Social attention and the brain
Open accessAbstract
Humans and other animals pay attention to other members of their groups to acquire valuable social information about them, including information about their identity, dominance, fertility, emotions, and likely intent. In primates, attention to other group members and the objects of their attention is mediated by neural circuits that transduce sensory information about others and translate that information into value signals that bias orienting. This process likely proceeds via two distinct but integrated pathways: an ancestral, subcortical route that mediates crude but fast orienting to animate objects and faces; and a more derived route involving cortical orienting circuits that mediate nuanced and context-dependent social attention.
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This process is visible in extant animals, whose attention focusing skills may develop partly via social mechanisms and who are hyper-attuned to social cues.
“This process is visible in extant animals, whose attention focusing skills may develop partly via social mechanisms (e.g. in young humans [35]), and who are hyper-attuned to social cues [36–38].”
From The social origins of consciousness (2025) · cites this paper as [37]
The OFC transforms reward information into a common currency of subjective hedonic value that informs executive systems and guides goal-directed action.
“the OFC plays a key role in transforming reward information into a common currency of subjective hedonic value that then informs executive systems and guides goal-directed action [25].”
From The social motivation theory of autism (2012) · cites this paper as [25]
The amygdala guides attention to biologically relevant social stimuli and calculates and updates social orienting value.
“the amygdala plays an important role in guiding attention to biologically relevant stimuli, such as social information conveyed by eyes, faces, or biological motion [24], and in calculating and updating social orienting value [25]”
From The social motivation theory of autism (2012) · cites this paper as [25]
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- Authors
- Klein, J. T., Shepherd, S. V., & Platt, M. L.
- Affiliations
- Duke University (US)
- Princeton University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Platt, Michael L.
- Venue
- Current Biology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2009-11
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 20
- Pages
- R958-R962
- ISSN
- 0960-9822 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3387539
- OpenAlex
- W2075262041
- Cited by
- 196
- References
- 45
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 19 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 13 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 0.78
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Current Biology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Autism Speaks
- Princeton University
- National Institutes of Health (5f31mh081443-03)
- National Institute of Mental Health (T32 MH065214-1, R01MH071817, MH-71817, R01MH086712, F31-MH081443, T32MH065214)
- National Eye Institute (EY-013496, R01EY013496)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- social attention, primate social cognition, orienting, face processing, social information, value signals, social identity, dominance, emotion recognition
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Attention, Brain, Brain Mapping, Female, Humans, Deception, Macaca mulatta, Male, Social Behavior, Social Dominance, Social Perception, Visual Perception
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