Chapter 1: Introduction to Social and Personality Neuroscience Methods (lecture 1)
“Social psychology” is often defined as the scientific study of how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
of an individual are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others.
Examine:
Interpersonal attraction
Close relationships
Attitudes
Prejudice
Stereotyping
Aggression
Helping behaviour
Person perception
“Personality psychology” is the scientific study of how dispositional aspects of the individual influence
his or her thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
Study the same topics as social psychologists, but from the starting point of the individual rather
than the situation.
Many utilize both approaches -> “trait [personality] × state [social] interactions.”
=> Many studies examine how individuals with differing personality characteristics respond in different
ways to specific social situations.
This new approach, “social and personality neuroscience,” emphasizes the relationships among different
levels of organization—from the molecule to the cell to the organ, system, person, interpersonal, social
group, and societal levels.
Considerations for using Neuroscience Methods:
no one measure of brain function captures neuronal activity as it unfolds on the order of milliseconds or
nanoseconds (temporal resolution), or can specify exactly which neurons are activated on the order of
millimeters or nanometers (spatial resolution).
ERPs (event-related potentials)
o Excellent temporal resolution (milisceconds)
o Poor spatial resolution (centimeters)
Fmri (Funcitonal magnetic resonance imaging)
o Excellent spatial resolution (millimetres)
o Poor temporal resolution (seconds)
Difficult to draw causal inferences:
o brain activations obtained from ERPs or fMRI are essentially correlational, in that a
psychological state is manipulated and the brain activation is measured
impossible to determine whether the brain activation was necessarily or sufficiently responsible for
the psychological or behavioural effect
Patient methods can help -> individuals who have suffered damage to one brain region can be compared
to that of individuals who have suffered damage to another brain region on psychological tasks. If the
groups differ in their performance, then the difference is probably due to processes supported by that
specific brain region.
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) can be used to increase or decrease
neuronal activity temporarily and noninvasively over particular cortical areas.
, Permits causal statements about the role of particular cortical regions in particular psychological
or behavioral outcomes.
However, both patient and rTMS methods are limited. With patients, the lesions often involve a
number of brain regions. With rTMS, the “virtual lesions” cannot penetrate too deeply into the
brain, and the spatial resolution of the method is not very precise.
Chapter 8: Patient Methodologies for the Study of Personality and Social Processes (lecture 2)
Patient studies are more similar to conducting a typical social or personality psychology experiment vs.
neuroimaging techniques.
PROS: does not require expensive equipment or in-depth knowledge of topics that are far afield from
traditional social and personality psychology training (e.g., the physics underlying fMRI and
electrophysiology).
In contrast to neuroimaging techniques that examine function, the patient methodology is
deficit-focused.
Patients with brain damage resulting from trauma or disorders are studied to understand how
underlying neural deficits relate to behavioral function and impairment
Goals of chapter:
(1) provide guidelines for designing a scientifically rigorous patient study,
(2) help social and personality psychologists become informed consumers of research using patient
methodologies.
General Issues to Consider in Designing a Study with Patients
,Categorization: how to measure the difference between the patient vs. control populations?
To categorize a participant in a clinical group need to know the gold standard assessment of that
particular patient population
Require a criterion for categorizing a participant as part of the patient population
The measures needed to categorize pp in each group may be administered in a separate session
(other than the experimental one)
Capability: what modifications are needed to ensure that the patient population cab complete the
experiment?
Capability of the patient population. Particular patient populations may involve children or older
adults, or patients whose deficit make it difficult to use particular experimental paradigms
In comparison to studies with healthy individuals, patient populations may require simpler or
repeated instructions and more practice of the experimental procedure. Asking patients to
verbalize their understanding of the task instructions may be necessary to confirm that they
understand the task.
Compromised IQ – difficulty with Likert scale and questionnaire
, oMeasures with pictures or verbal questions and responses may be more appropriate
oNeed more time & special task measures -> but sessions >1-2 hours may have
confounding fatigue effects
Multiple sessions with shorter length
Comorbidity & Medication Confounds
many patient populations are characterized by two or more correlated diagnoses => certain
disorders may co-occur with other conditions and/or require medication
the comorbid conditions and/or medication may change the underlying neural deficits in a
confounding manner
difficult to test whether the deficits are associated with specific neural systems
medication may bolster function and reduce deficits that make the patient population of interest
exclude those participants?
Availability
what type of sample sizes should be expected -> number of participants and the frequency with
which they become available
maybe difficult to assess without a collaborator who has clinical/medical expertise
patients with selective brain damage are rare => difficult to find a lot of participants
Control
to test whether patients’ deficits are specific to the social or personality process of interest
include a healthy control population as well as a relevant control patient population
ensures that any significant deficits are specific to the patient population of interest and not to
any patient population
may be necessary to match control participants to the patient populations on age, gender, and
education level
random assignment to control & experimental study
Issues to Consider in Planning Studies with Specific Patient Populations
look at commonalities between psychological processes by investigating whether they are
governed by the same neural systems
brain dysfunctions associated with some conditions lead in selective deficits in a social or
personality process
Patients with specific lesions provide the strongest avenue for understanding how damage to
specific brain regions affects one or more personality and social processes.
Patients with specific social or personality impairments provide the strongest avenue for
understanding how that behavioural impairment affects subsequent behaviour
(1) fairly specific brain injuries resulting from either trauma, stroke, or early-stage frontotemporal
dementia; or
(2) mood and/or social impairments such as depression and autism spectrum disorders
1. Patients with Brain Injury Resulting from Trauma, Stroke, or Dementia
