An fMRI study of intentional and unintentional (embarrassing) violations of social norms
Berthoz S(1), Armony JL, Blair RJ, Dolan RJ.
Author information:
(1)Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, UK.
Comment in
Brain. 2002 Aug;125(Pt 8):1673-5.
The aim of this investigation was to identify neural systems supporting the
processing of intentional and unintentional transgressions of social norms.
Using event-related fMRI, we addressed this question by comparing neural
responses to stories describing normal behaviour, embarrassing situations or
violations of social norms. Processing transgressions of social norms involved
systems previously reported to play a role in representing the mental states of
others, namely medial prefrontal and temporal regions. In addition, the
processing of transgressions of social norms involved systems previously found
to respond to aversive emotional expressions (in particular angry expressions);
namely lateral orbitofrontal cortex (Brodmann area 47) and medial prefrontal
cortex. The observed responses were similar for both intentional and
unintentional social norm violations, albeit more pronounced for the intentional
norm violations. These data suggest that social behavioural problems in patients
with frontal lobe lesions or fronto-temporal dementia may be a consequence of
dysfunction within the systems identified in light of their possible role in
processing whether particular social behaviours are, or are not, appropriate.