{"title":"The Shared Neural Substrates of Emotional Mimicry and Emotional Contagion: an ALE Meta-analysis and MACM Analysis.","authors":"Yujia Fu, Dan Wang, Junye Liu, Hui Wang, Fuqi Wen, Wenfeng Chen","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf091","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaf091","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Emotional contagion is an important aspect of social interaction. Traditional theories suggest that it relies on mimicry of facial or emotional movements. To address the question of whether there is a distinction between emotional contagion and emotional mimicry, we conducted a meta-analysis using the ALE algorithm to identify brain regions activated by the two tasks. We then evaluated the co-activation patterns of these common regions using Meta-Analytical Connectivity Modeling (MACM). The results show partial overlap in brain regions, such as the cingulate gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, and inferior parietal lobule, between emotional contagion and emotional mimicry. Contrast analyses further identified distinct brain regions activated by each task. MACM analysis indicated that regions including the thalamus, putamen, precentral gyrus, and insula play critical roles in the co-activation network.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145031635","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}
{"title":"Moral Judgment Under Induced Anxiety: Threat-of-Shock Reduces Sensitivity to Immoral Acts and Alters Neural Processing.","authors":"Jiaping Cheng, Jianhui Wu, Fang Cui","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf093","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaf093","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study investigates how anxiety influences moral judgment processes using event-related potential (ERP) techniques. Participants were instructed to rate their feelings towards other's moral and immoral acts while neural responses were recorded under safe and threat-of-shock (TOS) conditions. Participants reported significantly higher anxiety levels in the TOS context, accompanied by increased non-specific skin conductance responses (NSSCR), indicating heightened autonomic nervous system activity. Behaviorally, participants in the TOS context rated immoral behaviors as significantly less unpleasant compared to those in the safe context, while ratings for moral behaviors did not differ significantly, suggesting reduced sensitivity to immoral acts in TOS context. ERP results revealed larger N1 amplitudes in response to immoral behaviors in the TOS condition, reflecting heightened attention to threatening stimuli. In contrast, the N400 component showed significant differences between moral and immoral acts only in the safe condition; this distinction was absent in the TOS condition, indicating impaired semantic processing under anxiety. Together, these findings demonstrate that threat-induced anxiety disrupts moral judgment processes, leading to reduced sensitivity to immoral behaviors. This highlights the critical role of anxiety in moral processing and the flexibility and context-dependence of moral judgments.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145034950","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}
Olivia H Pollak, Natalie G Frye, Tehila Nugiel, Jessica R Cohen, Eva H Telzer, Kristen A Lindquist, Mitchell J Prinstein
{"title":"Testing an interpersonal risk pathway to suicidal ideation in adolescence: Linking neural, psychological, and sociometric indices of socially-relevant factors.","authors":"Olivia H Pollak, Natalie G Frye, Tehila Nugiel, Jessica R Cohen, Eva H Telzer, Kristen A Lindquist, Mitchell J Prinstein","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf087","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaf087","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Sensitivity to the social environment is linked to suicidal ideation in adolescence, and little research has examined variance in neural functioning that may underlie this sensitivity and increase risk. Neural-based pathways to suicidal ideation are likely mediated by subjective experiences of the social environment. Loneliness is associated with both salience network connectivity and suicidal ideation. This longitudinal study tested whether greater salience network functional integration (ie, global efficiency) in early adolescence, which may underlie hypervigilance to social experiences, predicts risk for future suicidal ideation via loneliness. Participants (N = 96; Mage=12.94) completed a fMRI scan to measure resting-state salience network functional integration. Loneliness, suicidal ideation, and a sociometric measure of adolescents' real-world peer environment were assessed over several years. Greater salience network global efficiency was associated with suicidal ideation two years later via higher levels of loneliness approximately one year later, particularly for girls. Across boys and girls, the effect of salience network global efficiency on loneliness appeared stronger for youth experiencing relatively larger decreases in peer acceptance over the prior year. While findings should be interpreted as preliminary given the sample size, they suggest a possible social-developmental pathway from early-adolescent salience network integration to future vulnerability for loneliness and suicidal thinking.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144995000","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}
{"title":"Visual Congruency of Performers' Movements Enhances Vocal Music Reward through Mu Entrainment.","authors":"Lei Zhang, Yi Du, Robert J Zatorre","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf089","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf089","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>There is emerging evidence that a performer's body movements may enhance music-induced pleasure. However, the neural mechanism underlying such modulation remains largely unexplored. This study utilized behavioral, psychophysiological and electroencephalographic data collected from 32 listeners (analyzed sample = 31) as they watched and listened to vocal (Mandarin lyrics) and violin performances of pop music videos. None were familiar with Mandarin, and none had significant training in string instruments. Stimuli featured either congruent or incongruent audiovisual parings within the same instrument. We found that congruent visual movements, as opposed to incongruent ones, significantly increased both subjective pleasure ratings and skin conductance responses. While Mu-band power suppression occurred in the presence of visual movements regardless of congruency; congruent movements enhanced the coherence between the music envelope and Mu-band oscillations (so-called Mu entrainment). Effect sizes for both measures were greater for vocal than violin music, though no interaction was observed. Mediation analysis demonstrated that Mu entrainment to vocal music significantly mediated the visual modulation of music-induced pleasure, and that this effect occurs primarily for familiar vocal rather than unfamiliar violin movements. In conclusion, our study provides evidence that congruent visual movements enhance music pleasure by promoting Mu entrainment, potentially through sensorimotor integration mechanisms.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144984488","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}
{"title":"Probabilistic adaptation of language comprehension for individual speakers: Evidence from neural oscillations.","authors":"Hanlin Wu, Xiaohui Rao, Zhenguang G Cai","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf085","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaf085","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Listeners adapt language comprehension based on their mental representations of speakers, but how these representations are updated remains unclear. We investigated whether listeners probabilistically adapt comprehension based on the frequency of speakers making stereotype-incongruent statements. In two EEG experiments, participants heard speakers make stereotype-congruent or incongruent statements, with incongruency base rate manipulated. In Experiment 1, stereotype-incongruent statements decreased high-beta (21-30 Hz) and theta (4-6 Hz) oscillatory power in the low base rate condition but increased it in the high base rate condition. The theta effect varied with listeners' openness trait: less open-minded participants tended to show theta increases to stereotype incongruencies, while more open-minded participants tended to show theta decreases. In Experiment 2, we dissociated incongruency base rate from the target speaker by manipulating it using a non-target speaker and found that only the high-beta effect persisted. Our findings reveal two potential mechanisms: a speaker-general mechanism (indicated by high-beta oscillations) that adjusts overall expectations about hearing statements that violate social stereotypes, and a speaker-specific mechanism (indicated by theta oscillations) that updates a more detailed mental model specifically about an individual speaker. These findings provide evidence for how the neurocognitive processing of language is shaped by social cognition.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144857274","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}
Danielle Hewitt, Sahba Besharati, Victoria Williams, Michelle Leal, Francis McGlone, Andrej Stancak, Jessica Henderson, Charlotte Krahé
{"title":"Is cultural context the crucial touch? Neurophysiological and self-reported responses to affective touch in women in South Africa and the United Kingdom.","authors":"Danielle Hewitt, Sahba Besharati, Victoria Williams, Michelle Leal, Francis McGlone, Andrej Stancak, Jessica Henderson, Charlotte Krahé","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf082","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaf082","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Affective touch, involving touch-sensitive C-tactile (CT) afferent nerve fibres, is integral to human development and wellbeing. Despite presumed cultural differences, affective touch research typically includes 'Western', minority-world contexts, with findings extrapolated cross-culturally. We report the first cross-cultural study to experimentally investigate subjective and neurophysiological correlates of affective touch in women in South Africa (SA) and the United Kingdom (UK) using (1) touch ratings, and (2) cortical oscillations for slow CT-optimal (vs. faster CT-suboptimal) touch on two body regions (arm, palm). We also controlled for individual differences in touch experiences and attitudes and attachment style. Cultural context modulated affective touch: SA (vs. UK) participants rated touch as more positive and less intense, with enhanced differentiation in sensorimotor beta band oscillations, especially during palm touch. UK participants differentiated between stroking speeds, with opposite directions of effects at arm and palm for frontal theta oscillations. Alpha band power showed consistent effects across countries. Results highlight the importance of cultural context in subjective experience and neural processing of affective touch. Findings suggest that palm touch may hold greater social or emotional significance in SA than the UK. Future research should further explore potential cultural influences on the meaning and function of touch across contexts.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144839570","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}
{"title":"Neural correlates of social and thematic semantics in autistic and non-autistic adults.","authors":"Melissa Thye, Paul Hoffman, Daniel Mirman","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf079","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaf079","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Conceptual knowledge-about objects, events, and social behaviour-is represented within the semantic system, but it is unclear if different conceptual categories engage the same portions of the system. This is perhaps most relevant for event-based, or thematic, knowledge and social knowledge which is acquired through social experiences. The present study investigated neural specialisation for social concepts by examining whether distinct semantic regions or hubs represent taxonomic versus thematic relations and social versus non-social relations. Specialization was examined in two groups with different social experiences: autistic and non-autistic adults. There were minimal behavioural and no neural differences between groups, suggesting that differences in social experiences between autistic and non-autistic people may be better understood at the interactional level. In whole-brain analyses across both groups, taxonomic relations engaged the semantic control network to a greater extent than thematic relations did, and n overlapping portion of the rostroventral area of left angular gyrus was engaged by both thematic (relative to taxonomic) and social (relative to non-social) relations. Region of interest analyses revealed a more complex pattern within bilateral angular gyri. The results suggest that angular gyrus represents conceptual knowledge in a graded fashion, including specialisation for thematic and social relations.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144700792","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}
Chikara Ishii, Hiroki Watanabe, Yasushi Naruse, Aya S Ihara
{"title":"Event-related brain activity in response to partners' speech in natural conversation.","authors":"Chikara Ishii, Hiroki Watanabe, Yasushi Naruse, Aya S Ihara","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf068","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaf068","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>How listeners cognitively process speech during natural conversation remains poorly understood, particularly in terms of the role of the speaker's and listener's subjective mental states and empathic traits. This study examined relationships between these psychological factors and listener's cognitive processing of speech. We simultaneously recorded electroencephalograms from 20 romantic couples during natural face-to-face conversations. We identified the onset times of content words using morphological analysis of the speech data. Using multivariate temporal response functions (a method to estimate stimulus-related neural responses), we analyzed each listener's event-related brain activity in response to their partner's speech. We found positive associations between the speaker's interest levels and the listener's early attentional processing, as reflected in the P2 amplitude. Higher levels of personal distress, an empathic trait, corresponded with greater sustained attention among listeners, as indexed by the late positive potential. Moreover, by using brain activities along with behavioral measures of turn-taking, a support vector machine successfully distinguished between mutually satisfying and not mutually satisfying conversations. The observed associations between the cognitive processing of speech and both the speaker's mental states and the listener's empathic traits demonstrate that understanding speech processing in natural conversation requires consideration of factors from both participants not just from either the speaker or the listener.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144510167","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}
Leslie Tricoche, Marion Royer d'Halluin, Martine Meunier, Denis Pélisson
{"title":"Neural bases of social facilitation and inhibition: how peer presence affects elementary eye movements.","authors":"Leslie Tricoche, Marion Royer d'Halluin, Martine Meunier, Denis Pélisson","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsae079","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsae079","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Social facilitation/inhibition (SFI) refers to how others' presence influences task performance positively or negatively. Our previous study revealed that peer presence modulated saccadic eye movements, a fundamental sensorimotor activity. Pro- and anti-saccades were either facilitated or inhibited depending on trial block complexity Tricoche L, Ferrand-Verdejo J, Pélisson D et al. (Peer Presence Effects on Eye Movements and Attentional Performance. Front Behav Neurosci 2020;13:1-13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2019.00280). In the present fMRI study, we adapted our paradigm to investigate the neural basis of SFI on saccades. Considering inter- and intra-individual variabilities, we evaluated the shared and distinct neural patterns between social facilitation and inhibition. We predicted an involvement of the saccade-related and attention networks, alongside the Theory-of-Mind (ToM) network, with opposite activity changes between facilitation and inhibition. Results confirmed peer presence modulation in fronto-parietal areas related to saccades and attention, in opposite directions for facilitation and inhibition. Additionally, the ventral attention network was modulated during inhibition. Default mode regions, including ToM areas, were also modulated. Finally, pupil size, often linked to arousal, increased with peers and correlated with dorsal attention regions and anterior insula activities. These results suggest that SFI engages task-specific and domain-general networks, modulated differently based on observed social effect. Attention network seemed to play a central role at both basic (linked to arousal or vigilance) and cognitive control levels.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12168777/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142592360","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}
{"title":"Are older adults more deceived by false advertising? Evidence from intra- and inter-brain connectivity in the prefrontal cortex during face-to-face deceptive sales.","authors":"Ying-Chen Liu, Zi-Han Xu, Zhi-Jun Zhan, Zi-Wei Liang, Xue-Rui Peng, Jing Yu","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf044","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf044","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Financial fraud through false advertising has become increasingly prevalent among both younger and older adults, yet the neuropsychological mechanisms underlying real-time, face-to-face deceptive sales are unclear. In addition, the effects of guilt appeal as a marketing strategy, across age groups, remain unexplored. We used functional near-infrared spectroscopy hyperscanning to examine purchase decisions and neural mechanisms by age group and sales approach (guilt vs. control) in a face-to-face sale mimicking real-life scenarios. Older adults had higher purchase intentions for products promoted by false advertising across sales approaches compared to younger adults. However, younger adults were more likely to be influenced by guilt appeal. The neural results aligned with the behavioral finding that younger adults' intra-brain functional connectivity and inter-brain synchronization values were greater in the guilt condition than in the control, whereas no difference between conditions was found for older adults. Using inter-subject representational similarity analyses, we identified distinct neuropsychological mechanisms between two age groups. Younger adults' frontopolar activity was associated with the advertising credibility, whereas older adults' frontopolar activity was associated with the trustworthiness of the salesperson during deceptive sales. These findings provide insights into age-specific vulnerabilities and may inform tailored consumer fraud prevention strategies targeting younger and older adults separately.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12201989/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144032996","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}