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Social cognition
Social cognition is the study of how people process social information, especially its encoding, storage, retrieval, and application to social situations. There has been much recent interest in the links between social cognition and brain function, particularly as neuropsychological studies have shown that brain injury (particularly to the frontal lobes) can adversely affect social judgements and interaction. People diagnosed with certain mental illnesses are also known to show differences in how they process social information. There is now an expanding research field examining how such conditions may bias cognitive processes involved in social interaction, or conversely, how such biases may lead to the symptoms associated with the condition.
It is also becoming clear that some aspects of psychological processes that promote social behaviour (such as face recognition) may be innate. Studies have shown that newborn babies, younger than one hour old can selectively recognize and respond to faces, while people with some developmental disorders such as autism or Williams syndrome may show differences in social interaction and social communication when compared to their unaffected peers.
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July 3, 2026
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June 29, 2026 Fish oil supplements successfully delivered omega-3s to the brain, but a two-year study found no meaningful benefits for memory, cognition, or Alzheimer’s-related brain changes. The results ...
June 29, 2026 Scientists have uncovered a surprising clue that may help explain why multiple sclerosis (MS) progresses rapidly in some people but not others. In brain tissue from patients with severe MS, researchers found large numbers of “foamy” immune cells ...
June 28, 2026 Scientists at UCLA have linked long-term exposure to the pesticide chlorpyrifos with a sharply increased risk of Parkinson’s disease. People exposed to the chemical near their homes were more than ...
June 27, 2026 Teens who use cannabis may face a substantially greater risk of developing serious mental health conditions, including psychotic and bipolar disorders, according to a study of more than 463,000 ...
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June 28, 2026 The unconscious brain appears to be far more capable than scientists once believed. Researchers found that patients under general anesthesia could still process language at a sophisticated level, ...
June 25, 2026 How does a single cell build a brain with billions of precisely organized neurons? Researchers suggest that brain cells use their lineage—their cellular family tree—as a kind of positional map. ...
June 25, 2026 Healthy older adults experienced measurable improvements in memory, physical performance, and stress after taking placebo pills for just three weeks. The most surprising finding was that the placebo ...
June 24, 2026 What if consciousness isn’t limited to brains like ours? Philosophers Eric Schwitzgebel and Jeremy Pober argue that consciousness could arise in many different forms of life, even in beings built ...
June 24, 2026 Scientists have discovered a tiny group of neurons in an ancient brain region that acts like a built-in focus filter, helping the brain ignore distractions and zero in on what matters most. When ...
June 23, 2026 A new study suggests that learning and remembering speech relies more on how the brain processes sounds and sensations than on the areas that control mouth and face movements. The discovery could ...
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