Course Syllabus
Learning area
Applied Experimental Psychological Sciences
Learning objectives
Knowledge and understanding
. Knowing the cognitive, neurobiological and functional bases of social and affective mental processes.
. Understanding the genesis and dynamics of alterations and disorders of cognitive, communicative, emotional-motivational and social activity
Applying knowledge and understanding
• Acquisition of the ability to apply the acquired knowledge in order to design and carry out empirical studies in the field of social and affective neuroscience.
• Acquisition of the ability to apply the acquired knowledge in order to personally design and carry out clinical interventions focused on specific patients with socio-affective disorders.
Contents
This course provides essential knowledge concerning the main cognitive models and the neurophysiological bases of social and emotional-motivational processes in humans, in order to promote the understanding of socio-emotional and behavioral functions, both in healthy people and patients with specific social or affective disorders.
Detailed program
- The Mirror Neuron System: action coding, affordance, rolandic mu rhythm, embodied simulation, McGurk effect
- Audio/visuomotor neural representation of musical gestures
- Social brain: face, gaze and gesture processing, biological motion
- Sex difference in the social brain: face processing, negative affect, pareidolia, empathy for pain, parental behavior
- Moral deficits in neurological and psychiatric patients
- Antisocial personality disorders: sociopathy
- Orbitofrontal cortex and the moral brain (altruism, cooperation, equity, justice, guilt, shame)
- The development of morality in humans and primates
- Theory of Mind, mentalization, false beliefs, TOM humor
- The neural representation of Self, Close and Other
- FMRI, connectivity and eye-tracking evidences of functional abnormalities in ASD individuals
- The default-mode network
- Other-race effect, social prejudices and stereotypes
Prerequisites
This course requires a basic knowledge of anatomy and physiology of the nervous system and its cognitive functions.
The understanding of textbook and scientific article in English.
Teaching methods
Frontal lessons with slides and audio/video presentations. Presentation and discussion of ongoing data and research articles.
Assessment methods
Written exam with an oral interview (on demand).
The written exam consists in short essays (exposition of topics covered in class and described in study material/book chapters)
The oral colloquium is an in-depth interview on the topics covered in class.
Textbooks and Reading Materials
From the handbook, which is online and with open access: “Social and Affective Neuroscience of Everyday Human Interaction - From Theory to Methodology”, Springer Nature, Boggio et al. (2022).
Part 2. Social Neuroscience and Moral Emotions
Chapter 5. AM Proverbio, A Zani Mirror neurons in actions…ERP and neuroimaging evidences
Chapter 6: AM Proverbio Sex differences in social cognition
Part 4. Methods used in Social and Affective Neuroscience
Chapter 12: AM Proverbio EEG and ERPs in the study of Language and Social Knowledge
- Gazzaniga M.S., Ivry R.B., & Mangun G.R. (2019). Cognitive Neuroscience. New York: Norton (ONLY Chapters 13 & 14).
Lesson slides will be provided during the course and uploaded on the appropriate E-learning web page.
