Learning & cooperation :
Taking a comparative approach
This comparative approach to social cognition
can identify processes in common
across species. It can also help identifying the
nature of those processes that are
unique or at least dramatically more highly
developed in humans.
We passionately believe that social cognitive
neuroscience needs to break away from
a restrictive phrenology that links circumscribed
brain regions to underspecified
social processes.
a) Implicit
(
observation, imitation) place, objects, actions:
gaze is important
perception of biological motion
animacy (is subserved by a circumscribed brain
region in the superiortemporal sulcus (pSTS Puce & Perrett 2003) and the
ability to distinguish this motion from other kinds of motion is exquisitely
tuned.)
Agents also typically have faces and their eyes give cues to
what they are interested in. (A posterior region of STS is specialised for
analysis of facial movements, while invariant aspects of faces are analysed in
the fusiform gyrus (FFA Haxby et al 2000,)
Another important cue to agency is contingent
responding. Human infants and adultsalike are likely to treat a shapeless
object as being animate if the object moves, ormakes noises that are contingent
on their own actions (Johnson 2003).
Alignment.
A necessary consequence of learning by observation is
the formation
of behavioural similarity across a population. This is
most obviously the case when
learning about actions. When we interact with others
we often automatically imitate
their behaviour (Chartrand & Bargh 1999). In the
case of verbal interactions this
alignment can occur at many levels. During a
productive discourse, speakers will
automatically tend to align their posture, their
speech rate, their choice of words and
their syntactic forms (Garrod & Pickering
2009).
Emotional contagion
Perceiving an emotional response of another person
elicits the same emotional
response in ourselves. This is also called emotional
contagion and allows us to share
the emotion of the person we are observing (de
Vignemont & Singer 2006), a
prerequisite of empathy. Emotional contagion supplies
a basic conditioning
mechanism through which we can learn from others on
the basis of their emotional
expressions. This process, even though likely
underwritten by a general mechanism of
association learning, has some claim to be a
specifically social process, having social
content and being solely in the service of
social cognition.
Costs and benefits of observational learning
1because demonstrators will selectively perform the
actions that
they have found to be most beneficial for themselves,
they effectively and
inadvertently act as a filter to provide the
information that is most useful for an
observer. Copying is a highly adaptive means of
gaining knowledge (Rendell et al
2010)
2. Prosocial effects of copying. While learning from
observation can serve purely
short-term self-interest. Contagion and copying can
also bias us towards the long-term
interests of our group (which also serves
self-interest). This effect is seen in
experiments, which reveal subtle effects of copying.
If we are covertly mimicked, we
tend to like that person. Furthermore, we become more
helpful to people in general
(van Baaren et al 2004). Similar effects have been
demonstrated in monkeys, who are
more likely to approach and share food with an
imitator (Paukner et al 2009). These
effects are likely to be unconscious. In contrast, when
people are aware that they are
being imitated (see Bailenson et al 2008), they
experience high levels of discomfort
and thus the prosocial effects do not occur. At the
neural level there is evidence that
mimicry is rewarding. When we observe someone else
being imitated activity
increases in reward-related regions such as vmPFC
(Kühn et al 2010). When others
make the same choice that we have just made merely on
the basis of ‘liking’, then
reward areas of the brain are activated just as when
we received the desired object
ourselves (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al 2010). Thus, the
reward in being endorsed by
others may result in reinforcing group oriented
behaviour and conformity.
Explicit
deliberate communication, processes that enable individuals
to understand one another with a high degree of precision. ( ? uniquely human)
(see Apperly & Butterfill 2009 fora discussion of the two forms of
mentalizing). Explicit mentalizing is closely linked to meta-cognition: the
ability to reflect on one’s action
and to think about one’s own thoughts.
Conclusions
In this essay we have emphasised the importance of
comparisons of different species
and the use of an evolutionary framework for
understanding social interaction. Much
of human social behaviour derives from the same range
of cognitive processes that
can also be seen in other social animals.
What then in social cognition is specific to human
beings? First, through language
humans have the means of creating processes that are
explicit. Second, humans, in
comparison to other species, have a much greater
ability to exert top-down control
over automatic processes. This is particularly
important when there is competition
between different components of social cognition.
Third, humans have the
extraordinary ability to reflect upon their own mental
states. This is a prime example
of meta-cognition, which may well lie at the
heart of conscious awareness
