My Brain : Self and other representations in social cognitive neuroscience

Self and other representations 2 " Say this blanket represents all the matter and energy in the universe, okay? This is me, this is you. And over here, this is the Eiffel Tower, right, it's Paris! "-Bernard Jaffe, I Heart Huckabees In the film, " I Heart Huckabees " the magic of digital effects allows characters to see bits of themselves appear in the pixilated faces of others. Soon after experiencing this literal mirroring of him or herself in someone else, each character is moved to act compassionately, even towards previous enemies. Vaguely echoing Eastern philosophy, one of the main characters (as quoted above) claims that in moments of clarity, people come to understand that they are actually made from the same blanket, so to speak, and that self/other distinctions are an illusion. Does dissolving boundaries between ourselves and others actually help us to navigate the social world? Do we, in fact, understand the mental and emotional states of others using processes that are similar to those we use to think about ourselves? As with most psychological questions this broad, the answer is most likely both yes and no. On the one hand, behavioral research suggests that quite often we use ourselves as a template or anchor when trying to piece together the contents of someone else's mind (Epley, Keysar, Van Boven, & Gilovich, 2004). This overlap is attested to by our astonishing success at quickly inferring and learning from the goals of others, a type of learning that would only be possible if we understood others as operating much like we do, in pursuit of goals much like our own (Tomasello, 2000). These tendencies produce predictable errors as well. For example, before their 4 th birthday, the majority of children despotically assume that others see the world the way they do, and it takes the development of inhibitory control to quell this tendency and enable children to understand that others have thoughts and desires independent from their own (Carlson & Moses, 2001). Self and other representations 3 Similarly, adults will incorrectly guess that things they have just learned (e.g. the brand names of two sodas in a taste test) will be known by others who have not had the benefit of having the answers told to them, and it takes cognitive effort to override this assumed overlap and correctly judge other people's state of knowledge On the other hand, …