Deck 1: Introduction to Social Neuroscience

Question 1

According to Hauser (2009) what is one role for biology in explaining cultural variability?

A) Different genes might determine whether one is more likely to be collectivist or individualist.
B) Biology may constrain the possible types of culture that are observed.
C) Biology has no role to play, and cultural variability is entirely down to socio-historical factors.
D) Different genes may determine the degree of materialistic values.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

What is the blank slate scenario?

A) The brain accepts, stores, and processes whatever information is given to it without pre-existing biases, limitations, or knowledge.
B) An attempt to infer the nature of cognitive processes from neuroscience data
C) The view that culture adapts evolutionarily older mechanisms in the brain for new purposes
D) The brain biases the nature of social interactions because of its innate underlying organisation.

Answer 2

A

Question 3

What line of evidence (from the following) is most problematic for the blank slate scenario?

A) The finding that infants have a preference, soon after birth, for the mothers voice
B) The finding that tool-use is universal across cultures
C) The finding that the brain can reorganise itself following lesions in childhood
D) The finding that infants have a preference, soon after birth, for face-like stimuli

Answer 3

D

Question 4

What term describes an attempt to infer the nature of cognitive processes from neuroscience data?

A) Domain specificity
B) Reductionism
C) Reverse inference
D) Materialism

Question 5

What term is given to denote 'the idea that a cognitive process (or brain region) is specialized for processing only one particular kind of information'?

A) Single dissociation
B) Reverse inference
C) Domain specificity
D) Effective connectivity

Question 6

What term refers to a change in scientific thinking such that one type of explanation is replaced with another, more basic, type of explanation?

A) Simplificationism
B) Reverse inference
C) Reductionism
D) Dualism

Question 7

What type of function has NOT been linked to the functioning of mirror systems?

A) Empathy
B) Attachment
C) Imitation
D) Mind-reading

Question 8

What type of neuron responds both when the animal performs an action and sees someone else performing the same action?

A) Complex cell
B) Simple cell
C) Mirror neuron
D) Grandmother neuron

Question 9

Which philosopher is particularly associated with the concept of modularity?

A) Dennett
B) Fodor
C) Churchland
D) Descartes

Question 10

What is phrenology?

A) A view of brain function in which different regions are responsible for highly specialised functions, and the different size of the regions relates to individual differences in cognition and personality
B) A view of brain function in which any brain region can acquire any function
C) A view of brain function related to massive parallel distributed processing
D) A view of brain function in which some parts of the brain are highly specialized and others can take on any function

Question 11

What is one of the main conclusions from the survey of Social Neuroscientists conducted by Stanley & Adolphs (2013)?

A) Future research should rely more on animal models of social behavior.
B) Future research should make more contact with real-world phenomena.
C) Future research should focus on understanding the brain as a modular system.
D) Future research should focus more on emotion regulation.

Question 12

Genes linked to increased social sensitivity are more prevalent in which kinds of culture?

A) Individualist
B) Collectivist
C) Simple
D) Complex

Question 13

Mitchell (2009) argued, from neuroscience data, that social psychology is a 'natural kind'. What did he mean by this?

A) That human social cognition is innate
B) We are biased to perceive unrelated social phenomena as connected.
C) That the same set of neural mechanisms that support social cognition also support non-social cognition
D) A core set of neural structures are involved in implementing the diverse range of social cognitions studied by social psychologists.

Question 14

Short allele carriers of the serotonin transporter gene are more prone to what?

A) Depression
B) A positive self-esteem
C) Prosopagnosia
D) Aggression

Question 15

The idea that genes bias the creation of certain environments, and certain environments select for certain genotypes is known as:

A) Cultural neuroscience
B) Gene-culture coevolution
C) The blank slate hypothesis
D) Dualism

Question 16

The term 'social neuroscience' first appeared in a paper by Cacioppo & Berntson in which year?

A) 1992
B) 1990
C) 1994
D) 1996

Question 17

What can be concluded from the fact that individual differences in levels of testosterone interact with socio-economic status, SES, in predicting aggressive acts (i.e. effect of testosterone appears greater for low SES individuals)?

A) Testosterone levels are less important than socio-economic factors.
B) Socio-economic factors are less important than hormonal/biological factors.
C) SES is an inappropriate variable to consider in social neuroscience research.
D) Neither social nor hormonal explanations are likely to be sufficient to explain aggression in isolation.

Question 18

What conclusion did Barrett & Satpute (2013) reach about the nature of the social brain?

A) There are networks of regions in which each region in the network has a high degree of specialization.
B) There are brain regions that are specialized for processing particular kinds of social information and non-social information.
C) Social information is a natural kind
D) Neither brain regions nor individual brain networks are functionally specialized or segregated into social and non-social functions.

Question 19

What is hyper-fMRI?

A) fMRI with high magnetic field strength
B) fMRI scanning of two (or more) brains at the same time
C) fMRI with improved temporal resolution
D) fMRI with improved spatial resolution

Question 20

Who provided the following definition of social psychology? 'An attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings and behaviour of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others.'

A) Allport (1968)
B) Bandura (1962)
C) Milgram (1963)
D) Festinger (1956)