Abstract
We often interact with multiple people at a time and consider their various points of view to facilitate smooth social interaction. Yet, how our brains track multiple mental states at once, and whether skill in this domain links to social integration, remains underspecified. To fill this gap, we developed a novel social working memory paradigm in which participants manage two- or four-people’s mental states in working memory, as well as control trials in which they alphabetize two- or four-people’s names in working memory. In Study 1, we found that the dorsomedial subsystem of the default network shows relative increases in activity with more mental states managed in working memory. In contrast, this subsystem shows relative decreases in activity with more non-mental state information (the number of names alphabetized) managed in working memory. In Study 2, only individual differences in managing mental states in working memory, specifically on trials that posed the greatest mental state load to working memory, correlated with social integration. Collectively, these findings add further support to the hypothesis that social working memory relies on partially distinct brain systems and may be a key ingredient to success in a social world.
Highlights
We often interact with multiple people at a time and consider their various points-of-view to facilitate smooth social interaction
Collapsing across load level, we found that multiple regions in the default network (DMPFC, VMPFC, left PC/PCC, lTPJ, and bilateral temporal poles (TPs)) showed greater activity in response to the social working memory (SWM) vs. non-SWM trials (Supplementary Figure 2, Supplementary Table 2)
How do we manage mental state inferences in working memory? Here we found that the dorsomedial subsystem of the default network shows relative increases in activity as a function of the number of mental states considered in working memory
Summary
We often interact with multiple people at a time and consider their various points-of-view to facilitate smooth social interaction. How our brains track multiple mental states at once, and whether skill in this domain links to navigating real-world social interactions, remains underspecified. To fill this gap, we developed a novel social working memory paradigm in which participants manage two- or four-people’s mental states in working memory, as well as control trials in which they alphabetize two- or four-people’s names in working memory. In Study 2, only individual differences in managing mental states in working memory, on trials that posed the greatest mental state load to working memory, correlated with social network integration These findings add further support to the hypothesis that social working memory relies on partially distinct brain systems and may be a key ingredient to success in a social world.
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