Social cognition in context: A naturalistic imaging approach

• Published in: NeuroImage (Orlando, Fla.) Fla.), 2020-08, Vol.216, p.116392-116392, Article 116392
• Main Authors: Redcay, Elizabeth, Moraczewski, Dustin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Autism; Brain; Brain - diagnostic imaging; Brain - physiology; Brain architecture; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive ability; Development; Dynamic; Ecologically valid; Functional morphology; Functional MRI; Humans; Information processing; Long timescales; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Medical imaging; Motion Pictures; Movie; Neuroimaging; Photic Stimulation - methods; Population studies; Psychomotor Performance - physiology; Social Cognition; Social interactions; Socialization; Theory of mind; Validity; Visual Perception - physiology
• ISSN: 1053-8119; 1095-9572
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116392

Social processing occurs within dynamic, complex, and multimodal contexts, but the study of social cognition typically involves static, artificial stimuli. Naturalistic approaches (e.g., movie viewing) can recapture the richness and complexity of real-world interactions. Novel analytic approaches allow for the investigation of functional brain organization in response to contextually embedded and extended events with a complex temporal structure during movie viewing or narrative processing. In addition to these within-brain measures, movies afford between-brain analyses such as inter-subject correlation, which allows for identification of stimulus-specific brain response through the correlation of brain activity between participants’ brains. Research using these approaches offers both practical and theoretical advantages in understanding how we navigate our social world. Practically, movies are engaging stimuli that allow for more rapid presentation of multiple event types and improve compliance even in very young populations. Theoretically, studies have validated the use of these measures by demonstrating functional selectivity to contextually embedded stimuli. Naturalistic approaches also allow for novel insights. For example, regions associated with social cognition have longer temporal receptive windows, making them well suited to social-cognitive processes that require integration of information over longer timescales. Furthermore, the similarity in the temporal and spatial brain response between individuals during naturalistic viewing is related to age, predictive of friendships, and reduced in autism spectrum disorder. These findings offer first glimpses into the power of using these naturalistic, dynamic approaches to understand how we perceive, reason about, and interact with others. •Novel approaches allow for neuroimaging of naturalistic social cognition.•Use of movie and narrative stimuli provide novel insights into social cognition.•Long temporal receptive windows are important for social cognition.•Neural similarity to complex, dynamic stimuli is important for social behavior.