Study concludes that children and adults rely on distinct neuro-cognitive strategies to understand social interactions
Adults show that they rely on automatic perceptions through physical cues, while children are more likely to rely on judgements about what people are doing.
English version: Diana Taborda
Scientists of the University of Coimbra (UC) and the Bangor University (United Kingdom) have conducted a study to deepen the knowledge about neuro-cognitive strategies used by children and adults to understand social interaction. The team studied brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), suggesting that there are differences in understanding others' social interactions: adults use body and biological motion information for and efficient action-intention understanding, while children rely more on inferences about people's actions.
Interpreting social interactions requires people to be able to decipher multiple sources of information during social contacts: perceiving body information or inferring others’ intentions, thoughts and feelings.
“The results of the study are relevant to understand what kind of social information (body motion or social inferences) contributes to understanding social interaction as the brain develops”, explains Jon Walbrin, researcher at Proaction Lab - Perception and Recognition of Objects and Actions Laboratory of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Coimbra, and at the Centre for Research in Neuropsychology and Cognitive and Behavioural Intervention (CINEICC). Walbrin adds that “we believe that children gradually learn how to better understand social interaction information through the engagement of brain areas linked to understanding others’ feelings and emotions”.
The research work, recently published in The Journal of Neuroscience, involved two groups of participants: children aged between 6 and 12 and adults over 18 years old. Both groups participated in functional magnetic resonance imaging sessions that included watching short videos of interactions between two people. Responses in the superior temporal sulcus - an area of the brain involved in visual processing of social interactions - were measured and compared with connectivity responses in other parts of the brain.
The research shows that adults and children may have different cognitive strategies to support the understanding of social interaction. While adults show strong connectivity in brain areas associated with static and dynamic body information (e.g. posture and body motion), children show more connectivity in brain areas associated with deep mental processes, i.e. social assessments of what others are feeling or thinking (e.g. 'the two people are moving fast; they look angry; they are arguing').
Jon Walbrin says that “Most existing research in visual social neuroscience focuses on measuring responses to others as individuals. However, there is scant research on the understanding of social interaction between individuals, and still very little is known about the development of the brain-basis of this ability during childhood.” The research team believes that the next step may involve studying how the process of understanding social interaction develops during adolescence.
The scientific article “Alternative brain connectivity underscores age-related differences in the processing of interactive biological motion”, was co-authored by Jorge Almeida, director of Proaction Lab, CINEICC researcher and FPCEUC professor, and Kami Koldewyn, researcher from Bangor University, and is available here.