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. 2024 Apr 23:15:1336363.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1336363. eCollection 2024.

Social intuition: behavioral and neurobiological considerations

Affiliations

Social intuition: behavioral and neurobiological considerations

Tjeerd Jellema et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

Social intuition is instrumental in bringing about successful human interactions, yet its behavioral and neural underpinnings are still poorly understood. We focus in this article on the automatic, involuntary, nature of social intuition, rather than on higher-level cognitive and explicit Theory-of-Mind processes (which contribute to rendering social intuition meaningful in real-life situations). We argue that social-affective implicit learning plays a crucial role in establishing automatic social intuition. These implicit learning processes involve associations between the perception of other's bodily articulations, concurrent events, and the consequences or outcomes in terms of subsequent actions, affective valences and visceral states. The traditional non-social implicit learning paradigms do not allow one to draw conclusions about the role of implicit learning processes in social intuition, as they lack these vital characteristics typically associated with human actions. We introduce a new implicit learning paradigm, which aims to fill these gaps. It targets agile, rapid, social-affective learning processes, involving cue contingencies with a relatively simple structure, unlike the very complex structures that underpin the traditional tasks. The paradigm features matching social and non-social versions, allowing direct comparison. Preliminary data suggest equal performance of TD (typically-developed) and ASC (autism spectrum conditions) groups on the non-social version, but impaired implicit learning in ASC on the social version. We hypothesize that this reflects an anomalous use of implicitly learned affective information in ASC when judging other people. We further argue that the mirror neuron mechanism (MNM), which is part of the Action Observation Network, forms an integral part of the neural substrate for social intuition. In particular as there are indications that the MNM supports action anticipation, and that implicitly learned information can trigger MNM activation, which both seem vital to a social intuition ability. The insights that can be derived from comparing the performances of TD and ASC individuals on (non)social implicit learning tasks, and the implications for the role of MNM activation, are discussed.

Keywords: affective valences; anticipation; autism spectrum conditions; autistic traits; bodily articulations; implicit learning; mirror neuron mechanism; social intuition.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic representation of the social and non-social implicit learning paradigms. The social identities are shown with differently colored hair for the purpose of illustrating their different identities. Responses in the Test phase (‘A’ and ‘B’) that reflect correct implicit learning are underlined.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Task performance. The judgments made by TD individuals regarding the morphed target stimuli are presented for the Social implicit learning task (left panel) and for the Non-social implicit learning task (right panel).

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Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.