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What is Social
Cognitive Neuroscience?
Social cognitive
neuroscience (SCN) is an interdisciplinary field that asks questions about
topics traditionally of interest to social psychologists (such as emotion regulation,
attitude change, or stereotyping) using methods traditionally employed by
cognitive neuroscientists (such as functional brain imaging and
neuropsychological patient analysis). By integrating the theories and
methods of its parent disciplines, SCN seeks to understand socioemotional phenomena in terms of interactions
between the social (socioemotional cues,
contexts, experiences, and behaviors), cognitive (information processing
mechanisms), and neural (brain bases) levels of analysis (for discussion
see Ochsner & Lieberman, 2001
or Ochsner,
2007). By contrast, social psychology emphasizes only the first and second, and cognitive neuroscience emphasizes only the
second and third, of these three levels.
Spring 2006 saw the
inception of a new Journal, Social
Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (SCAN), dedicated to publishing
Social Cognitive Neuroscience research as well as work in allied areas such
as Affective Neuroscience and Neuroeconomics.
Social Cognitive
Neuroscience at Columbia
University
The Social Cognitive
Neuroscience Lab is located in Columbia
University's Department
of Psychology (map),
which is located in the Morningside Heights
Neighborhood of Manhattan’s
Upper West Side The lab shares remodeled research space
with the laboratory of another Columbia faculty member who uses functional
imaging to ask questions about emotion and cognition,
Ed Smith, who is the director of the Cognitive Neuroimaging Lab.
The two labs are
part of the Social/Cognitive/Affective/Neuroscience
Unit (SCAN-U), which also is comprised of the adjacent labs of Hakwan
Lau and Daphna Shohamy, also in the Department of Psychology. The integration of these four
laboratories provides a unique research and training environment for
researchers interested in studying the neural bases of social, cognitive
and affective processes.
Functional imaging
resources are available at the fMRI Research Center housed in the Neurological
Institute of New York (upper left on map) on the campus of Columbia University 's medical school. Facilities for conducting TMS
experiments are also available at the Center.
Lab News
Oct
2009: SESP debate
btw Matthew Lieberman and Piotr Winkielman on so-called “Voodoo correlations”
in Social Neurocience.
Sept. 2009: Wall Street
Journal article that mentions, and a video
that features, our research on empathic accuracy.
Mar 2009: Columbia record article on
our research on empathic accuracy.
Feb 2009: Prof. Ochsner wins Columbia
University Lenfest
Distinguished Faculty Award
Nov 2008: Jamil Zaki
awarded Autism
Speaks Fellowship
July 2008: Appearance
on CNBC’s, The Big Idea With Donny Deutsch.
July, 2008: Work in the lab featured in
the Wall Street Journal.
April 2008: Kevin Ochsner received Young Investigator
Award from The Cognitive Neuroscience Society
Spring 2008: Kevin Ochsner named most cited Assistant Professor in Social
Psychology by SPSP’s Diologue.
June/July of 2007: Summer Institutes focusing on Social Neuroscience,
Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Affective Neuroscience were sponsored
both within Cognitive Neuroscience and Social Psychology. From June 23-July
5th The
Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience was held at UCSB. Featured topics were Social Neuroscience
and Affect & Decision-Making. Then from July 16-27th The
Summer Institute in Social Psychology took place in Austin, TX. At this institute one of the courses was
on Social Neuroscience.
Social Cognitive
Neuroscience Conferences
The next annual meeting
of the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society (SAN) will take place in New York City, October
9-11. In May 2008 the meeting
was held in June in Boston. The Boston
meeting followed and gave a new name to the Neural Systems of Social
Behavior conference held at the University
of Texas at Austin in May 2007, which in turn
followed the initial Social Cognitive Neuroscience
conference at UCLA in 2001. By
registering for the the SAN 2008 meeting,
attendees became inaugural members of the SAN Society, which sponsors the
2009 and all future SAN meetings.
In the past, the lab
was one of the co-organizers of the annual Social Cognitive Neuroscience Preconferences that preceded annual meetings of the
Society for Personality and Social
Psychology in January and annual meetings of the Cognitive
Neuroscience Society in April. The preconferences
brought together leading researchers conducting social cognitive
neuroscience research investigating the neural systems supporting self
perception, self-regulation, and person perception.
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