title: Dynamic neural architecture for social knowledge retrieval.
abstract: Social behavior is often shaped by the rich storehouse of biographical information that we hold for other people. In our daily life, we rapidly and flexibly retrieve a host of biographical details about individuals in our social network, which often guide our decisions as we navigate complex social interactions. Even abstract traits associated with an individual, such as their political affiliation, can cue a rich cascade of person-specific knowledge. Here, we asked whether the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) serves as a hub for a distributed neural circuit that represents person knowledge. Fifty participants across two studies learned biographical information about fictitious people in a 2-d training paradigm. On day 3, they retrieved this biographical information while undergoing an fMRI scan. A series of multivariate and connectivity analyses suggest that the ATL stores abstract person identity representations. Moreover, this region coordinates interactions with a distributed network to support the flexible retrieval of person attributes. Together, our results suggest that the ATL is a central hub for representing and retrieving person knowledge.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122; mirrorneuronwang@gmail.com iolson@temple.edu.
authors.forename: Yin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Frontotemporal Dementia Unit, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114.
authors.forename: Jessica A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Collins
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712.
authors.forename: Jessica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Koski
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712.
authors.forename: Tehila
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nugiel
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122.
authors.forename: Athanasia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Metoki
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122; mirrorneuronwang@gmail.com iolson@temple.edu.
authors.forename: Ingrid R
authors.initials: IR
authors.lastname: Olson
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012660:Semantics; D012938:Social Perception; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: anterior temporal lobe; person identity node; person knowledge; semantic memory; social neuroscience