Contributions of self-report and performance-based individual differences measures of social cognitive ability to large-scale neural network functioning
Abstract
Adaptive social
behavior appears to require flexible interaction between multiple
large-scale brain networks, including the executive control network
(ECN), the default mode network (DMN), and the salience network (SN), as
well as interactions with the perceptual processing systems these
networks function to modulate. Highly connected cortical “hub” regions
are also thought to facilitate interactions between these networks,
including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), dorsomedial
prefrontal cortex (DMPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and anterior
insula (AI). However, less is presently known about the relationship
between these network functions and individual differences in
social-cognitive abilities. In the present study, 23 healthy adults (12
female) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while
performing a visually based social judgment task (requiring the
evaluation of social dominance in faces). Participants also completed
both self-report and performance-based measures of emotional
intelligence (EI), as well as measures of personality and facial
perception ability. During scanning, social judgment, relative to a
control condition involving simple perceptual judgment of facial
features in the same stimuli, activated hub regions associated with each
of the networks mentioned above (observed clusters included: bilateral
DLPFC, DMPFC/ACC, AI, and ventral visual cortex). Interestingly,
self-reported and performance-based measures of social-cognitive ability
showed opposing associations with these patterns of activation.
Specifically, lower self-reported EI and lower openness in personality
both independently predicted greater activation within hub regions of
the SN, DMN, and ECN (i.e., the DLPFC, DMPFC/ACC, and AI clusters); in
contrast, in the same analyses greater scores on performance-based EI
measures and on facial perception tasks independently predicted greater
activation within hub regions of the SN and ECN (the DLPFC and AI
clusters), and also in the ventral visual cortex. These findings suggest
that lower confidence in one’s own social-cognitive abilities may
promote the allocation of greater cognitive resources to, and improve
the performance of, social-cognitive functions.
