Seven computations of the social brain.

Tanaz Molapour,Maxwell Ramstead,Dean Mobbs,Haiyan Wu,Karl Friston,Brian Silston,Cindy C Hagan

doi:10.1093/scan/nsab024

Abstract

The social environment presents the human brain with the most complex information processing demands. The computations that the brain must perform occur in parallel, combine social and nonsocial cues, produce verbal and nonverbal signals and involve multiple cognitive systems, including memory, attention, emotion and learning. This occurs dynamically and at timescales ranging from milliseconds to years. Here, we propose that during social interactions, seven core operations interact to underwrite coherent social functioning; these operations accumulate evidence efficiently—from multiple modalities—when inferring what to do next. We deconstruct the social brain and outline the key components entailed for successful human–social interaction. These include (i) social perception; (ii) social inferences, such as mentalizing; (iii) social learning; (iv) social signaling through verbal and nonverbal cues; (v) social drives (e.g. how to increase one’s status); (vi) determining the social identity of agents, including oneself and (vii) minimizing uncertainty within the current social context by integrating sensory signals and inferences. We argue that while it is important to examine these distinct aspects of social inference, to understand the true nature of the human social brain, we must also explain how the brain integrates information from the social world.

Highlights

At approximately 300,000 years of age, the human brain is relatively young
We argue that while it is important to examine these different computations, in order to better understand the true nature of the human social brain, we must first understand how the brain integrates multimodal information, and in turn, how this integration underwrites the enormous variety of social behaviors
The whole Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) was lesioned in rhesus monkeys where they found specific disruption of learning which stimuli rewarded others, but not the self, while previously learned stimuli were still intact (Basile et al, 2020). These findings indicate the importance of the ACC when acquiring prosocial preferences from vicarious reinforcement

Summary

Introduction

At approximately 300,000 years of age, the human brain is relatively young. Yet, its mid-Paleolithic introduction was preceded by millions of years of evolution. These theories support a network that encodes social knowledge, which includes thinking about mental states, making inferences about others’ beliefs, thinking about the context including groups of people (Ames et al, 2008; Mitchell et al, 2006; Saxe & Kanwisher, 2013).

Results

Conclusion