The Social Brain

1
The Social Brain

• Ben Seymour
• Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging
• ESRC Centre for Economic Learning and Social
  Evolution

2
Beauty contest game

• You can select any number between 0 and 100.
• Whoever selects the number closest to 2/3 of the
  average of all the players numbers is the
  winner.
• Winner gets a prize!

3
Cooperative signals many eyes are better than
two..
Many eyes are better than two
4
The benefits of teamwork
5
To share or not to share?
6
Theres a snake, honest!
7
Someone terrible lives here
8
Do we really need to fight?
9
Retributivism
Consequentialism
10
empathy
11
Schadenfreude
12
Cooperation game with actors
player 1 player 2 cooperate defect
cooperate 10/10 0/15
defect 15/0 1/1
Watch each other get electric shocks
Record brain activity
Empathy for the nice person
Schadenfreude for the nasty person
13
Hunting stags and rabbits
14
Theory of Mind
15
Theory of mind

• Hierarchical value-functions
• The brain codes parameters for working out how
  sophisticated others are

first order
second order
third order
16
Human pro-sociality

• Trust and reciprocity.
• Reputation formation.
• is it enough?

17
The importance of culture
18
Culture seeds altruism

• Human culture learning how to make good
  decisions from others
• Observation
• Apprenticeship
• Teaching

19
Culture seeds altruism

• Human culture learning how to make good
  decisions from others
• Observation
• Apprenticeship
• Teaching

C

20
Now for the results

• Acknowledgements
• Wako Yoshida
• Tania Singer
• Ray Dolan
• Karl Friston
• Chris Frith