Feeling connected with others is a core human need, and lack of connection has dire consequences ... more Feeling connected with others is a core human need, and lack of connection has dire consequences for people’s health and well-being. Yet the issue of what people should do to improve their sense of connection with others is a complex one. The answer may depend on multiple features of people’s daily social interactions (e.g., partner closeness, conversation medium, and content and valence of self-disclosures), as well as on people’s personal traits and daily experiences of well-being. Our study was the first to examine how all these variables interact to influence people’s feelings of connection. Using recursive partitioning, a machine learning model that detects interactions automatically in a data-driven way, we uncovered a hierarchy of key conversation features to target in future social connection interventions. Exploring individual differences revealed that for different people and on different kinds of days, conversation features influenced connection in distinct ways (e.g., in...
Individuals modulate their facial emotion expressions in the presence of other people. Does this ... more Individuals modulate their facial emotion expressions in the presence of other people. Does this social tuning reflect changes in emotional experiences or attempts to communicate emotions to others? Here, “target” participants underwent facial electromyography (EMG) recording while viewing emotion-inducing images, believing they were either visible or not visible to “observer” participants. In Study 1, when targets believed they were visible, they produced greater EMG activity and were more accurately perceived by observers, but did not report accompanying changes in their emotion experience. In Study 2, simultaneous facial EMG recording and fMRI scanning revealed that social tuning of targets’ facial expressions correlated with activity in brain structures associated with mentalizing. These findings speak to long-standing, competing accounts of emotion expression, and suggest that individuals actively tune their facial expressions in social settings to communicate their experiences...
Social scientists have documented the power of being heard: Disclosing emotional experiences to o... more Social scientists have documented the power of being heard: Disclosing emotional experiences to others promotes mental and physical health. Yet, far less is known about how listeners digest the sensitive information people share with them. Wecombined brain imaging and text analysis methods with a naturalistic emotional disclosure paradigm to assess how listeners form memories of others’ disclosures. Neural and linguistic evidence support the hypothesis that listeners consolidate memories for others’ disclosures during rest after listening and that their ability to do so facilitates subsequently providing the speakers with support. In Study 1, brain imagingmethods showed that functional connectivity between the dorsomedial subsystem (dMPFC) of the default network and frontoparietal control network (FPCN) increased during rest after listening to others’ disclosures and predicted subsequent memory for their experiences. In Study 2, linguistic analyses revealed other-focused thought inc...
People commonly communicate emotional states through facial expressions. However, existing neuroi... more People commonly communicate emotional states through facial expressions. However, existing neuroimaging research focuses almost entirely on brain systems involved in perceiving expressions, leaving unclear whether similar systems are recruited when people generate expressions. Pairs of friends took turns viewing positive and neutral images while undergoing simultaneous fMRI scanning and EMG recording of zygomaticus major, a facial muscle associated with smiling. Participants were instructed that they were either visible to their friend or not visible during image-viewing. When participants viewed positive images, their EMG responses parametrically tracked activity in brain structures associated with experiencing emotion, including ventral striatum, caudate, insula, and anterior cingulate cortex. When further instructed that they were visible to their friend, participants’ EMG responses also tracked activity in structures associated with mentalizing, including temporoparietal junctio...
We often interact with multiple people at a time and consider their various points-of-view to fac... more We often interact with multiple people at a time and consider their various points-of-view to facilitate smooth social interaction. Yet, no prior research systematically examines how our brains track multiple mental states at once, nor whether skill in this domain links to navigating real-world social interactions. To fill this gap, we developed a novel social working memory paradigm in which participants manage two- or four-mental states in working memory, as well as control trials in which they alphabetize two- or four- names in working memory. In Study 1, we found that the dorsomedial subsystem of the default network (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and tempoparietal junction) increases activity with more mental states managed in working memory. In contrast, these regions decrease activity with more non-mental state information (the number of names alphabetized) managed in working memory. In Study 2, only individual differences in managing mental states in working memory, specifica...
Feeling connected with others is a core human need, and lack of connection has dire consequences ... more Feeling connected with others is a core human need, and lack of connection has dire consequences for people’s health and well-being. Yet the issue of what people should do to improve their sense of connection with others is a complex one. The answer may depend on multiple features of people’s daily social interactions (e.g., partner closeness, conversation medium, and content and valence of self-disclosures), as well as on people’s personal traits and daily experiences of well-being. Our study was the first to examine how all these variables interact to influence people’s feelings of connection. Using recursive partitioning, a machine learning model that detects interactions automatically in a data-driven way, we uncovered a hierarchy of key conversation features to target in future social connection interventions. Exploring individual differences revealed that for different people and on different kinds of days, conversation features influenced connection in distinct ways (e.g., in...
Individuals modulate their facial emotion expressions in the presence of other people. Does this ... more Individuals modulate their facial emotion expressions in the presence of other people. Does this social tuning reflect changes in emotional experiences or attempts to communicate emotions to others? Here, “target” participants underwent facial electromyography (EMG) recording while viewing emotion-inducing images, believing they were either visible or not visible to “observer” participants. In Study 1, when targets believed they were visible, they produced greater EMG activity and were more accurately perceived by observers, but did not report accompanying changes in their emotion experience. In Study 2, simultaneous facial EMG recording and fMRI scanning revealed that social tuning of targets’ facial expressions correlated with activity in brain structures associated with mentalizing. These findings speak to long-standing, competing accounts of emotion expression, and suggest that individuals actively tune their facial expressions in social settings to communicate their experiences...
Social scientists have documented the power of being heard: Disclosing emotional experiences to o... more Social scientists have documented the power of being heard: Disclosing emotional experiences to others promotes mental and physical health. Yet, far less is known about how listeners digest the sensitive information people share with them. Wecombined brain imaging and text analysis methods with a naturalistic emotional disclosure paradigm to assess how listeners form memories of others’ disclosures. Neural and linguistic evidence support the hypothesis that listeners consolidate memories for others’ disclosures during rest after listening and that their ability to do so facilitates subsequently providing the speakers with support. In Study 1, brain imagingmethods showed that functional connectivity between the dorsomedial subsystem (dMPFC) of the default network and frontoparietal control network (FPCN) increased during rest after listening to others’ disclosures and predicted subsequent memory for their experiences. In Study 2, linguistic analyses revealed other-focused thought inc...
People commonly communicate emotional states through facial expressions. However, existing neuroi... more People commonly communicate emotional states through facial expressions. However, existing neuroimaging research focuses almost entirely on brain systems involved in perceiving expressions, leaving unclear whether similar systems are recruited when people generate expressions. Pairs of friends took turns viewing positive and neutral images while undergoing simultaneous fMRI scanning and EMG recording of zygomaticus major, a facial muscle associated with smiling. Participants were instructed that they were either visible to their friend or not visible during image-viewing. When participants viewed positive images, their EMG responses parametrically tracked activity in brain structures associated with experiencing emotion, including ventral striatum, caudate, insula, and anterior cingulate cortex. When further instructed that they were visible to their friend, participants’ EMG responses also tracked activity in structures associated with mentalizing, including temporoparietal junctio...
We often interact with multiple people at a time and consider their various points-of-view to fac... more We often interact with multiple people at a time and consider their various points-of-view to facilitate smooth social interaction. Yet, no prior research systematically examines how our brains track multiple mental states at once, nor whether skill in this domain links to navigating real-world social interactions. To fill this gap, we developed a novel social working memory paradigm in which participants manage two- or four-mental states in working memory, as well as control trials in which they alphabetize two- or four- names in working memory. In Study 1, we found that the dorsomedial subsystem of the default network (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and tempoparietal junction) increases activity with more mental states managed in working memory. In contrast, these regions decrease activity with more non-mental state information (the number of names alphabetized) managed in working memory. In Study 2, only individual differences in managing mental states in working memory, specifica...
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