Mistakes that affect others: An fMRI study on processing of own errors in a social context

In social contexts, errors have a special significance and often bear consequences for others. Thinking about others and drawing social inferences in interpersonal games engages the mentalizing system. We used neuroimaging to investigate the differences in brain activations between errors that affect only agents themselves and errors that additionally influence the payoffs of interaction partners. Activation in posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC) and bilateral insula was increased for all errors, whereas errors that implied consequences for others specifically activated medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), an important part of the mentalizing system. The results demonstrate that performance monitoring in social contexts involves additional processes and brain structures compared with individual performance monitoring where errors only have consequences for the person committing them. Taking into account how one’s behavior may affect others is particularly crucial for adapting behavior in interpersonal interactions and joint action

Implicit and Explicit Motivational Tendencies to Faces Varying in Trustworthiness and Dominance in Men

Motivational tendencies to happy and angry faces are well-established, e.g., in the form of aggression. Approach-avoidance reactions are not only elicited by emotional expressions, but also linked to the evaluation of stable, social characteristics of faces. Grounded in the two fundamental dimensions of face-based evaluations proposed by Oosterhof and Todorov (2008), the current study tested whether emotionally neutral faces varying in trustworthiness and dominance potentiate approach-avoidance in 50 healthy male participants. Given that evaluations of social traits are influenced by testosterone, we further tested for associations of approach-avoidance tendencies with endogenous and prenatal indicators of testosterone. Computer-generated faces signaling high and low trustworthiness and dominance were used to elicit motivational reactions in three approach-avoidance tasks, i.e., one implicit and one explicit joystick-based paradigm, and an additional rating task. When participants rated their behavioral tendencies, highly trustworthy faces evoked approach, and highly dominant faces evoked avoidance. This pattern, however, did not translate to faster initiation times of corresponding approach-avoidance movements. Instead, the joystick tasks revealed general effects, such as faster reactions to faces signaling high trustworthiness or high dominance. These findings partially support the framework of Oosterhof and Todorov (2008) in guiding approach-avoidance decisions, but not behavioral tendencies. Contrary to our expectations, neither endogenous nor prenatal indicators of testosterone were associated with motivational tendencies. Future studies should investigate the contexts in which testosterone influences social motivation