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Samenvatting Social Neuroscience
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Summary of the book 'Social Neuroscience' for the second part of the course 'Neurobiological backgrounds of education and development'.
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Chapter 6 Understanding othersThe overarching question of this chapter is how do we understand the mental states of
others? Mental states consist of knowledge, beliefs, feelings, intentions, and desires. The
process of making this inference has more generally been referred to as mentalizing. The
term is generally used in a theory-neutral way, insofar as it is used by researchers from a
wide spectrum of views.
Empathy and simulation theory
The word empathy is relatively modern. It originally referred to putting oneself in someone
else’s situation. This would also go under the contemporary name of perspective taking.
Today, the term empathy is used in various different ways.
Empathy as a multifaceted concept
There are several subtle, but potentially crucial, ways in which the working definition of
empathy could be understood:
1. Knowing another person’s internal state, including his or her thoughts and feelings.
2. Adopting the posture or matching the neural response of an observed other.
3. Having an emotional reaction to someone else’s situation, although it need not be the
same reaction.
4. Imagining how I would feel/react in that situation.
5. Imagining how the other person would feel/react in that situation.
The first three scenarios differ with respect to whether the knowledge/feeling is the same in
self and other. Knowing about another person’s internal state need not necessarily imply that
the observer shares that state. This important consideration lies at the heart of some tests of
theory of mind, specifically false belief tasks, but they are relevant to some conceptions of
empathy too.
The second sense in which empathy is used is the one most closely linked with mirror
systems, imitation, and contagion. For example, one might feel personal distress in response
to someone else’s suffering. The third sense in which the term empathy may be used differs
from the second in that the person’s response is not matched. For instance, one might feel a
sense of pity to another’s situation or sympathy or compassion towards someone who is
suffering. These reactions are directed outwards (other-oriented) rather than being self-
oriented.
The fourth and fifth notions of empathy relate more directly to the idea of perspective taking,
but they differ in whether they are self-oriented versus other-oriented. The fourth scenario
could be construed as a shallow attempt to empathize, in which the level of success is
dependent on self-other similarity rather than true understanding of the other.
From imitation to empathy?
Simulation theory is not strictly a single theory but a collection of theories proposed by
various individuals. However, common to all of them is the basic assumption that we
understand other people’s behavior by recreating the mental processes on ourselves that, if
carried out, would reproduce their behavior. That is, we use our own recreated mental states
to understand, and empathically share, the mental state of others. Most simulation theories
of empathy are based on the notion of perception-action coupling, i.e. the link between
seeing actions on other people and reproducing those actions on one’s own motor system.
A link between imitation and empathy receives some support from social psychology in
studies examining the Chameleon Effect, in which there is a spontaneous mimicry of
gestures during positive interpersonal exchanges. These studies generally use unintentional
,imitation in which the participant engages in a task with another person and the extent to
which the participant imitates the confederate is measured. Participants who imitate more
whilst performing a cooperative task with a confederate tend to rate themselves as higher in
trait empathy.
The activity of the human motor system can be assessed using the method of motor evoked
potentials (MEPs). Stimulation of the brain using TMS causes the peripheral muscles to
produce neuroelectrical signals known as motor evoked potentials. These can be measured
by electrodes attached to the skin using the principle of electromyography (MEG). MEPs are
modulated by social factors such as questionnaire measures of empathy, the race of the
hand observed, and priming to think of oneself as having more or less power over others.
Hence, the imitation-to-empathy model can be assessed using MEPs.
Empathy beyond simulation
Some theories of empathy propose a variety of different interacting mechanisms of which
simulation is only one. In such models, simulation may either be a junior or senior partner.
The fact that watching someone in pain activates certain parts of our own pain circuity offers
clear support for simulation theories. However, our beliefs about the person in pain can
modulate or override this mechanism.
The eminent social psychologist Bandura (2002) argues that simulation has a relatively
minor role to play in empathy, arguing that if it did it would lead to emotional exhaustion,
which would debilitate everyday functioning. Moreover, Bandura argues that acts of
inhumanity, such as genocide, depend on our ability to self-regulate and dissociate self from
other. Other studies support this view.
Studies of imitation also show that the extent to which two people imitate each other
depends on the characteristics of the imitator and the person being imitated, as well as
characteristics of the social situation. This suggests that imitation-based simulation is flexible
and context sensitive, taking into account information beyond perception-action links. For
example, imitation is less likely when the confederate has a social stigma such as a facial
scar of is heavily obese.
Models of empathy
Models of empathy based solely on the notion of perception-action coupling or affective
sharing have been shown to be lacking, but may nevertheless be one aspect of empathy.
This section will consider three kinds of models: those that conceptualize empathy as an
interaction, or trade-off, between mirroring and mentalizing; those that make a distinction
between affective versus cognitive empathy; and those that make a distinction between
emotion sharing versus emotion regulation.
Zaki and Ochsner (2012) consider empathy as a product of two kinds of mechanisms -
mirroring versus mentalizing. The extent to which one mechanism may dominate over the
other is assumed to be dynamic and may depend on what the expected outcome is.
According to this framework, the tendency to simulate another’s pain would be part of the
mirroring system, and the representation of the other’s intentions would be part of the
mentalizing system.
An alternative distinction to mirroring versus mentalizing is the proposed distinction between
cognitive and affective empathy. In theory, the cognitive/affective distinction can be regarded
as separate to the mirroring/mentalizing distinction. In practice, the extent to which the
mirroring/mentalizing and affective/cognitive distinctions are related or separate remains a
matter of debate.
The model of empathy proposed by Decety and Jackson (2004, 2006) argues for a
distinction between mechanisms based on simulation and other types of mechanism, but
,does not draw a sharp line between affective and non-affective processes. This model draws
on the distinctions between emotion sharing, emotion understanding, and emotion
regulation. Specifically the three components of empathy postulated by Decety and Jackson
(2004) are:
1. Shared representations between self and other, based on perception-action
coupling.
This would include mechanisms for action understanding and imitation, emotional
contagion, and pain processing.
2. An awareness of self-other as similar but separate.
This is related to mechanisms of self-awareness that enable us to attribute our own
thoughts and actions as self-generated.
3. A capacity for mental flexibility to enable shifts in perspective and self-regulation.
This involves deliberate perspective taking of another’s situation, which may also
involve inhibiting one’s own beliefs and self-referential knowledge.
This model offers a good account of the multi-faceted nature of empathy, in terms of
cognitive mechanisms, social influences, and neural substrates.
Evaluation
Empathy should perhaps best be regarded as a multi-faceted concept, and is likely to be
explained via several interacting mechanisms rather than a single one. One possible
scenario is the interplay between mirroring (simulation) and mentalizing (theory of mind).
Another postulated division is between affective versus cognitive information. Finally, some
models make a distinction between bottom-up information (mirroring) and top-down
information that includes mentalizing but also other kinds of cognitive control mechanisms
involved in perspective taking and distinguishing self from others.
Theory of mind and reasoning about mental states
The term ‘theory of mind’ derived originally from research on primate cognition. Premack and
Woodruff (1978) conducted a number of studies on a chimpanzee to see if it understood an
experimenter’s intentions. A number of criticisms were leveled at the study. For instance, it
may reflect knowledge of object associations rather than mental states. In a reply to this,
Dennett (1978) suggested that one way of testing theory of mind would be to consider false
beliefs, in which someone else may hold a mental state that differs from one’s own belief
and from the current state of reality.
False beliefs are harder to accommodate within simulation theories because one’s own
belief is at odds with that attributed to the other person. This cannot be done by
straightforward simulation involving shared self-other representations. It requires taking
one’s own mental states ‘offline’ and creating a hypothetical scenario different to current
reality.
Social psychologists use the term attribution to refer to the process of inferring the causes of
people’s behavior. The philosopher Dennett (1983) uses his own term of intentional stance
to refer to our tendency to explain behavior in terms of mental states, which could otherwise
be considered synonymous with mentalizing or theory of mind. However, Dennett has a
particularly useful way of describing different levels of intentionality that might be used to
account for behavior.
● Zero-order intentionality: the assumption that an agent possesses no beliefs and
desires. It responds to stimuli reflexively.
● First-order intentionality: the inference that an agent possesses beliefs and desires,
but not beliefs about beliefs.
, ● Second-order intentionality: the inference that an agent possesses beliefs about
other people’s beliefs. False beliefs operate at this level: ‘I think that Sally thinks that
the marble is in the box’.
● Third-order intentionality: an agent possesses beliefs about other people’s beliefs
concerning beliefs about other people, such as ‘I think that John thinks that Sally
doesn’t know where the marble is’.
In this taxonomy, first-order intentionality and above would constitute ‘mentalizing’, taking an
‘intentional stance’ or theory of mind.
Mechanisms of theory of mind
Domain specificity is linked to the notion of modularity. A cognitive mechanism, or brain
region, can be said to be domain specific if it is specialized to process only one kind of
information. Thus, a domain-specific theory-of-mind mechanism would be a process that is
specialized for attributing mental states.
Historically, explanations of theory of mind have fallen into two camps that are termed
theory-theory and simulation theory. Theory-theory argues that we store, as explicit
knowledge, a set of principles relating to mental states and how these states govern
behavior. In this sense, the ‘theory’ in theory of mind is like a mental rulebook for
understanding others. This can be contrasted with simulation theory, which in one form
would argue that perceptual-motor systems, rather than thinking and theorizing, are all that
is needed for understanding others. When phrased in this way, it is reasonable to say that
theory-theory makes more domain-specific assumptions whereas simulation theory can be
considered a domain-general account.
There is a middle ground between domain-specific accounts, which tend to treat theory of
mind as a single entity, and domain-general accounts, for which theory of mind is nothing
more than the interaction of domain-general resources. These accounts typically assume
that theory of mind can be fractioned in some way. For example, one model proposes that
theory of mind can be split into affective and non-affective components. Another account
argues for a two two-system model of theory of mind, which consists of a low-level and a
high-level system. The low-level system is assumed to work fast, automatically, and
inflexibly. This may give rise to an intuitive and implicit theory of mind. The high-level system
is assumed to work more slowly, but is flexible. It is based on reasoning and an explicit
propositional representation of mental states. Both systems may enable false belief tasks to
be passed but in different ways: the low-level system may guide looking behavior whereas
the high-level system may guide explicit reasoning about mental states.
Neural substrates of theory of mind
Evidence for the neural basis of theory of mind has come from two main sources: functional
imaging studies of normal participants and behavioral studies of patients with brain lesions.
A review and meta-analysis of functional imaging literature was provided by Frith and Frith
(2003), who identified three key regions involved in mentalizing: the temporal poles, the
medial prefrontal cortex, and the temporo-parietal junction.
● Temporal poles
This region is normally activated in tasks of language and semantic memory. Frith
and Frith (2003) suggest that this region is involved with generating schemas that
specify the current social or emotional context, as well as in semantics more
generally. Brain damage to the temporal poles is a feature of the degenerative
disorder known as semantic dementia.
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