Social Mind Research Articles

MENTAL ECOLOGY OF SOCIAL MIND

In the article on the basis of the synergetic bio-psycho-socio-spiritual methodology of mental ecology and mental medicine, there has been considered the design of virtual images and narrative meanings through the example of the modern English serial “Sherlock”. There have been described the phenomenology and mechanisms of realization of pathoplastic factors of mental ecology of the Anglo-Saxon world personified in the figure of the central character and accumulating urgent characteristics of social mind and mental health, social and personality identity. There has been grounded the necessity of adaptive development of social mind and introduction of mental health system monitoring allowing to assess effectiveness of mechanisms of morality interiorization and its translation to the level of individual morals.

Hyperscanning MEG for understanding mother–child cerebral interactions

Child development is seriously affected by social interactions with caregivers, which may lead to forming social minds in our daily life afterward. However, the underlying neural mechanism for such interactions has not yet been revealed. This article introduces a magnetoencephalographic (MEG) hyperscanning system to examine brain-to-brain interactions between a mother and her child. We used two whole-head MEG systems placed in the same magnetically-shielded room. One is a 160-channel gradiometer system for an adult and the other is a 151-channel gradiometer system for a child. We developed an audio-visual presentation system, which enabled a mother and her child to look at each other in real time. In each MEG system, a video camera was placed behind a half-mirror screen for visual presentation to obtain the subjects' facial expressions. The visual presentation system is capable of displaying not only real-time facial expression but also processed facial expression such as a still face or delayed facial expressions. A projector system displays the side-by-side face images of the mother and child, and the images are divided into each face using splitting mirrors and each face is displayed on the half-mirror screen in front of the other subject. To the best of our knowledge, our system is the first MEG hyperscanning system in a single shielded room, and may contribute to elucidating brain-to-brain interactions not only between a mother and her child but also in general inter-individual, brain-to-brain interactions.

Theory of Mind as a Pedagogical Tool

Abstract Zunshine demonstrates how a cognitive narratological perspective on theory of mind (i.e., our evolved cognitive capacity to see people's observable behavior in terms of their underlying mental states, such as thoughts, feelings, desires, and intentions) offers an instructor a new tool for collaborative classroom exploration of representations of fictional consciousness. In particular, Zunshine tells of her experience of asking students to write up “missing” passages from Edith Wharton's short story “Xingu,” following their discussion of the story's construction of social minds, an approach that draws on theoretical perspectives that either directly represent theory of mind (Zunshine's “sociocognitive complexity” and Alan Palmer's “intermental thinking”) or are highly compatible with it (Suzanne Keen's “strategic empathizing”). Having used research on theory of mind to teach a wide range of texts on both graduate and undergraduate levels, Zunshine centers her article on the immediate classroom payoffs of this approach as well as its relationship with other, more established pedagogical strategies.

Mead and self-embodiment: imitation, simulation, and the problem of taking the attitude of the other

George Herbert Mead was, arguably, the first philosopher and social psychologist to advance what we might now call the embodied theory of social mind. In his view, the human self emerges out of relationships of bodies interacting with each other while pursuing common social goals. The human self and language originate in a bodily conversation of gestures and in the uniquely human ability of taking the attitude/role of the other. In the first part, the paper analyzes Mead’s treatment of embodiment and briefly contrasts it with contemporary theories of “mind-reading” (theory-theory, simulation theory). Next, it focuses on the findings of mirror neuron research and tries to answer the question of whether mirror neurons provide sufficient mechanisms for imitation, thus, undermining Mead’s lifelong conviction that imitation cannot predate taking the attitude/role of the other (a line of criticism recently taken up by Stephen Turner). The author concludes that mirror neurons, by themselves, do not represent a sufficient condition for imitation and further suggests that we ought to understand the functioning of mirror neuron mechanisms in terms of simulation rather than imitation. Adoption of such a position, as the author argues, reinforces Mead’s pragmatist emphasis on the role of embodiment in human social interaction.

The Infant mind: origins of the social brain

Part I: Evolutionary, Neural, and Philosophical Approaches to the Social Mind. Dunbar, An Evolutionary Basis for Social Cognition. Gallese, Rochat, The Evolution of Motor Cognition: Its Role in the Development of Social Cognition and Implications for Autism Spectrum Disorder. Gallagher, When the Problem of Intersubjectivity Becomes the Solution. Part II: Social Experience and Epigenetic Mechanisms of Gene-Environment Interactions. Pluess, Stevens, Belsky, Differential Susceptibility: Developmental and Evolutionary Mechanisms of Gene-Environment Interactions. Knafo, Uzefovsky, Variation in Empathy: The Interplay of Genetic and Environmental Factors. Part III: The Dynamic Role of Early Social Experience in Vision, Memory, and Language.de Haan, Carver, Development of Brain Networks for Visual Social-Emotional Information Processing in Infancy. Bauer, Event Memory: Neural, Cognitive, and Social Influences on Early Development. Trevarthen, Delafield-Butt, Biology of Shared Experience and Language Development: Regulations for the Intersubjective Life of Narratives. Walker-Andrews, Krogh-Jespersen, Mayhew, Coffield, The Situated Infant: Learning in Context. Part IV: The Role of Early Experience in Social Development. Legerstee, The Developing Social Brain: Social Connections and Social Bonds, Social Loss, and Jealousy in Infancy. Haley, Infant Memory Consolidation: The Social Context of Stress, Learning, and Memory. Bornstein, Mother-Infant Attunement: A Multilevel Approach via Body, Brain, and Behavior. Part V: Neural Processes of Mental Awareness.Sabbagh, Benson, Kuhlmeier, False-Belief Understanding in Infants and Preschoolers. Mundy, Neural Connectivity, Joint Attention, and the Social-Cognitive Deficits of Autism.

Data driven modeling of the simultaneous activities in ambient environments

Resident of a smart home, who may be an old person or an Alzheimer patient needing permanent assistance, actuates the world by realizing activities, which are observed through the embedded sensors of smart home. Typically, this person may sometimes forget completion of the activities; may realize the activities of daily living incorrectly, and may enter to dangerous states. In order to provide automatic assistance for the smart home resident through the embedded electronically controllable actuators and make the smart home resident able to live independently at home we propose to calculate a possibilistic logical space for correct realization of activities, which may be represented in form of a multivariable problem. Regardless from the physical entity (modality and location) of the intelligence source and the quantity of individuals who perform the activities; per each possible goal or activity, we consider a unique source of intelligence (for example a social mind) who directs the order of fuzzy events that occur in the ambient environment, then the plan behind world actuations is modeled applying extensions of the fuzzy logic. The main key point that we deal with is the analysis of the observations in order to make inferences about possible simultaneous activities that may be planned and realized by one or more individuals; so that we can reason in the cases the parallel activities are interrupted.

The Social Mind

The Social Mind

Minds as social institutions

I will first discuss how social interactions organize, coordinate, and specialize as “artifacts,” tools; how these tools are not only for coordination but for achieving something, for some outcome (goal/function), for a collective work. In particular, I will argue that these artifacts specify (predict and prescribe) the mental contents of the participants, both in terms of beliefs and acceptances and in terms of motives and plans. We have to revise the behavioristic view of “scripts” and “roles”; when we play a role we wear a “mind.” No collective action would be possible without shared and/or ascribed mental contents. This is also very crucial for a central form of automatic mind-reading (mind ascription). Second, I will argue that often what really matters is the ascribed/prescribed, worn, mind not the real, private one. We have to play (like in the symbolic play) “as if” we had those mental contents. This social convention and mutual assumption makes the interaction work. The ascribed beliefs and goals are not necessarily explicitly there; they might be just implicit as inactive (we act just by routine and automatically) or implicit as potential. The coordination and social action works thanks to these “as if” (ascribed and pretended) minds, thanks to those conventional constructs. Our social minds for social interactions are coordination artifacts and social institutions.

ソーシャルマインドとメカニカルマインド

ソーシャルマインドとメカニカルマインド

Innovative approaches to the study of social phenotypes in neurodevelopmental disorders: an introduction to the research topic

The field of social-affective neuroscience is growing exponentially, fueled by the availability and widespread use of non-invasive neuroimaging techniques, by advances in molecular genetics and by increasing sophistication in the behavioral characterization of social-affective functioning in both typical and atypical human development. In this context there has been a surge of interest in studying neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) as possible windows into the neurogenetic basis of the “social mind”. While holding great promise for advancing our understanding of genotype-phenotype relationships, research on neurogenetic disorders has encountered considerable challenges, ranging from the rarity of many NDDs with known genetic etiology and the considerable heterogeneity in phenotypic expressions within syndromes, to the difficulty of designing studies able to take in account the critical role played by developmental and epigenetic processes in shaping phenotypic outcomes. The articles collected in this e-book illustrate several ways in which researchers who study people with NDDs have attempted to overcome these limitations.

Getting interaction theory (IT) together

We argue that progress in our scientific understanding of the ‘social mind’ is hampered by a number of unfounded assumptions. We single out the widely shared assumption that social behavior depends solely on the capacities of an individual agent. In contrast, both developmental and phenomenological studies suggest that the personal-level capacity for detached ‘social cognition’ (conceived as a process of theorizing about and/or simulating another mind) is a secondary achievement that is dependent on more immediate processes of embodied social interaction. We draw on the enactive approach to cognitive science to further clarify this strong notion of ‘social interaction’ in theoretical terms. In addition, we indicate how this interaction theory (IT) could eventually be formalized with the help of a dynamical systems perspective on the interaction process, especially by making use of evolutionary robotics modeling. We conclude that bringing together the methods and insights of developmental, phenomenological, enactive and dynamical approaches to social interaction can provide a promising framework for future research. Keywords: theory of mind; cognitive science; phenomenology; embodied cognition; dynamical systems theory; enactive approach; social cognition; interaction theory; evolutionary robotics

Emotional and Social Mind Training: A Randomised Controlled Trial of a New Group-Based Treatment for Bulimia Nervosa

ObjectiveThere is a need to improve treatment for individuals with bulimic disorders. It was hypothesised that a focus in treatment on broader emotional and social/interpersonal issues underlying eating disorders would increase treatment efficacy. This study tested a novel treatment based on the above hypothesis, an Emotional and Social Mind Training Group (ESM), against a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Group (CBT) treatment.Method74 participants were randomised to either ESM or CBT Group treatment programmes. All participants were offered 13 group and 4 individual sessions. The primary outcome measure was the Eating Disorder Examination (EDE) Global score. Assessments were carried out at baseline, end of treatment (four months) and follow-up (six months).ResultsThere were no differences in outcome between the two treatments. No moderators of treatment outcome were identified. Adherence rates were higher for participants in the ESM group.DiscussionThis suggests that ESM may be a viable alternative to CBT for some individuals. Further research will be required to identify and preferentially allocate suitable individuals accordingly.Trial Registration ISRCTN61115988

Wired for culture: origins of the human social mind

A unique trait of the human species is that our personalities, lifestyles, and worldviews are shaped by an accident of birth-namely, the culture into which we are born. It is our cultures and not our genes that determine which foods we eat, which languages we speak, which people we love and marry, and which people we kill in war. But how did our species develop a mind that is hardwired for culture-and why? Evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel tracks this intriguing question through the last 80,000 years of human evolution, revealing how an innate propensity to contribute and conform to the culture of our birth not only enabled human survival and progress in the past but also continues to influence our behavior today. Shedding light on our species' defining attributes-from art, morality, and altruism to self-interest, deception, and prejudice-Wired for Culture offers surprising new insights into what it means to be human.

What event-related potentials (ERPs) bring to social neuroscience?

Social cognitive neuroscience is a recent interdisciplinary field that studies the neural basis of the social mind. Event-related potentials (ERPs) provide precise information about the time dynamics of the brain. In this study, we assess the role of ERPs in cognitive neuroscience, particularly in the emerging area of social neuroscience. First, we briefly introduce the technique of ERPs. Subsequently, we describe several ERP components (P1, N1, N170, vertex positive potential, early posterior negativity, N2, P2, P3, N400, N400-like, late positive complex, late positive potential, P600, error-related negativity, feedback error-related negativity, contingent negative variation, readiness potential, lateralized readiness potential, motor potential, re-afferent potential) that assess perceptual, cognitive, and motor processing. Then, we introduce ERP studies in social neuroscience on contextual effects on speech, emotional processing, empathy, and decision making. We provide an outline of ERPs' relevance and applications in the field of social cognitive neuroscience. We also introduce important methodological issues that extend classical ERP research, such as intracranial recordings (iERP) and source location in dense arrays and simultaneous functional magnetic resonance imaging recordings. Further, this review discusses possible caveats of the ERP question assessment on neuroanatomical areas, biophysical origin, and methodological problems, and their relevance to explanatory pluralism and multilevel, contextual, and situated approaches to social neuroscience.

The Self-Organizing Social Mind

The Self-Organizing Social Mind

A social mind: The context of John Turner’s work and its influence

We review John Turner’s contribution to social psychology and his ongoing influence on the field. We provide an account of his research and theorising framed by the two major theoretical frameworks which he developed: social identity theory (together with Henri Tajfel) and self-categorisation theory. We elaborate the contribution of his work in developing an understanding of intergroup relations (in social identity theory) and specifying the social nature of the self, the salience of social identities, and of the importance of social identity for social influence, stereotyping, power, and leadership (within self-categorisation theory). We then locate these research programmes within Turner’s broader meta-theoretical goal of addressing major problems, issues, and themes within social psychology. These centre on (a) a critique of the pervasive anti-collectivism within much of social psychology, (b) a normative/political agenda for social change, and (c) a commitment to the social nature of the individual mind. These themes explicitly or implicitly infused his research and continue to inspire much of the work in the theoretical tradition that he pioneered.

Social minds.

Social minds.

<em>Social Minds in the Novel</em>, by Alan Palmer<br/><em>Imagining Minds: The Neuro-Aesthetics of Austen, Eliot, and Hardy</em>, by Kay Young

<em>Social Minds in the Novel</em>, by Alan Palmer<br/><em>Imagining Minds: The Neuro-Aesthetics of Austen, Eliot, and Hardy</em>, by Kay Young

Friederike Range: Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology.

Presents a short biography of one of the winners of the American Psychological Association's Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology. The 2012 winner is Friederike Range for outstanding contributions to the understanding of the complex social minds of nonhuman animals. Through ingenious experimental approaches, Range has opened windows into the social cognition of monkeys, ravens, dogs, and wolves. With dogs, she was the first to apply the touch screen paradigm, and she has conducted groundbreaking studies on selective imitation and inequity avoidance. By co-founding new research facilities, such as the Clever Dog Lab and the Wolf Science Center, she has created novel opportunities for future scientific developments and for a new generation of young researchers. Range's Award citation and a selected bibliography are also presented here.

Social neuroscience: toward understanding the underpinnings of the social mind

The field of social cognitive neuroscience has captured the attention of many researchers during the past ten years. Much of the impetus for this new field came from the development of functional neuroimaging methods that made it possible to unobtrusively measure brain activation over time. Using these methods over the last 30 years has allowed psychologists to move from simple validation questions - would flashing stimuli activate the visual cortex - to those about the functional specialization of brain regions- are there regions in the inferior temporal cortex dedicated to face processing- to questions that, just a decade ago, would have been considered to be at such a level of analysis. These so-called intractable questions are the focus of the chapters in this book, which introduces social cognitive neuroscience research addressing questions of fundamental importance to social psychology: How do we understand and represent other people? How do we represent social groups? How do we regulate our emotions and socially undesirable responses? This book also presents innovative combinations of multiple methodologies, including behavioral experiments, computer modeling, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) experiments, Event-Related Potential (ERP) experiments, and brain lesion studies. It is divided into four sections. The first three sections present the latest research on, respectively, understanding and representing other people, representing social groups, and the interplay of cognition and emotion in social regulation. In the fourth section, contributors step back and consider a range of novel topics that have emerged in the context of social neuroscience research: understanding social exclusion as pain, deconstructing our moral intuitions, understanding cooperative exchanges with other agents, and the effect of aging on brain function and its implications for well-being. Taken together, these chapters provide a rich introduction to an exciting, rapidly developing and expanding field that promises a richer and deeper understanding of the social mind.