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social cognition

This shows two people looking at one another and two brains.

·March 9, 2026·8 min read

How Your Brain Sizes Up Others in Real-Time

Scientists have discovered a specific brain network that acts as a "neural fingerprint" for how well we understand what others are thinking.

Featured Neuroscience

·February 24, 2026·6 min read

Oxytocin Crash: Why Sleep Loss Leaves You Socially Forgetful

Forgetful after a late night? Scientists find that sleep loss "mutes" the brain's oxytocin signals, breaking the circuits that help us recognize friends and remember new faces.

This shows statues with This and That written on them.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·July 29, 2024·3 min read

How “This” and “That” Shape Language and Social Cognition

A study reveals that demonstratives like 'this' and 'that' not only indicate distance but also direct attention, linking language to social cognition. Researchers found that the meaning of demonstratives varies across languages and is influenced by the listener's focus. This study involved speakers of ten languages and used computational modeling to understand these dynamics. The findings suggest that attention manipulation is an inherent part of language, embedded in demonstratives.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·September 21, 2023·3 min read

Brain Region That Links Language to Social Cognition Identified

Researchers discovered that neural activity in the left ventral temporoparietal junction (vTPJ) and the lateral anterior temporal lobe (lATL) during sentence processing is tied to social-semantic working memory. Previously, these regions were attributed to general language processing. Using fMRI experiments, the study demonstrated that these regions respond to sentences with social meaning and maintain activity even after the linguistic stimulus is gone. This insight reshapes our understanding of the brain's cortical language network.

This shows a boy and girl playing outdoors

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·December 17, 2022·5 min read

What Pretend Play Tells Us About Social Cognition

By the age of two, most children are able to embark on pretend play and adopt a perspective that does not fit reality. This enables children to develop the ability to attribute perspective to others that they don't share. Findings suggest the ability to adopt perspectives, an important aspect of developing social cognition and the attribution of mental state, is already present in young children.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·May 11, 2022·4 min read

The Role Empathy May Play in Music

People who are more accurate at reading another person's emotions are better able to understand what a musician is trying to convey through their compositions. Additionally, those with higher empathetic accuracy are better able to feel the emotions conveyed through music.

This shows emojis relaying different emotional expressions

Featured Neuroscience

·May 2, 2022·3 min read

Dopamine Involved in Recognizing Emotions

Researchers reveal dopamine, a neurotransmitter commonly associated with reward plays a key role in social cognition and emotional recognition.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·February 18, 2022·4 min read

Do We Really ‘Lose Our Filter’ as We Age?

From age-related brain shrinkage that may affect our social cognition, to feeling more confident in our own skin, researchers investigate why older people appear to lose their "filter" when it comes to some social interactions.

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·October 21, 2021·5 min read

Looking Beyond the Individual Brain to Study the Collective Mind

In order to better understand the role that knowledge serves in human intelligence, it is essential to look beyond the individual and focus studies on the community overall, researchers say.

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·April 20, 2021·6 min read

Our Attention Is Captured by Eye-Glance

When people make eye contact with another person, their attention is immediately solicited and this causes a distortion in temporal perception. However, the shift in time perception does not change when people glance at non-social items or objects.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·September 8, 2019·3 min read

Study locates brain areas for understanding metaphors in healthy and schizophrenic people

Patients with schizophrenia show increased brain activity in central areas of the brain, but lower activity in the temporal sulcus when hearing metaphors.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·August 29, 2019·4 min read

Parenting stress may affect mother’s and child’s ability to tune in to each other

Mothers who reported higher levels of parental stress had less synchrony in brain activity with their young children than moms who were more stress-free. The findings shed new light on how parental stress can impact the mother-child relationship on a day-to-day basis.