Développement normal et pathologique de la cognition sociale – SOCODEV

Current models of social cognition have set aside the role of explicit reasoning and deliberation, and have emphasized the role of intuitions (Haidt). Yet, they disagree on the nature of what these intuitions are. According to cognitively oriented models, social cognition rests on abilities to compute abstract representations of mental states. On the other hand, many models propose that at the heart of social cognition is basically a set of emotions, which enable us to quickly evaluate situations, actions and people positively or negatively (Green, Haidt). In this project we will examine both types of intuitions: cognitive/representational in Task 1, and evaluative/emotional in the Task 2. In Task 3, we will explore how these two kinds of intuitions may interact, and more generally interact with the rest of the cognitive system in a culture-specific way. Within Task 1, we will explore how various cognitive states are extracted intuitively from simple visual scenes, and how these representations are used to draw inferences. We will explore four types of representations in four subtasks, starting from the simplest to the most complex: (1a) the representation of animacy, i.e. the difference between inanimate objects and self-propelled animate agents, (1b) the representation of agent's goals in actions, (1c) the representation of agents' beliefs, (1d) the representation of agents' social attributes (place in a dominance hierarchy, affiliation). In these four subtasks, we will use nonverbal stimuli and we will contrast explicit verbal tasks with more implicit nonverbal measures such as eye fixations patterns, that are modulated by subjects' expectations with respect to a social scene. We plan to supplement these tasks with brain imaging (NIRS or fMRI) when questions of neural architecture are relevant. In terms of developmental studies, we will focus on subtasks (1c) and (1d), the development of (1c) still being under debate, and that of (1d) being largely unexplored. In terms of clinical studies, we will concentrate on autism and schizophrenia, which are conceptualized as polar opposites regarding the assignment of goals, beliefs and higher order mental representations. Testing psychopaths in this range of tasks could serve as a control of their overall social cognitive functioning, as they are not predicted to be impaired in these areas. Within Task 2, we will explore three kinds of evaluative/emotional system. In subtask 2a, we will explore emotional mirroring, which is a phenomenon by which the perception of an emotion in others automatically triggers the experience of a similar emotion in the perceiver. Such mirroring will be measured through the use of facial EMG. In subtasks 2b, 2c, and 2d we will explore more complex evaluations involving two persons, an agent, and a patient, and the agent performs either a positive or a negative action on the patient. Here, we test for the evaluation of the agent as a function of the consequences of his or her actions on the patient (pro social or anti social). In subtask 2b, the actions will involve either physically harming or comforting the patient, in subtask 2c, it will be sharing, giving or stealing objects from the patient. In subtask 2d, it will involve giving reliable information or lying. The tests will be run on either preverbal infants, or talking toddlers, as well as autistic and psychopathic populations. Our hypothesis is that the psychopathic populations should be relatively more impaired than autistic populations on the moral/social evaluations of these situations. In the third task, we will examine how these different components interact with one another and the nature of the interface between them and higher cognitive processes such as reasoning and justification. In Subtask 3a, we will examine the role of social mirroring, and in particular emotional mirroring in social cognition, and in empathy. In Subtask 3b, we examine the potential interactions between the cognitive/representational system and the emotional/evaluative system. In Subtask 3c, we will examine the nature of cultural variation in our proposed architecture. In Subtask 3d, we will study the influence of reasoning and justification on the resolution of moral dilemmas using a dual task interference paradigm.