Social cognition research studies how people think about others and as well as how they think they form impressions of each other, a critical topic in today's global village. The European Social Cognition Network's annual conference provides a unique forum for international scientific exchange, focusing on recent developments. The PI conducts cutting-edge research linking social cognition to neuroscience. Funds are requested for the PI and two senior graduate students to attend the annual conference in Gothenberg, Sweden, August 25-29th, 2010. The PI is an invited plenary speaker, and the graduate students will make presentations of related work. The PI was invited to present his most recent research on the cognitive and neural mechanisms of person perception with a particular emphasis on the social dimensions of face perception. Research on face perception intersects a number of different research areas including social psychology, cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and neuropsychology, and addresses fundamental questions in vision, psychology, and neuroscience. The approach in the PI's lab--social cognition and social neuroscience--is multidisciplinary, using a variety of methods from behavioral and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) experiments to computer and statistical modeling.
The conference mixes junior (70%) and senior (30%) researchers, from 15-20 countries, mostly but not all European; all present research and receive concentrated feedback. Attendees interact formally and informally, fostering international research collaboration and general networks for future contact, serving to integrate the younger researchers into the international scientific community. This travel award is a small contribution to the broader impacts of the PI's involvement in this work.
The European Social Cognition Network’s (ESCON) annual conference provides a unique forum for international scientific exchange, focusing on recent developments in Social Cognition. NSF provided funds for the PI and two graduate students to attend the 12th European Social Cognition Network Transfer of Knowledge Conference that took place at the University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden. The conference was the second in the European Social Cognition Network 2 series and took place between 25 and 29th of August 2010. The PI was an invited plenary speaker, and the graduate students presented related talks. The conference aims to provide a forum mixing junior (70%) and senior (30%) researchers, from 15-20 countries, mostly but not all European, whereby all present research and receive concentrated feedback. Attendees interact formally and informally, fostering international research collaboration and general networks for future contact, serving to integrate the younger researchers into the international scientific community. Social cognition research studies how people form impressions of each other, a critical topic in today’s global village. Social cognition as a modern field dates back three decades, and although American and European social cognition researchers all have influenced each other profoundly, most of the contact occurs at the top level, with junior researchers having some difficulty crossing the international boundaries. The European Social Cognition Network (ESCON) is designed to remedy this situation, focusing on European exchange, but including a few Americans. The PI was invited as a plenary speaker, in a long series of American speakers at ESCON. The PI has a history of involvement with the European Association of Experimental Social Psychology and a number of international collaborations with faculty and students from Radboud University, the Netherlands, University College London, UK, and University of Glasgow, UK. The PI was invited to present his most recent research on the cognitive and neural mechanisms of person perception with a particular emphasis on the social dimensions of face perception. Research on face perception intersects a number of different research areas – social psychology, cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and neuropsychology – and addresses fundamental questions in vision, psychology, and neuroscience. The approach in the PI lab – social cognition and social neuroscience – is multidisciplinary, using a variety of methods from behavioral and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) experiments to computer and statistical modeling. The span of the lab research ranges from the social consequences of rapid, initial person impressions to the basic neural mechanisms underlying such impressions. The title and abstract of the PI’ talk follows below. Alexander Todorov Evaluating Faces on Social Dimensions The belief that personality can be read from a person’s face has persisted over the centuries. Moreover, social psychologists have accumulated evidence that trait judgments from faces predict important social outcomes ranging from electoral success to sentencing decisions, although these judgments are not necessarily accurate. Why, then, do people make these inaccurate judgments so reliably? Using data-driven methods, we have argued that faces are evaluated on two fundamental dimensions – valence/trustworthiness and power/dominance – and that inferences along these dimensions are based on similarity to expressions signaling approach/avoidance behavior and features signaling physical strength, respectively. We have also started exploring the determinants of idiosyncratic face preferences, showing that evaluation of novel faces is affected by their perceptual similarity to familiar faces. Finally, in fMRI studies, using our parametric face model, we have started exploring the neural basis of face evaluation. In general, our findings suggest that trait inferences from faces originate in functionally adaptive mechanisms. However, similarity to functionally significant features may be inappropriately generalized to trait attributions.
