O'Donnell Matthew Brook, Bayer Joseph B, Cascio Christopher N, Falk Emily B
Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
School of Communication, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2017 Jan 1;12(1):61-69. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsw158.
Ideas spread across social networks, but not everyone is equally positioned to be a successful recommender. Do individuals with more opportunities to connect otherwise unconnected others-high information brokers-use their brains differently than low information brokers when making recommendations? We test the hypothesis that those with more opportunities for information brokerage may use brain systems implicated in considering the thoughts, perspectives, and mental states of others (i.e. 'mentalizing') more when spreading ideas. We used social network analysis to quantify individuals' opportunities for information brokerage. This served as a predictor of activity within meta-analytically defined neural regions associated with mentalizing (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, temporal parietal junction, medial prefrontal cortex, /posterior cingulate cortex, middle temporal gyrus) as participants received feedback about peer opinions of mobile game apps. Higher information brokers exhibited more activity in this mentalizing network when receiving divergent peer feedback and updating their recommendation. These data support the idea that those in different network positions may use their brains differently to perform social tasks. Different social network positions might provide more opportunities to engage specific psychological processes. Or those who tend to engage such processes more may place themselves in systematically different network positions. These data highlight the value of integrating levels of analysis, from brain networks to social networks.
观点在社交网络中传播，但并非每个人都有同等机会成为成功的推荐者。那些有更多机会与原本不相连的人建立联系的个体——即高信息中介者——在进行推荐时，其大脑的使用方式与低信息中介者不同吗？我们检验了这样一个假设：那些有更多信息中介机会的人在传播观点时，可能会更多地运用与思考他人想法、观点和心理状态（即“心理化”）相关的大脑系统。我们运用社交网络分析来量化个体的信息中介机会。当参与者收到关于手机游戏应用的同伴意见反馈时，这作为一个预测指标，用于分析与心理化相关的元分析定义神经区域（背内侧前额叶皮层、颞顶联合区、内侧前额叶皮层、后扣带回皮层、颞中回）内的活动情况。当收到不同的同伴反馈并更新他们的推荐时，高信息中介者在这个心理化网络中表现出更多的活动。这些数据支持了这样一种观点，即处于不同网络位置的人在执行社交任务时可能会以不同方式使用大脑。不同的社交网络位置可能会提供更多机会来参与特定的心理过程。或者那些倾向于更多地参与此类过程的人可能会系统性地处于不同的网络位置。这些数据凸显了整合从大脑网络到社交网络等不同分析层面的价值。
