Elsevier

Brain Research

Volume 1079, Issue 1, 24 March 2006, Pages 98-105
Brain Research

Research Report
Social cognition: A multi level analysis

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2006.01.002Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper investigates the construct of social cognition from an interdisciplinary perspective blending social psychology and cognitive neuroscience. This perspective argues for the inclusion of processes used to decode and encode the self, other people and interpersonal knowledge in the definition of social cognition. The neural modularity of social cognition is considered. The paper concludes by considering a number of challenges for social cognition research including questions of accuracy and the influence of motivation and bias in social cognitive processing.

Section snippets

The domains of social cognition

Social cognition broadly includes the cognitive processes used to decode and encode the social world. The most complete description of social cognition must include information processing about all people, including the self, and about the norms and procedures of the social world. These processes are likely to occur at the automatic and controlled levels of processing and will be influenced by a number of motivational biases.

The first component of social cognition includes the processes used to

Social cognition: a neural module?

The interconnected and overlapping nature of the psychological processes involved in social cognition has often raised questions about whether there is a social cognitive module in the brain. Arguments in favor of brain modules often begin with the assumption that culture and social interaction give rise to benefits that are associated with the selection pressure necessary for developing specialized brain modules responsible for carrying out domain-specific social cognitive processes (e.g.,

Problems and challenges for future social cognition research

Although research on social cognition is probably at an all time high across a number of disciplines, there are a number of challenges that lie ahead. First, the most parsimonious explanation of social cognition remains an unanswered question. One of the simplest models suggests that social cognition depends upon motor representations that support understanding of one's own intentions as well as the intentions of other people. Self- and other-perception share a set of common underlying ‘mirror

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