Socio-emotional Cognition Research Articles

Social and emotional self-perception in people with mild to moderate Alzheimer disease compared to caregiver's perspective in Brazil.

There was limited evidence on the ability of people with Alzheimer disease (AD) to perceive their own emotions. We aimed to compare socioemotional self-perception in persons with mild and moderate AD to their caregivers' perspective. Cross-sectional assessment of people with mild (n=102) and moderate (n=59) AD and caregivers. Each participant and their caregivers completed the socioemotional questionnaire (SEQ); a 30-item rating scale assessing five dimensions of socioemotional cognition (empathy, emotion recognition, social conformity, antisocial behavior, sociability). We evaluated global cognition, awareness of disease, dementia severity, functionality, neuropsychiatric symptoms, and caregiver burden. Participants in the mild and moderate groups showed a similar pattern of socioemotional self-perception. They differed in the anger domain of the emotion recognition subscale, in the antisocial behavior dimension, and in the sociability subscale. In contrast, the caregivers' perspective of people with mild and moderate AD showed a significant difference in the emotion recognition domain for fear, disgust, and sadness. There were also significant differences in the empathy subscale for disgust and in the sociability subscale. Cognition was correlated with self-reported reduced perception in social conformity, antisocial behavior, and sociability. Awareness was correlated with emotion recognition, antisocial behavior, and sociability. Neuropsychiatric symptoms were correlated with empathy, emotion recognition, and social conformity. Significant differences were found between caregivers' perspectives of socioemotional functioning in people with mild and moderate AD. Meanwhile, there were minimal differences in self-perception between the mild and moderate groups.

Cerebellar non-invasive stimulation of social and emotional mentalizing: A meta-analysis

Abstract The present meta-analysis investigated the impact of non-invasive stimulation, using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) targeting the posterior cerebellum, on social and emotional mentalizing about others. Prior research has convincingly shown that the posterior cerebellum supports social and emotional cognition. We identified 14 studies targeting the cerebellum with appropriate control conditions (i.e., sham, control site), which exclude general learning effects of the task or placebo effects. The studies included 29 task conditions where stimulation before or during a social or emotional task was applied on healthy samples. The results showed significant evidence that sustained anodal tDCS and TMS generally improved social and emotional performance after stimulation, in comparison with sham or control conditions, with a small effect size. In contrast, cathodal stimulation showed mixed facilitatory and inhibitory results. In addition, short TMS pulses, administered with the aim of interfering with ongoing social or emotional processes, induced a small but consistent inhibitory effect. Control tasks without social or emotional components also showed significant improvement after sustained anodal tDCS and TMS, suggesting that transcranial stimulation of the cerebellum may also improve other functions. This was not the case for short TMS pulses, which did not modulate non-social and non-emotional control tasks. Taken together, this meta-analysis shows that cerebellar neurostimulation confirms a causal role of the cerebellum in socio-emotional cognition, has a small but significant effect on improving socio-emotional skills, and may, therefore, have important clinical applications in pathologies where social and emotional cognition is impaired.

The Implications of Moral Neuroscience for Brain Disease: Review and Update.

The last 2 decades have seen an explosion of neuroscience research on morality, with significant implications for brain disease. Many studies have proposed a neuromorality based on intuitive sentiments or emotions aimed at maintaining collaborative social groups. These moral emotions are normative, deontological, and action based, with a rapid evaluation of intentionality. The neuromoral circuitry interacts with the basic mechanisms of socioemotional cognition, including social perception, behavioral control, theory of mind, and social emotions such as empathy. Moral transgressions may result from primary disorders of moral intuitions, or they may be secondary moral impairments from disturbances in these other socioemotional cognitive mechanisms. The proposed neuromoral system for moral intuitions has its major hub in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and engages other frontal regions as well as the anterior insulae, anterior temporal lobe structures, and right temporoparietal junction and adjacent posterior superior temporal sulcus. Brain diseases that affect these regions, such as behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, may result in primary disturbances of moral behavior, including criminal behavior. Individuals with focal brain tumors and other lesions in the right temporal and medial frontal regions have committed moral violations. These transgressions can have social and legal consequences for the individuals and require increased awareness of neuromoral disturbances among such individuals with brain diseases.

Échelle de cognition numérique (NUMERICOG)

IntroductionThe development of digital technologies raises the question of their impact on our neurocognitive abilities. To answer this question requires first to identify the cognitive functions that individuals attempt to support by using digital technologies. ObjectiveThe objective was to develop a psychometric tool, the Digital Cognition Scale NUMERICOG, allowing us to identify these cognitive functions. MethodsWe followed a four-step method. First, we conducted a survey (Step 1) to collect spontaneous uses of digital technologies (n=160), allowing us to generate 94 items that we have subsequently sorted (Step 2) to produce a 24-item scale (n=392). The psychometric qualities of our model were then tested (Step 3: n=754) to obtain norms (Step 4; n=1132). ResultsThe scale consisted of four sub-scales that assess the propensity of an individual to use digital technologies to support their socio-emotional cognition, decision making, semantic memory, and episodic memory/executive functions. ConclusionThe scale can be used to start the investigation of the consequences of our use of digital technologies on the four aforementioned cognitive functions.

Emotion Priming in People with Williams Syndrome.

Emotion categories configure the basic semantic knowledge of the human cognitive structure. Previous studies with people with Williams syndrome (WS) investigated their ability to process basic emotions and the dimensions of emotional valences. However, little is known about the categorization of emotions from the subordinate perspective of lexical words in people with WS. In this study, emotion priming was used as the research paradigm. Three types of emotional valence were used as stimuli: positive, neutral, and negative. Each emotional valence was used as a prime matched to a target in one of these same three types of emotional valence. All participants were asked to judge whether the prime and the target were matched in their emotional valence. People with WS (n = 14, 11M/3F, CA = 10.49, and MA = 6.57) showed priming patterns for emotion valences like those of the typically developing controls. When positive primes were presented, accuracy was higher for positive and negative targets than neutral targets. When neutral primes were presented, accuracy was highest for negative targets. When negative primes were presented, accuracy was the lowest for negative targets. All participants showed high priming accuracy for positive emotions; however, they confused neutral with positive targets. A negative priming effect was observed when negative primes preceded negative targets. Considering previous findings that people with WS show developmental delays in the basic emotions of anger and surprise, this study concludes that people with WS responded least accurately to the classification of emotional valence. The findings regarding the categorization of emotions in people with WS not only advance our understanding of their emotion knowledge and socioemotional cognition but also confirm the superficial enrichment of lexical semantics with weak conceptual change in people with WS. This weakness may result in impaired contextual integration in people with WS.

An integrative framework of early socio-emotional competencies: cognition, regulation and communication

Currently there is no consensus on what is the socio-emotional development, what are its components and path of progress, hindering the progress of transdisciplinary research and the development of evaluation and intervention methods in public policies. The literature about socio-emotional development is extensively reviewed, offering a theoretical model that identified three principal socio-emotional competencies: (a) socio-emotional cognition: composed by the attention and interpretation of social situations; (b) emotion regulation: composed by the emotion modulation and impulse control; (c) socio-emotional communication: composed by verbal and no verbal communication with others.

Transtorno Depressivo Maior: Um Estudo Comparativo sobre Cognição Socioemocional e Funções Executivas

Abstract The present study aimed to assess socioemotional cognition and executive functions in patients with unipolar Major Depressive Disorder. The sample included 22 patients between 36 and 93 years of age (M = 59.32; SD = 12.89) and 23 patients between 30 and 81 years of age (M = 63.00; SD = 13.56) controls. In addition to demographic data, symptoms of anxiety and depression, empathy, theory of mind, recognition of emotions, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility and phonemic verbal fluency were obtained. There was no statistical difference between the groups regarding age and education. Patients had significantly more anxiety, depression and personal distress than controls. Individuals with more severe depressive symptoms had a lower processing speed than the others.

Differences in School-readiness among Pre-school Children in Rural and Urban areas of Kisumu County, Kenya

This study compared primary school preparedness of urban and rural preschool children in Kisumu county, Kenya. Children were assessed on their level of learning and development in the following domains: pre-academic skills (pre-literacy and pre-mathematics, executive function, and socioemotional cognition. The sample consisted of 390 preschool children who had completed their curriculum and were transitioning to Grade One. Children were assessed using an adapted and validated form of the Measurement of Development and Early Learning (MODEL) global item set. We hypothesized that urban children would score higher on all domains of learning and development than rural children. Results showed that indeed urban children were more prepared for primary school than were rural children in all the domains of learning examined in this study. In order to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 on equitable quality education that ensures life-long learning for all, county and national government should invest in early childhood development and education (ECDE) in both rural and urban so that all boys and girls can be ready for primary education and improve future outcomes for all children.

Measuring Behavior and Social Cognition in FTLD.

Because changes to socioemotional cognition and behavior are an early and central symptom in many of the FTLD syndromes, an objective and standardized approach to patient identification and staging relies on availability of validated socioemotional measures. Such tests should reflect functioning in key selectively vulnerable brain networks central to socioemotional behavior, specifically the intrinsically connected networks underpinning salience (SN) and semantic appraisal (SAN). There have been many challenges to the development of appropriate tests for patients with the FTLD syndromes, including the difficulty of creatingstandardized evaluations for the highlyidiosyncratic deficits caused bysalience-driven attention impairments,the trade-off between behaviorally or psychophysiologically precise measures versusthe need for easily administered measures that can scale to broader clinical contexts, and the complexitiesof measuring socioemotional behavior across linguistically and culturally diverse samples. A subset of available socioemotional tests are reviewed with respect to evidence for their ability to reflect structural and functional changes to the FTLD-specific SN and SAN networks, and their differential diagnostic utility in the neurodegenerative disease syndromes is discussed.

Brain structure correlates of expected social threat and reward

Prospection (mentally simulating future events) generates emotionally-charged mental images that guide social decision-making. Positive and negative social expectancies—imagining new social interactions to be rewarding versus threatening—are core components of social approach and avoidance motivation, respectively. Interindividual differences in such positive and negative future-related cognitions may be underpinned by distinct neuroanatomical substrates. Here, we asked 100 healthy adults to vividly imagine themselves in a novel self-relevant event that was ambiguous with regards to possible social acceptance or rejection. During this task we measured participants’ expectancies for social reward (anticipated feelings of social connection) or threat (anticipated feelings of rejection). On a separate day they underwent structural MRI; voxel-based morphometry was used to explore the relation between social reward and threat expectancies and regional grey matter volumes (rGMV). Increased rGMV in key default-network regions involved in prospection, socio-emotional cognition, and subjective valuation, including ventromedial prefrontal cortex, correlated with both higher social reward and lower social threat expectancies. In contrast, social threat expectancies uniquely correlated with rGMV of regions involved in social attention (posterior superior temporal sulcus, pSTS) and interoception (somatosensory cortex). These findings provide novel insight into the neurobiology of future-oriented cognitive-affective processes critical to adaptive social functioning.

S68. DIFFERENTIAL PATTERN OF SOCIAL COGNITION IMPAIRMENT BETWEEN RURAL AND URBAN DWELLING PATIENTS OF SCHIZOPHRENIA AND ITS FUNCTIONAL CORRELATES

BackgroundCognitive deficits (both neuro & social Cognition) play a vital role in determining functional status in schizophrenia. It has been noted that functional outcomes are relatively better in Indian rural settings. This suggests that cognition might be better in rural patients. Considering the prevailing vast cultural differences there is paucity of research which delineates the differences in social cognition and its impact on the functional outcomes between rural and urban setups. Hence, we aim to explore differential impairment in social cognition in patients with schizophrenia residing in rural versus urban settings and their impact on real-world functioning.Methods122 patients diagnosed with either schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder from the rural taluk of Thirthahalli and Turuvekere were compared with 97 patients with similar diagnosis visiting a teaching hospital with urban residence. All the 219 patients met the standardized criteria for remission from positive and disorganized symptoms and were compared on culturally validated tests of SC—Social Cognition Rating Tool in Indian Setting (SOCRATIS) & Tool for Recognition of Emotions in Neuropsychiatric Disorders (TRENDS) to assess theory of mind, social perception and emotion recognition and NC—(attention/vigilance, speed of processing, visual and verbal learning, working memory and executive functions). Groningen Social Disabilities Schedule (GSDS) was used for the assessment of social dysfunction of the patients. Based on past factor analytical studies on these tests, social cognition dimensions were grouped into inferential social cognition which comprised of 1st order theory of mind & 2nd order theory of mind Index & socio-emotional cognition which included faux pas recognition, emotional recognition & social perception indices. These were compared using analysis of covariance after controlling for neurocognitive composite performance and other confounders Correlation between social-cognition and functioning among the two groups was assessed using Pearson correlation.ResultsPatients from rural population had significantly better inferential social cognition whereas patients form urban population had significantly better socio-emotional cognition. ANCOVA showed that even after controlling for effects of age, gender, duration of illness, family history, number of hospitalization & neuro-cognition composite scores the differences were significant. Social cognition composite score was significantly (negatively) correlated with functional disability. The socio-emotional cognition component had a stronger association (proportion of variance explained) with functioning in both rural & urban samples (r= -0.411, r= -0.403 respectively). Inferential Social cognition from both rural & urban samples (r= -0.212, r= -0.238) also has significant association with functioning but of lesser magnitude as compared to the formerDiscussionThe two distinct components of social cognition - inferential and socio-emotional- were differentially impaired among rural & urban patients. With respect to its relationship with functioning, the socio-emotional cognition had a stronger association with functioning in both the groups. The reasons for the difference need to be explored by studying the socio-cultural characteristics of rural & urban dwelling patients which can moderate their expression of social cognition. These observations are critical in understanding how our micro- and macro-level environments can influence cognitive performance

Investigating socio-emotional cognition in late preterm children: A case-control study

ABSTRACTThis study aimed to investigate socio-emotional cognitive competence in late preterm and term born children. Late preterm children (n = 53; 5–10 years) and full-term control children (n = 53; 5–10 years) were evaluated on the four socio-emotional cognitive tests of the Intelligence and Development Scales (IDS): emotion recognition, emotion regulation, social understanding, and social behavioural competence. Compared to full-term children, late preterm children (LPT) performed significantly worse on the emotion recognition and social behavioural competence tasks, but otherwise, no significant differences were found in emotion regulation and social understanding tasks. These findings support the conclusion that late-preterm birth may be associated with negative, but selective, socio-emotional cognitive difficulties. Targeted interventions aimed to limit the incidence of these dysfunctions during childhood could be quite important for LPT children.

A Comprehensive Examination of Narcissists’ Self-Perceived and Actual Socioemotional Cognition Ability

Narcissists are assumed to lack the motivation and ability to share and understand the mental states of others. Prior empirical research, however, has yielded inconclusive findings and has differed with respect to the specific aspects of narcissism and socioemotional cognition that have been examined. Here, we propose a differentiated facet approach that can be applied across research traditions and that distinguishes between facets of narcissism (agentic vs. antagonistic) on the one hand, and facets of socioemotional cognition ability (SECA; self-perceived vs. actual) on the other. Using five nonclinical samples in two studies (total N = 602), we investigated the effect of facets of grandiose narcissism on aspects of socioemotional cognition across measures of affective and cognitive empathy, Theory of Mind, and emotional intelligence, while also controlling for general reasoning ability. Across both studies, agentic facets of narcissism were found to be positively related to perceived SECA, whereas antagonistic facets of narcissism were found to be negatively related to perceived SECA. However, both narcissism facets were negatively related to actual SECA. Exploratory condition-based regression analyses further showed that agentic narcissists had a higher directed discrepancy between perceived and actual SECA: They self-enhanced their socio-emotional capacities. Implications of these results for the multifaceted theoretical understanding of the narcissism-SECA link are discussed.

Eveningness diurnal preference associated with poorer socioemotional cognition and social functioning among healthy adolescents and young adults

ABSTRACTRecently there has been growing interest in associations between sleep, emotion, and social functioning. Less is known about relationships between chronotype preference and socioemotional cognition and functioning, particularly among adolescents, who experience dramatic normative shifts in diurnal preference, affective functioning, and social competence. Fifty-five healthy adolescents and young adults completed a self-report chronotype preference measure, a computerized measure of socioemotional cognition, and a semi-structured clinical interview assessing interpersonal functioning. Greater eveningness preference was associated with poorer socioemotional cognition and social functioning in this age group. Future studies should assess these relationships across development and using objective measures of circadian timing.

Rebuilding the brain with psychotherapy.

Brain has been the most fascinating and mysterious organ of the human body. Researchers have tried to explore into each and every function of different parts of the human brain linking it up with various mental and neural processes, some of which are phylogenetically shared and many are unshared. It has been hypothesized that brain is built during development and can be rebuilt during psychotherapy. Recent research in neuroscience of socioemotional cognition, developmental neuroscience, coupled with advances in investigative techniques of brain functions has provided tremendous opportunities for the study of brain and the mind. In this article, in the initial part, we have tried to explain the developmental processes involved in building of the human brain and what changes occur when an individual develops a psychiatric disorder. Later on, we have tried to postulate from different researches available that how psychotherapy can bring about a change in the neural mechanisms of the brain producing long-lasting effects. Several changes in the neural architecture of the brain occur during the process of psychotherapy. Further, we would like to elaborate on the hypothesis based on available literature that if psychiatric disorders can debuild the brain, then psychotherapy can help in rebuilding it again.

Impaired socio-emotional processing in a developmental music disorder.

Some individuals show a congenital deficit for music processing despite normal peripheral auditory processing, cognitive functioning, and music exposure. This condition, termed congenital amusia, is typically approached regarding its profile of musical and pitch difficulties. Here, we examine whether amusia also affects socio-emotional processing, probing auditory and visual domains. Thirteen adults with amusia and 11 controls completed two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants judged emotions in emotional speech prosody, nonverbal vocalizations (e.g., crying), and (silent) facial expressions. Target emotions were: amusement, anger, disgust, fear, pleasure, relief, and sadness. Compared to controls, amusics were impaired for all stimulus types, and the magnitude of their impairment was similar for auditory and visual emotions. In Experiment 2, participants listened to spontaneous and posed laughs, and either inferred the authenticity of the speaker’s state, or judged how much laughs were contagious. Amusics showed decreased sensitivity to laughter authenticity, but normal contagion responses. Across the experiments, mixed-effects models revealed that the acoustic features of vocal signals predicted socio-emotional evaluations in both groups, but the profile of predictive acoustic features was different in amusia. These findings suggest that a developmental music disorder can affect socio-emotional cognition in subtle ways, an impairment not restricted to auditory information.

Implications of Oxytocin in Human Linguistic Cognition: From Genome to Phenome.

The neurohormone oxytocin (OXT) has been found to mediate the regulation of complex socioemotional cognition in multiple ways both in humans and other animals. Recent studies have investigated the effects of OXT in different levels of analysis (from genetic to behavioral) chiefly targeting its impact on the social component and only indirectly indicating its implications in other components of our socio-interactive abilities. This article aims at shedding light onto how OXT might be modulating the multimodality that characterizes our higher-order linguistic abilities (vocal-auditory-attentional-memory-social systems). Based on evidence coming from genetic, EEG, fMRI, and behavioral studies, I attempt to establish the promises of this perspective with the goal of stressing the need for neuropeptide treatments to enter clinical practice.

Peer attachment formation by systemic redox regulation with social training after a sensitive period.

Attachment formation is the most pivotal factor for humans and animals in the growth and development of social relationships. However, the developmental processes of attachment formation mediated by sensory-motor, emotional, and cognitive integration remain obscure. Here we developed an animal model to understand the types of social interactions that lead to peer-social attachment formation. We found that the social interaction in a sensitive period was essential to stabilise or overwrite the initially imprinted peer affiliation state and that synchronised behaviour with others based on common motivations could be a driver of peer social attachment formation. Furthermore, feeding experience with supplementation of ubiquinol conferred peer social attachment formation even after the sensitive period. Surprisingly, the experience of feeding beyond the cage window was also effective to reduce the required amount ubiquinol, suggesting that peri-personal space modulation may affect socio-emotional cognition and there by lead to attachment formation.

Loss of Emotional Responsiveness Secondary to Left Amygdalohippocampectomy Performed for the Treatment of Complex, Drug-Resistant Partial Epilepsy

Loss of Emotional Responsiveness Secondary to Left Amygdalohippocampectomy Performed for the Treatment of Complex, Drug-Resistant Partial Epilepsy

SOCIAL COGNITION

Social cognitive neuroscience is a novel field of interdisciplinary research that examines socio-emotional cognition and behavior by emphasizing the neural substrates of these processes. Insights from this biological perspective have established that socio-emotional processing does not happen in a sequential order but in a recursive and interlinked fashion; that individual brain regions are not associated with one, but multiple, distinct social functions; and that brain regions are organized into dynamically interacting networks. These factors explain why it is difficult to pinpoint the neural substrates of particular social deficits in patients with brain diseases. With that said, there are specific brain regions that are highly specialized for the perception, regulation, and modulation of emotion and behavior. This article will review key aspects of social processing beginning with their underlying neural substrates, including (1) perception of social signals, (2) social and emotional evaluation, and (3) behavioral response generation and selection. Case studies will be used to illustrate the real-life social deficits resulting from distinct patterns of neuroanatomic damage, highlighting the brain regions most critical for adequate social behavior. Continuum Lifelong Learning Neurol 2010;16(4):69-85.