ReviewThe neurobiology of social cognition
Introduction
The ability to recognize, manipulate, and behave with respect to socially relevant information requires neural systems that process perception of social signals and that connect such perception to motivation, emotion, and adaptive behavior (Fig. 1). Social cognition guides both automatic and volitional behavior by participating in a variety of processes that modulate behavioral response: memory, decision-making, attention, motivation and emotion are all prominently recruited when socially relevant stimuli elicit behavior.
Although social cognition has been investigated for some time within developmental, comparative and social psychology, recent findings from neurobiology shed light on its neural underpinnings, and several studies are beginning to integrate neurobiological and psychological approaches 1., 2•., 3•.. This review will focus on work in mammals, especially primates, on the visual system and on those aspects of social cognition closely related to emotion; as such, the review will omit aspects of social communication such as language.
Section snippets
Evolution and development of social cognition
Many species live in societies of multiple individuals, giving rise to opposing factors that shape the evolution of their social behavior: on one hand, groups can offer better prospects for survival; on the other hand, groups can generate within-group competition between individuals. A reconciliation of these factors is found in two distinct evolutionary solutions: rigid, eusocial behavior, typically seen in insects such as bees (but also found in the rare case of the mammalian naked mole rat),
Social perception: faces and the superior temporal sulcus
How are socially relevant stimuli and signals perceived? Most mammals use olfaction and touch as key sensory channels for social communication: rat mothers identify their pups by smell, and maternal and sexual behaviors are mediated by a specialized olfactory organ, the vomeronasal organ. Auditory communication is based on often complex signals that are adapted to a species’ particular environment: whale songs that can travel enormous distances underwater, ultrasonic separation cries of small
Neural structures involved in social cognition
Perception feeds into cognition, and cognition guides both automatic and planned behavior at multiple levels of organization (Fig. 1). A number of structures are now being explored with lesion studies as well as with functional imaging studies, a sampling of which is given in Table 1.
Molecular and genetic factors
The molecular and genetic underpinnings of social cognition are an underexplored domain that is seeing rapid progress. Several neurotransmitters appear to play a disproportionate role in social behaviors. The hypothalamic peptides oxytocin and vasopressin mediate affiliative and sexual behaviors in several mammalian species. Voles show different mate affiliation (monogamous versus polygamous) as a result of different oxytocin systems in their brains [63], and oxytocin-knockout mice show
A systems-level view of social cognition
The processing of social information is centrally distributed in both space and time. As Fig. 1 indicates, the sequence of events leading from perception of a socially relevant stimulus to the elicitation of a social behavior is complex and involves multiple interacting structures. At least three general possibilities exist for how structures such as those shown in Fig. 2 interact with other brain regions: first, they may directly modulate cognition by virtue of their extensive connectivity
Conclusions and future directions
Social cognition is a domain with fuzzy boundaries and vaguely specified components. Its processes overlap substantially with those that fall under the rubrics of ‘motivation’, ‘emotion’, and ‘communication’. Structures involved in social cognition include: sensory and association neocortex for social perceptual processing (e.g. superior temporal sulcus and fusiform gyrus in the case of vision); a network consisting of amygdala, prefrontal cortex, cingulate cortex, and right
Acknowledgements
The author's work is supported by grants from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, The National Institute of Mental Heath, the Sloan Foundation, the EJLB Foundation, and the Klingenstein Fund.
References and recommended reading
Papers of particular interest, published within the annual period of review,have been highlighted as:
•of special interest
••of outstanding interest
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