Topic
Social brain research, explained
6 open-access social brain studies, each with a flashcard deck and a quiz.
- How Dementia Types Differ in Reading Faces and Minds
Different forms of frontotemporal dementia experience social thinking deficits due to different underlying brain damage patterns.
- How the brain combines our opinions with online reviews
The human brain updates personal judgments using social advice by weighting both opinions according to how certain they are.
- How quickly does the brain process speech acts?
The brain processes the social purpose of a word within 120 milliseconds of hearing it, at the same time it decodes the word's literal meaning.
- How does the brain produce internal conversations?
Silent internal conversations recruit brain areas involved in understanding others' minds alongside traditional language regions, unlike simple internal monologues.
- How are empathy and anxiety connected in the brain?
Empathy and anxiety are not directly linked, but instead connect through a shared tendency to worry and ruminate, which shows up as prolonged brain activity in emotional processing networks.
- How does our brain make us conform to our peer group?
Conforming to our social group triggers reward and perspective-taking regions in the brain, suggesting that following peers is inherently satisfying and socially driven.