Martin Maier, Alexander Leonhardt, Florian Blume, Pia Bideau, Olaf Hellwich, Rasha Abdel Rahman
{"title":"Neural dynamics of mental state attribution to social robot faces.","authors":"Martin Maier, Alexander Leonhardt, Florian Blume, Pia Bideau, Olaf Hellwich, Rasha Abdel Rahman","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf027","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf027","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The interplay of mind attribution and emotional responses is considered crucial in shaping human trust and acceptance of social robots. Understanding this interplay can help us create the right conditions for successful human-robot social interaction in alignment with societal goals. Our study shows that affective information about robots describing positive, negative, or neutral behaviour leads participants (N = 90) to attribute mental states to robot faces, modulating impressions of trustworthiness, facial expression, and intentionality. Electroencephalography recordings from 30 participants revealed that affective information influenced specific processing stages in the brain associated with early face perception (N170 component) and more elaborate stimulus evaluation (late positive potential). However, a modulation of fast emotional brain responses, typically found for human faces (early posterior negativity), was not observed. These findings suggest that neural processing of robot faces alternates between being perceived as mindless machines and intentional agents: people rapidly attribute mental states during perception, literally seeing good or bad intentions in robot faces, but are emotionally less affected than when facing humans. These nuanced insights into the fundamental psychological and neural processes underlying mind attribution can enhance our understanding of human-robot social interactions and inform policies surrounding the moral responsibility of artificial agents.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11969468/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143607601","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Paul J Brancaleone, Roberto U Cofresí, Hannah I Volpert-Esmond, Amodio M David, Ito A Tiffany, Bruce D Bartholow
{"title":"Within-Person Dynamics of Attention to Race and Expression of Race Bias: A Real-time Test of the Self-Regulation of Prejudice Model.","authors":"Paul J Brancaleone, Roberto U Cofresí, Hannah I Volpert-Esmond, Amodio M David, Ito A Tiffany, Bruce D Bartholow","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaf026","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Prior research has supported some aspects of a theorized prejudice self-regulation model. We provide the first test of the full model-based process of bias regulation as it unfolds in real time. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from White undergraduates at two large American universities (N = 130; 40% female) during a racial stereotype priming task. Attention to Black male face primes, indexed by the P2 ERP, increased following self-regulation failures. In turn, within-person, trial-to-trial variability in attention to Black male faces predicted variability in bias expression. The latter effect was moderated by individual differences in internal motivation to respond without prejudice (IMS). Specifically, among lower-IMS individuals, trials in which Black faces elicited relatively larger P2 amplitudes (relative to an individual's own average P2 amplitude) were associated with increased behavioral race bias. In contrast, and consistent with theory, among higher-IMS individuals trials in which Black faces elicited larger relative P2 amplitudes were associated with decreased bias. Findings provide direct evidence supporting the temporal sequencing of race-bias regulation and identify within-person variability in attention to race as a potential mechanism for determining when and in whom bias will be regulated.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143756709","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sarah J Dembling, Nicole M Abaya, Peter J Gianaros, Tristen K Inagaki
{"title":"The heart of social pain: Examining resting blood pressure and neural sensitivity to exclusion.","authors":"Sarah J Dembling, Nicole M Abaya, Peter J Gianaros, Tristen K Inagaki","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaf025","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Previous work suggests blood pressure (BP) relates to social algesia, where those with higher BP are more tolerant of social pain. The neural correlates of this association, however, are unknown. Based on findings suggesting neural regions involved in physical pain are activated during social pain, the current study explores whether BP relates to subjective and neural responses to social pain, apart from emotional responding. BP was measured, after which participants completed emotional processing and social exclusion fMRI paradigms. Results replicated previous findings, with higher systolic BP related to lower trait sensitivity to social pain. However, there were no associations between BP and reported social pain sensitivity during social exclusion. Moreover, after accounting for adiposity, we found no association between BP and anterior insula (AI) or dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) activity to exclusion. Finally, there were no reliable associations between BP and reported valence or arousal, or AI and dACC activity to emotional images. Findings partly replicate and extend prior findings on BP and emotional responding to social pain; however, they appear inconsistent with predictions at the neural level. Future experimental manipulation of BP may allow for causal inferences and adjudication of conceptual perspectives on cardiovascular contributions to social algesia.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143756708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yangzhuo Li, Xinyu Cheng, Wanqiu Na, Junlong Luo, Xianchun Li
{"title":"Gratitude enhances widespread dynamic cooperation and inter-brain synchronization in females.","authors":"Yangzhuo Li, Xinyu Cheng, Wanqiu Na, Junlong Luo, Xianchun Li","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf023","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf023","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>From both social and life perspectives, gratitude is essential for managing social relationships and fostering cooperation. This study investigated the dynamic influence of gratitude on two modalities of cooperative interactions and the associated interpersonal dynamic neural mechanism by integrating a dyadic ecological paradigm with functional near-infrared spectroscopy). Several critical findings emerged: the gratitude group exhibited better cooperative behaviors compared to the joy and neutral groups in both the Prisoner's Dilemma Game (PDG) and the Button-press Game (BPG). The dynamic cooperative behaviors further elucidated that gratitude dynamically facilitates cooperation by boosting inclusivity towards the benefactor's slight defect in the PDG and heightening action coordination in the BPG. Accordingly, higher inter-brain synchronization (IBS) was predominantly observed in the left and right middle frontal gyrus and the right sensorimotor cortex in the gratitude, compared to the joy and neutral groups. Moreover, the gratitude group exhibited increased IBS over time (across blocks) in the left and right middle frontal gyrus and the right superior temporal gyrus. These findings substantiate that gratitude facilitates widespread social cooperation and progressively enhances IBS among individuals. This work advances our understanding of gratitude-induced large-scale cooperative behaviors in societies.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143652972","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Amélie Roberge, Justin Duncan, Daniel Fiset, Benoit Brisson
{"title":"EEG assessment of the impacts of race and implicit bias on facial expression processing.","authors":"Amélie Roberge, Justin Duncan, Daniel Fiset, Benoit Brisson","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf024","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf024","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Apparent race of a face impacts processing efficiency, typically leading to an own-race advantage. For instance, own-race facial expressions are more accurately recognized, and their intensity better appraised, compared to other-race faces. Furthermore, these effects appear susceptible to implicit bias. Here, we aimed to better understand impacts of race and implicit racial bias on facial expression processing by looking at automatic and nonautomatic expression processing stages. To this end, scalp electroencephalography was recorded off a group of White participants while they completed a psychological refractory period dual-task paradigm in which they viewed neutral or fearful White (i.e. own-race) and Black (i.e. other-race) faces. Results showed that, irrespective of race, early perceptual expression processing indexed by the N170 event-related potential was independent of central attention resources and racial attitudes. On the other hand, later emotional content evaluation indexed by the late positive potential (LPP) was dependent on central resources. Furthermore, negative attitudes toward Black individuals amplified LPP emotional response to White (vs. Black) faces irrespective of central attention resources. Thus, it seems it is racial bias, more than race per se, that impacts facial expression processing, but this effect only manifests itself during later semantic processing of facial expression content.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11932147/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143560412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Heegyu Kim, Sangyeon Kim, Sung Chan Jun, Chang S Nam
{"title":"Is What I Think What You Think? Multilayer Network-Based Inter-Brain Synchrony Approach.","authors":"Heegyu Kim, Sangyeon Kim, Sung Chan Jun, Chang S Nam","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaf028","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Social interaction plays a crucial role in human societies, encompassing complex dynamics among individuals. To understand social interaction at the neural level, researchers have utilized hyperscanning in several social settings. These studies have mainly focused on inter-brain synchrony and the efficiency of paired functional brain networks, examining group interactions in dyads. However, this approach may not fully capture the complexity of multiple interactions, potentially leading to gaps in understanding inter-network differences. To overcome this limitation, the present study aims to bridge this gap by introducing methodological enhancements using the multilayer network approach, which is tailored to extract features from multiple networks. We applied this strategy to analyze the triad condition during social behavior processes to identify group interaction indices. Additionally, to validate our methodology, we compared the multilayer networks of triad conditions with group synchrony to paired conditions without group synchrony, focusing on statistical differences between alpha and beta waves. Correlation analysis between inter-brain and group networks revealed that this methodology accurately reflects the characteristics of actual behavioral synchrony. The findings of our study suggest that measures of paired brain synchrony and group interaction may exhibit distinct trends, offering valuable insights into interpreting group synchrony.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143627360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
James K Rilling, Minwoo Lee, Carolyn Zhou, Kenneth Hepburn, Molly M Perkins, Christian Gaser
{"title":"Caregiving is associated with lower brain age in humans.","authors":"James K Rilling, Minwoo Lee, Carolyn Zhou, Kenneth Hepburn, Molly M Perkins, Christian Gaser","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf013","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf013","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Middle-aged adults who are parents have better average cognitive performance and lower average brain age compared with middle-aged adults without children, raising the possibility that caregiving slows brain aging. Here, we investigate this hypothesis in two additional groups of caregivers: grandmothers and caregivers for people living with dementia (PLWD). Demographic, questionnaire, and structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data were acquired from n = 50 grandmothers, n = 24 caregivers of PLWD, and n = 37 non-caregiver controls, and BrainAGE was estimated. BrainAGE estimation results suggest that after controlling for relevant covariates, grandmothers had a brain age that was 5.5 years younger than non-grandmother controls, and caregivers of PLWD had brains that were 4.7 years younger than non-caregiver controls. Women who became grandmothers at a later age had lower brain age than those who became grandmothers at an earlier age. Among caregivers of PLWD, stress and caregiving burden were associated with increased brain age, such that the beneficial effect of caregiving on brain age was reduced in caregivers reporting more burden. Our findings suggest that caring for dependents may slow brain aging.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11905976/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143582428","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Chi-Lin Yu, Rachel L Eggleston, Kehui Zhang, Nia Nickerson, Xin Sun, Rebecca A Marks, Xiaosu Hu, Jonathan R Brennan, Henry M Wellman, Ioulia Kovelman
{"title":"Neural processing of children's theory of mind in a naturalistic story-listening paradigm.","authors":"Chi-Lin Yu, Rachel L Eggleston, Kehui Zhang, Nia Nickerson, Xin Sun, Rebecca A Marks, Xiaosu Hu, Jonathan R Brennan, Henry M Wellman, Ioulia Kovelman","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf022","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf022","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Theory of mind (ToM) refers to our understanding of people's mental states. This ability develops in childhood and influences later social life. However, neuroimaging of ToM in young children often faces challenges in ecological validity and quality data collection. We developed and implemented an innovative naturalistic story-listening paradigm, which is child-friendly, engaging, and ecologically valid, to shed light on ToM neural mechanisms in childhood. Children (N = 51; age range = 6-12 years) listened to a chapter of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland during functional near-infrared spectroscopy neuroimaging. Methodologically, we showed the feasibility and utility of our paradigm, which successfully captured the neural mechanisms of ToM in young children. Substantively, our findings confirm and extend previous results by revealing the same ToM brain regions found in the adult and adolescent literature, including, specifically, the activations of the right temporoparietal junction. We further confirm that ToM processing has its own specialized neural profile, different from the left frontal and temporal activations found during language processing, with the language being independent of, but potentially supportive, of ToM deployment and development.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11891442/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143560416","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Afroditi Papantoni, Ashley N Gearhardt, Sonja Yokum, Lindzey V Hoover, Emily S Finn, Grace E Shearrer, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Saame Raza Shaikh, Katie A Meyer, Kyle S Burger
{"title":"Connectome-wide brain signature during fast-food advertisement exposure predicts BMI at 2 years.","authors":"Afroditi Papantoni, Ashley N Gearhardt, Sonja Yokum, Lindzey V Hoover, Emily S Finn, Grace E Shearrer, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Saame Raza Shaikh, Katie A Meyer, Kyle S Burger","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf018","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf018","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Food advertisements target adolescents, contributing to weight gain and obesity. However, whether brain connectivity during those food advertisements can predict weight gain is unknown. Here, 121 adolescents [14.1 ± 1.0 years; 50.4% female; body mass index (BMI): 23.4 ± 4.8; 71.9% White] completed both a baseline fMRI paradigm viewing advertisements (unhealthy fast food, healthier fast food, and nonfood) and an anthropometric assessment 2 years later. We used connectome-based predictive modeling to derive brain networks that were associated with BMI both at baseline and the 2-year follow-up. During exposure to unhealthy fast-food commercials, we identified a brain network comprising high-degree nodes in the hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, and fusiform gyrus rich with connections to prefrontal and occipital nodes that predicted lower BMI at the 2-year follow-up (r = 0.17; P = .031). A similar network was derived from baseline BMI (n = 168; r = 0.34; P < .001). Functional connectivity networks during exposure to the healthier fast food (P = .152) and nonfood commercials (P = .117) were not significant predictors of 2-year BMI. Key brain regions in our derived networks have been previously shown to encode aspects of memory formation, visual processing, and self-control. As such, the integration of these regions may reflect a mechanism of adolescents' ability to exert self-control toward obesogenic food stimuli.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11891444/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143582429","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Juanzhi Lu, Lars Riecke, Brenda E Ryan, Beatrice de Gelder
{"title":"The contribution of body perception to self-identity: an event-related potential study.","authors":"Juanzhi Lu, Lars Riecke, Brenda E Ryan, Beatrice de Gelder","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf020","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf020","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study used electroencephalography (EEG) and personalized avatars to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying personal identity perception. Compound avatar images combining participants' own faces and bodies, as well as those of others, were generated from photographs. Participants underwent an embodiment training for each avatar type in a virtual reality environment, where they controlled the avatar's actions during physical exercise tasks. Subjective assessments by participants confirmed a stronger identification with avatars representing their own identity compared to those representing others. Analysis of event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked by viewing the avatar revealed that avatars representing the participants' self-identity elicited weaker N2 and P1 responses compared to avatars representing other identities. No significant effects on N170 responses were observed. Control conditions utilizing avatars with modified body characteristics confirmed that the reduction in N2 amplitude was specifically related to identity perception rather than variations in visual body size. These findings suggest that the perception of self-identity occurs rapidly, within ∼200 ms, indicating the integration of visual face and body information into identity representation at an early stage.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11891439/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143560419","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}