BRAINSTORM Social Neuroscience Final 1

models of brain-societal coevolution
mapping and lining up evolutionary models of the brain with models of history of society

mead theorizes that in essence we are speaking with all the people we've ever spoken to.
how can we map this theory to some specific observables in the brain?
Chapter 3 of Handbook of Neurosociology (2013) describes exactly this connection (comparing Mead's role-taking to neuroscience's ToM)

  • could measure empathic accuracy to subgroup, specific others, etc.

where is the concept in the brain? reason?
is there some interesting relationship between social cognition and other cognition?

can we put individuals in specified relational situations to others and measure what's going on in their brain?
what about recruiting relational structures?
we could code the speech acts they participate in, in a conversation, and measure physical responses (why should we care?)

concepts

the concept of concepts, great syllabus
this could also be an interesting road to go down

“What is a concept, that the brain may know it, and the brain, that it may know a concept?”
[Apologies to Warren McCulloch]

this is such an interesting topic, if we conceive as the concept, the idea, the word, the symbol, as the great tool the human race has mobilized in its recent history to great effect
where does the concept come from? is it actually relational, as Mead theorizes? is there anything to this?

empathy

empathy is interesting...

and quite connected to ToM, and to Mead's understanding of thought and social life e.g. Davis & Love 2018

this dope study where they assessed how good family members were at predicting others' answers. inverse relationship with power and role-taking ability
look at differences in cognition based on power and status,
looking at people's ability to predict others' answers

Davis & Love 2014 in ASR explores accuracy of other-prediction + status
Hall et al. 2015 a meta-analysis of other-prediction + status
Schwalbe (1988) theorizes the dimensions of role-taking

how empathy happens and how it goes wrong (2008)
also found a book (2013): Understanding Other Minds: Perspectives from Developmental Social Neuroscience. it's in the library

  • women and children are better role-takers
  • but this effect is because of status, not gender/age (Davis&Love 2014)

can I do something relying on people's ability to predict what others are thinking based on relational situation?
I don't care where in the brain it's occurring
maybe I'm interested theoretically in its genesis, an evolutionary account, etc. [this is also covered in the neurosociology handbook]

emotional energy via skin conductance

the lower-level lizard-brain excitement stuff is fun.
maybe I could connect emotional energy to skin conductance?

skin conductance peaks at specific emotional hinges in conducting
ripple effect: emotional contagion & influence on group behavior
this study correlates "displays of affiliation" to decrease in storyteller's SC, increase in recipient's (conversation analysis coding of story)
Rogers (2014) describing how non-invasive measures of emotion could help social theory
collective emotions in rituals

meta

I'm not going to think of something novel in 1hr! but i definitely won't if I don't try!
what about something more creative? more wild?

I don't want to brain-map, unless I can connect this to something theoreticall (why care?)

why should we care about what's happening in the brain? it either should be impactful (important) or super interesting.

we can use the brain as a marker of things self-report can't get at.
where is that in my theoretical world?

other cool resources

meeting notes

willingness to engage with account bot vs human
are there some low-level correlates to empathic understanding / good conversation
how to measure satisfaction
are there reporting errors in this? inability? I kind of need this?
can you get emotional energy thing from bot conversations? from ANS stimulations?

  • self-reports?

maybe some experts in the department....??