloff-Ros,Francis Brunelle,Nathalie Boddaert,Alice Vinçon-Leite,Elza Rechtman

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-44977-8

Abstract

Social behavior is extremely variable among individuals, and the neural basis of this variability is still poorly understood. In this study, we aimed to investigate the neural basis of interindividual variability in the first step of social behavior, that is, social perception. For that purpose, we first used eye-tracking to measure social perception during the passive visualization of socially relevant movie clips. Second, we correlated eye-tracking data with measures of rest cerebral blood flow (CBF) obtained using arterial spin-labeling (ASL) MRI, an index of local rest brain function. The results showed a large interindividual variability in the number of fixations to the eyes of characters during passive visualization of movie clips displaying social interactions. Moreover, individual patterns remained stable across time, suggesting an individual signature of social behavior. Whole-brain analyses showed significant positive correlation between the number of fixations to the eyes and rest CBF: individuals who looked more to the eyes were those with higher rest CBF levels within the right superior temporal regions. Our results indicate the existence of a neural and behavioral signature associated with the interindividual variability in social perception.

Highlights

Humans are, by nature, highly social beings
In Study 2, we investigated in an additional non-overlapping group whether the interindividual variability in this basic mechanism of looking to the eyes is associated with an individual pattern of local rest brain function measured by arterial spin labeling (ASL) MRI
To investigate the interindividual variability in gaze behavior, we used eye tracking to measure gaze patterns in a group of 14 young healthy volunteers during visualization of a set of stimuli presenting naturalistic social movies, namely, characters engaging in social interactions (Fig. 1)

Summary

Introduction

By nature, highly social beings. basic social perception processes and the resulting social abilities emerge from innate mechanisms, a large amount of variability between individuals can be observed[1,2]. The so-called social brain is composed of the amygdala, superior temporal sulcus (STS), orbitofrontal cortex, and fusiform gyrus[3,4] Within this network, the STS is considered a hub for social perception and cognition, including the perception of eyes, faces and human motion, as well as understanding others’ actions and mental states[5]. Functional MRI (fMRI) activation studies investigating the neural basis of interindividual variability in social behavior showed that increased activation in the TPJ is associated with prosocial behavior[11] and that individuals with high other-oriented justice sensitivity scores exhibit enhanced recruitment of the right TPJ and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex while watching bad actions[12]. As is intrinsic to fMRI paradigms, the results are inexorably task related and stimuli dependent, which prevents further information about interindividual variability within rest brain function

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