TY - JOUR
T1 - Specialization in Relational Reasoning
T2 - The Efficiency, Accuracy, and Neural Substrates of Social versus Nonsocial Inferences
AU - Mason, Malia F.
AU - Magee, Joe C.
AU - Kuwabara, Ko
AU - Nind, Louise
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - Although deduction can be applied both to associations between nonsocial objects and to social relationships among people, the authors hypothesize that social targets elicit specialized cognitive mechanisms that facilitate inferences about social relations. Consistent with this view, in Experiments 1a and 1b the authors show that participants are more efficient and more accurate at inferring social relations compared to nonsocial relations. In Experiment 2 they find direct evidence for a specialized neural apparatus recruited specifically for social relational inferences. When making social inferences, functional magnetic resonance imaging results indicate that the brain regions that play a general role in logical reasoning (e.g., hippocampi, parietal cortices, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) are supplemented by regions that specialize in representing people's mental states (e.g., posterior superior temporal sulcus, temporo-parietal junction, and medial prefrontal cortex).
AB - Although deduction can be applied both to associations between nonsocial objects and to social relationships among people, the authors hypothesize that social targets elicit specialized cognitive mechanisms that facilitate inferences about social relations. Consistent with this view, in Experiments 1a and 1b the authors show that participants are more efficient and more accurate at inferring social relations compared to nonsocial relations. In Experiment 2 they find direct evidence for a specialized neural apparatus recruited specifically for social relational inferences. When making social inferences, functional magnetic resonance imaging results indicate that the brain regions that play a general role in logical reasoning (e.g., hippocampi, parietal cortices, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) are supplemented by regions that specialize in representing people's mental states (e.g., posterior superior temporal sulcus, temporo-parietal junction, and medial prefrontal cortex).
KW - reasoning
KW - social cognition
KW - social inferences
KW - social network
KW - social neuroscience
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84866992297&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1177/1948550610366166
DO - 10.1177/1948550610366166
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84866992297
SN - 1948-5506
VL - 1
SP - 318
EP - 326
JO - Social Psychological and Personality Science
JF - Social Psychological and Personality Science
IS - 4
ER -