Abstract:
Social intuition is instrumental in bringing about successful human interactions, yet its behavioral and neural underpinnings are still poorly understood. We focus in this article on the automatic, involuntary, nature of social intuition, rather than on higher-level cognitive and explicit Theory-of-Mind processes (which contribute to rendering social intuition meaningful in real-life situations). We argue that social-affective implicit learning plays a crucial role in establishing automatic social intuition. These implicit learning processes involve associations between the perception of other\'s bodily articulations, concurrent events, and the consequences or outcomes in terms of subsequent actions, affective valences and visceral states. The traditional non-social implicit learning paradigms do not allow one to draw conclusions about the role of implicit learning processes in social intuition, as they lack these vital characteristics typically associated with human actions. We introduce a new implicit learning paradigm, which aims to fill these gaps. It targets agile, rapid, social-affective learning processes, involving cue contingencies with a relatively simple structure, unlike the very complex structures that underpin the traditional tasks. The paradigm features matching social and non-social versions, allowing direct comparison. Preliminary data suggest equal performance of TD (typically-developed) and ASC (autism spectrum conditions) groups on the non-social version, but impaired implicit learning in ASC on the social version. We hypothesize that this reflects an anomalous use of implicitly learned affective information in ASC when judging other people. We further argue that the mirror neuron mechanism (MNM), which is part of the Action Observation Network, forms an integral part of the neural substrate for social intuition. In particular as there are indications that the MNM supports action anticipation, and that implicitly learned information can trigger MNM activation, which both seem vital to a social intuition ability. The insights that can be derived from comparing the performances of TD and ASC individuals on (non)social implicit learning tasks, and the implications for the role of MNM activation, are discussed.
摘要:
社会直觉有助于实现成功的人类互动,然而,它的行为和神经基础仍然知之甚少。我们在这篇文章中的重点是自动,非自愿,社会直觉的本质,而不是更高层次的认知和明确的心理理论过程(这有助于使社会直觉在现实生活中有意义)。我们认为,社会情感内隐学习在建立自动社会直觉中起着至关重要的作用。这些内隐学习过程涉及对他人身体发音的感知之间的关联,并发事件,以及后续行动的后果或结果,情价和内脏状态。传统的非社会内隐学习范式不允许人们得出关于内隐学习过程在社会直觉中的作用的结论,因为它们缺乏这些通常与人类行为相关的重要特征。我们引入了一种新的内隐学习范式,旨在填补这些空白。它的目标是敏捷,快速,社会情感学习过程,涉及具有相对简单结构的线索突发事件,不同于支撑传统任务的非常复杂的结构。范式特征匹配社交和非社交版本,允许直接比较。初步数据表明,TD(通常开发的)和ASC(自闭症谱系条件)组在非社交版本上的表现相同,但社交版本的ASC内隐学习受损。我们假设这反映了在判断其他人时在ASC中对隐式学习的情感信息的异常使用。我们进一步认为,镜像神经元机制(MNM),这是行动观察网络的一部分,构成社会直觉的神经基础的组成部分。特别是有迹象表明MNM支持行动预期,隐含地学习的信息可以触发MNM激活,两者似乎对社会直觉能力至关重要。通过比较TD和ASC个体在(非)社会内隐学习任务上的表现,可以得出的见解,以及MNM激活的作用的含义,正在讨论。