title: Nice or nerdy? The neural representation of social and competence traits.
abstract: This study investigates to what extent social and competence traits are represented in a similar or different neural trait code. To localize these trait codes, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging repetition suppression, which is a rapid reduction of neuronal responses upon repeated presentation of the same implied trait. Participants had to infer an agent's trait from brief trait-implying behavioral descriptions. In each trial, the critical target sentence was preceded by a prime sentence that implied the same trait or a different competence-related trait which was also opposite in valence. The results revealed robust repetition suppression from prime to target in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) given a similar (social) as well as a dissimilar (competence) prime. The suppression given a similar prime confirms earlier research demonstrating that a trait code is represented in the ventral mPFC. The suppression given a dissimilar prime is interpreted as indicating that participants categorize a combination of competence and social information into novel subcategories, reflecting nice (but incompetent) or nerdy (but socially awkward) traits. A multi-voxel pattern analysis broadly confirmed these results, and pinpointed the inferior parietal cortex, cerebellum, temporo-parietal junction and mPFC as areas that differentiate between social and competence traits.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Vrije Universiteit Brussel , Brussels , Belgium.
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Van Overwalle
authors.affiliation: b Institute of Affective and Social Neuroscience , Shenzhen University , Shenzhen , China.
authors.forename: Ning
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Vrije Universiteit Brussel , Brussels , Belgium.
authors.forename: Kris
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Baetens
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010551:Personality; D012938:Social Perception; D060388:Support Vector Machine; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Competence traits; mPFC; repetition enhancement; repetition suppression; social traits