ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of basic concepts in social cognition. It introduces the notion of the social brain and current thinking with respect to how social cues are processed and responded to. Major domains of social cognition are considered including face perception, emotional empathy and emotion perception, cognitive empathy and mentalizing or theory of mind, social verbal communication, self-awareness, moral reasoning, and attributional bias. The neural substrates for each condition are considered, as well as variants of the disorders. In addition, problems in social behavior are briefly discussed including problems of apathy and loss of drive and problems with disinhibition. Major theories with respect to understanding how we empathise via simulation are also discussed, including the facial feedback hypothesis, the perception action mode, mirror neurons and the default mode network.
