9781422270158

they demonstrate that they’re aware of another person’s mental state. By school age, children begin to understand biases, moral dilemmas, and deception. 11 Functional Brain Imaging Functional brain imaging studies can also help us understand how humans are affected by social interactions. 8 For example, tasks like facial perception or joint social attention activate different areas of the brain. Simply seeing a face, identifying it, and knowing if it belongs to someone familiar engages parts of the temporal lobe and the prefrontal cortex. 8 Earlier, we explained that these parts of the brain are larger in humans, and now we can see how that influences cognitive processes related to social interactions (social cognition). Behavioral Studies While imaging studies offer physiological data related to brain function, behavioral studies are also important for understanding human interactions. • When studying children, Moll et al. (2011) (as cited in Hari et al., 2015) found that they learn best while interacting with others rather than observing. 8 • In another key study (Noy et al., 2011), children played a mirror game to learn how to improvise and move together. 12 The results showed that they tend to synchronize their behavior in a cooperative way, rather than one taking over as a leader and the other acting as a follower. Both results suggest that humans have an innate tendency to interact with others.

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You Are Not Alone: Social Isolation