Understanding Task- and Resting-State Neural Activation in Relation to Real-World Social Behavior

神经科学研究的一个基本目标是描述与典型和非典型行为相关的大脑操作。然而，先前的研究确定了特定于控制良好但有些人为的实验室环境的操作。在神经成像环境中，理解与社会行为相关的神经操作的目标尤其具有挑战性；在日常生活中与他人建立互动关系是很困难的。例如，许多研究已经确定了支持社会情感功能（如移情和亲社会行为）的理论神经操作模式。这些研究的假设目标是了解表现出高水平同理心和亲社会行为的个体与表现出低水平同理心和亲社会行为的个体在神经操作上的差异。然而，这些研究在实验上操纵了移情、亲社会行为和其他社会情感功能，没有与其他人的互动，也没有在实验室外发现的背景。因此，在实验环境中观察到的神经操作是否有助于预测人们在实验室之外的个性和行为，这仍然是未知的。该项目将采用一种新的方法，通过研究在实验室中以社会情感功能为典型特征的神经激活是否能预测人们在实验室外表现出个性和社会行为差异的程度，来连接神经模式和行为。这项研究结合了前沿理论和方法的独特融合，这些理论和方法来自不经常相互作用的学科的研究人员。它包括测量神经操作和日常社会行为的严格测量的前沿研究。该项目将调查性格和日常行为与神经操作的关系，研究对象是执行各种社会情感任务的大样本人群。具体来说，该项目将测试任务相关激活和静息状态连接的变化如何调节社会情绪因素（如性格共情）和现实世界行为（如亲社会行为）的个体差异之间的关系。对现实世界行为的衡量将从长期的社交媒体行为中得出。该项目将为社会人格心理学、认知神经科学、计算机科学和传播学的各个层面的分析提供跨学科、尖端测量的数据和培训。该项目还将生成一个可公开访问的数据集，该数据集将性格个体差异、神经活动变化的多种测量方法和现实世界的社会行为联系起来，以促进多学科合作，并调查分析水平之间的关系。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

A fundamental goal of neuroscience research is to characterize brain operation in relation to both typical and atypical behavior. Prior research, however, identified operations that are specific to the well-controlled yet somewhat artificial lab environment. The goal of understanding neural operations in relation to social behavior is particularly challenging in neuroimaging environments; it is difficult to model interactions with other people as experienced in everyday life. For example, many studies have identified patterns of neural operations theorized to support socioemotional function such as empathy and prosocial behavior. The presumed goal of these studies is to understand how individuals who exhibit high levels of empathy and/or prosocial behavior differ in their neural operations from individuals who show lower levels. However, these studies have experimentally manipulated empathy, prosocial behavior, and other socioemotional functions, without interactions with other people and without contexts found outside the lab. Therefore, it remains unknown whether the neural operations observed in the experimental context can help to predict people’s personalities and behavior outside of the lab. The project will take a new approach to bridging neural patterns with behavior by investigating whether neural activation typically characterized by socioemotional function in the lab predicts the extent to which people show differences in their personalities and social behavior outside the lab. This investigation incorporates a unique blend of cutting-edge theory and method from researchers in disciplines that do not often interact. It includes research at the forefront of measuring neural operations and rigorous measurement of everyday social behavior. This project will investigate how personalities and everyday behavior relate to neural operation, over a large sample of people who perform a diverse set of socioemotional tasks. Specifically, this project will test how variation in task-related activation and resting state connectivity mediates the relationship between individual differences in socioemotional factors (such as dispositional empathy) and real-world behavior (such as prosocial action). Measurements of real-world behavior will be drawn from long-term social media behavior. The project will provide data and training in interdisciplinary, cutting edge measurement at each level of analysis in social-personality psychology, cognitive neuroscience, computer science, and communication. The project will also generate a publicly accessible data set that bridges dispositional individual differences, multiple measures of variation in neural activity, and real-world social behavior, to facilitate multidisciplinary collaborations and to investigate relations between levels of analyses.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.