Event Abstract Back to Event The social brain and its failures Chris Frith1, 2* and Uta Frith1, 3 1 University College London, United Kingdom 2 University of Aarhus, Denmark 3 Aarhus University Research Foundation, Denmark We humans are very social creatures. We are constantly sending out and responding to social signals. By measuring brain activity we find that most of these signals are transmitted and received without awareness, as in the contagious effects of fear, and in the mirroring of action and emotion. Contagious signals embed us in the social world and can make us behave in a more social manner, maximising gains for the group rather than for ourselves.However, higher level cognitive processes also have a critical role in social behaviour. Through mentalising, for example, we can take account the intentions and beliefs of other people. In particular, we can consider what other people think about us. The desire for a good reputation in the eyes of others also makes us behave in a more social manner.Failures of the social brain are evident in disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, which respectively have revealed under- and over-use of mentalizing. In autism, which is characterised by reduced contagion and lack of spontaneous mentalizing, more than one component of the social brain may be compromised. Nevertheless, some islets of social capacities are present even in this disorder. These hint at many layers in the complex networks of our social brain. Conference: 41st European Brain and Behaviour Society Meeting, Rhodes Island, Greece, 13 Sep - 18 Sep, 2009. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation Topic: Plenary lectures Citation: Frith C and Frith U (2009). The social brain and its failures. Conference Abstract: 41st European Brain and Behaviour Society Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.08.2009.09.003 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 04 Jun 2009; Published Online: 04 Jun 2009. * Correspondence: Chris Frith, University College London, London, United Kingdom, u.frith@ucl.ac.uk Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Chris Frith Uta Frith Google Chris Frith Uta Frith Google Scholar Chris Frith Uta Frith PubMed Chris Frith Uta Frith Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.