Advanced Topics in Psychology III (PSYC4883)

Introduction to Social Neuroscience

Topics:

·                    What is social neuroscience?

·                    Evolutionary and comparative perspectives on social cognition

·                    Overview of key brain structures (amygdala, prefrontal cortex, mirror neuron system)

Readings:

Adolphs (2009), The Social Brain: Neural Basis of Social Knowledge

Annu Rev Psychol. 2009 ; 60: 693–716. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163514.

Lieberman, M. D. (2007). Social cognitive neuroscience: A review of core processes. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 259–289.

Neural Mechanisms of Social Perception

Topics:

·                    Face perception & the fusiform face area (FFA)

·                    The superior temporal sulcus (STS) and biological motion

·                    Emotional expression and amygdala involvement

Reading:

Kanwisher, N., & Yovel, G. (2006). The fusiform face area: A cortical region specialized for face perception. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 361, 2109–2128.

Potential Student Seminar Readings:

? Wardle, S. G., Taubert, J., Teichmann, L., & Baker, C. I. (2020). Rapid and dynamic processing of face pareidolia in the human brain. Nature communications, 11(1), 4518.

? McMahon, E., Bonner, M. F., & Isik, L. (2024). Hierarchical organization of social action features along the lateral visual pathway. Current biology, 34(4), 931–933.

The Amygdala and Social Evaluation

Topics:

·                    Role of the amygdala in emotional processing

·                    Implicit bias and social evaluation

·                    The amygdala’s role in recognizing trustworthiness

Reading:

Phelps, E. A., et al. (2000). Performance on indirect measures of race evaluation predicts amygdala activation. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12(5), 729–738.

Potential Student Seminar Readings:

? Taubert, J., Wardle, S. G., Patterson, A., & Baker, C. I. (2024). Beyond faces: the contribution of the amygdala to visual processing in the macaque brain. Cerebral cortex, 34(6), bhae245.

?Lin, T., Pehlivanoglu, D., Ziaei, M., Liu, P., Woods, A. J., Feifel, D., Fischer, H., & Ebner, N. C. (2022). Age-Related Differences in Amygdala Activation Associated With Face Trustworthiness but No Evidence of Oxytocin Modulation. Frontiers in psychology, 13, 838642.

Theory of Mind and Mental State Attribution

Topics:

·                    Understanding beliefs, intentions, and desires

·                    Temporoparietal junction (TPJ) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC)

·                    Theory of Mind deficits in autism

Reading:

Saxe, R., & Kanwisher, N. (2003). People thinking about thinking people. NeuroImage, 19(4), 1835–1842.

Potential Student Seminar Readings:

? Bitsch, F., Berger, P., Nagels, A., Falkenberg, I., & Straube, B. (2018). The role of the right temporo-parietal junction in social decision-making. Human brain mapping, 39(7), 3072–3085.

? Alamdari, S. B., Sadeghi Damavandi, M., Zarei, M., & Khosrowabadi, R. (2022). Cognitive theories of autism based on the interactions between brain functional networks. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 16, 828985.

Empathy and the Mirror Neuron System

Topics:

·                    Empathy and pain perception

·                    The insula’s role in shared emotional experiences

·                    Mirror neurons and action understanding

Reading:

Singer, T., et al. (2004). Empathy for pain involves the affective but not sensory components of pain. Science, 303(5661), 1157–1162.

Potential Student Seminar Readings:

? Fiave, P. A., Sharma, S., Jastorff, J., & Nelissen, K. (2018). Investigating common coding of observed and executed actions in the monkey brain using cross-modal multi-variate fMRI classification. NeuroImage, 178, 306–317.

? Botvinick, M., Jha, A. P., Bylsma, L. M., Fabian, S. A., Solomon, P. E., & Prkachin, K. M. (2005). Viewing facial expressions of pain engages cortical areas involved in the direct experience of pain. NeuroImage, 25(1), 312–319.

The Role of Social Emotions in Behavior

Topics:

·                    Moral cognition and emotions (guilt, pride, shame)

·                    Orbitofrontal cortex and decision-making

·                    The neural basis of fairness and cooperation

Reading:

Greene, J. D., et al. (2001). An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science, 293(5537), 2105–2108.

Potential Student Seminar Readings:

? Zou, X., Li, D., Turel, O., & He, Q. (2025). Neural mechanisms of cooperation and fairness in iterative prisoner's dilemma. Behavioural brain research, 476, 115272.

? Wagner, U., N'Diaye, K., Ethofer, T., & Vuilleumier, P. (2011). Guilt-specific processing in the prefrontal cortex. Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 21(11), 2461–2470.

Social Exclusion and Loneliness

Topics:

·                    Neural responses to rejection (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, dACC)

·                    The impact of loneliness on mental health

·                    Cyberball experiments and social pain

Reading:

Eisenberger, N. I., Lieberman, M. D., & Williams, K. D. (2003). Does rejection hurt? An fMRI study of social exclusion. Science, 302(5643), 290–292.

Potential Student Seminar Readings:

? Masten, C. L., Eisenberger, N. I., Pfeifer, J. H., & Dapretto, M. (2013). Neural responses to witnessing peer rejection after being socially excluded: fMRI as a window into adolescents' emotional processing. Developmental science, 16(5), 743–759.

? D'Agostino, A. E., Kattan, D., & Canli, T. (2019). An fMRI study of loneliness in younger and older adults. Social neuroscience, 14(2), 136–148.

The Impact of Social Media on the Brain

Topics:

·                    Digital social interaction vs. face-to-face interaction

·                    Dopamine, reward processing, and social media addiction

·                    Psychological effects of online validation and comparison

Readings

Meshi, D., Tamir, D. I., & Heekeren, H. R. (2015). The emerging neuroscience of social media. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 19(12), 771–782.

Potential Student Seminar Readings:

? Flannery, J. S., Burnell, K., Kwon, S. J., Jorgensen, N. A., Prinstein, M. J., Lindquist, K. A., & Telzer, E. H. (2024). Developmental changes in brain function linked with addiction-like social media use two years later. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 19(1), nsae008.

? Arató, Á., Nagy, S. A., Perlaki, G., Orsi, G., Szente, A. T., Kis-Jakab, G., Áfra, E., Alhour, H. A., Kovács, N., Janszky, J., & Darnai, G. (2023). Emotional face expression recognition in problematic Internet use and excessive smartphone use: task-based fMRI study. Scientific reports, 13(1), 354.

Mid-semester Break

Neurodevelopmental and Clinical Perspectives

Topics:

·                    Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and social cognition deficits

·                    Psychopathy and reduced empathy

·                    The effects of early life social deprivation on brain development

Readings:

Frith, C. D. (2001). Mind blindness and the brain in autism. Neuron, 32(6), 969–979.

Potential Student Seminar Readings:

? Arcaro, M. J., Schade, P. F., Vincent, J. L., Ponce, C. R., & Livingstone, M. S. (2017). Seeing faces is necessary for face-domain formation. Nature neuroscience, 20(10), 1404–1412. 

? Richardson, H., Gweon, H., Dodell-Feder, D., Malloy, C., Pelton, H., Keil, B., Kanwisher, N., & Saxe, R. (2020). Response patterns in the developing social brain are organized by social and emotion features and disrupted in children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, 125, 12–29.

WORKSHOP I

Designing experiments for the fMRI context.

Topics:

·                    Advantages of the method (suitable problem spaces).

·                    Disadvantages and constraints.

·                    Ethical considerations.

·                    Power analyses and determining sample size.

WORKSHOP II

Analysis of fMRI data and interpreting results.

Topics:

·                    The hemodynamic function.

·                    Registration of data to population templates.

·                    Convolving stimulus timing with hemodynamic function to estimate model fits.

·                    Statistical contrasts and drawing inferences.  

CANCELLED BUT ATTENDANCE DURING A SCAN SESSION EXPECTED AT SOME POINT IN THE SEMESTER.

Future Directions in Social Neuroscience

Topics:

·                    Advances in neuroimaging techniques

·                    Applications of social neuroscience in AI and human-computer interaction

·                    Ethical implications of manipulating social behavior through neuroscience