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Why we interact: On the functional role of the striatum in the subjective experience of social interaction
Open accessAbstract
There is ample evidence that human primates strive for social contact and experience interactions with conspecifics as intrinsically rewarding. Focusing on gaze behavior as a crucial means of human interaction, this study employed a unique combination of neuroimaging, eye-tracking, and computer-animated virtual agents to assess the neural mechanisms underlying this component of behavior. In the interaction task, participants believed that during each interaction the agent's gaze behavior could either be controlled by another participant or by a computer program. Their task was to indicate whether they experienced a given interaction as an interaction with another human participant or the computer program based on the agent's reaction. Unbeknownst to them, the agent was always controlled by a computer to enable a systematic manipulation of gaze reactions by varying the degree to which the agent engaged in joint attention. This allowed creating a tool to distinguish neural activity underlying the subjective experience of being engaged in social and non-social interaction. In contrast to previous research, this allows measuring neural activity while participants experience active engagement in real-time social interactions. Results demonstrate that gaze-based interactions with a perceived human partner are associated with activity in the ventral striatum, a core component of reward-related neurocircuitry. In contrast, interactions with a computer-driven agent activate attention networks. Comparisons of neural activity during interaction with behaviorally naïve and explicitly cooperative partners demonstrate different temporal dynamics of the reward system and indicate that the mere experience of engagement in social interaction is sufficient to recruit this system.
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“Functional MRI studies have shown that experiencing partial components of positive social interactions such as real time sharing of eye gaze,67 hearing someone laugh after a telling a joke,68 and observing videos from someone who has a shared intention,69 activates neural reward systems in similar ways as do non-social rewards (eg, monetary rewards).”
From The effects of social deprivation on adolescent development and mental health (2020) · cites this paper as [67]
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“These regions reflect a broad integrated set of regions that support the coordinated functioning of vision, attention, task control, and—along with subcortical and cingulate regions (Schilbach et al. 2010; Pfeiffer et al. 2014; Oberwelland et al. 2016)—motivation and reward signals.”
From Joint attention and brain functional connectivity in infants and toddlers (2017) · cites this paper as Pfeiffer et al. 2014
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“In addition, it would be helpful to obtain indicators of participants' propensity to engage in social interaction, for example by assessing their social reward dependence using Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory (Cloninger et al., 1993).”
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Metadata
- Authors
- Pfeiffer, U. J., Schilbach, L., Timmermans, B., Kuzmanovic, B., Georgescu, A. L., Bente, G., & Vogeley, K.
- Affiliations
- Forschungszentrum Jülich (DE)
- University Hospital Cologne (DE)
- University of Aberdeen (GB)
- University of Cologne (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Pfeiffer, Ulrich J.
- ORCID
- Venue
- NeuroImage
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2014-11
- Volume
- 101
- Pages
- 124-137
- ISSN
- 1053-8119 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1970167643
- Cited by
- 155
- References
- 96
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 22.68
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Locations
- NeuroImage (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Kölner Universitäts PublikationsServer (Universität zu Köln) (publishedVersion)
- Aberdeen University Research Archive (Aberdeen University) (submittedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Köln Fortune Program of the Medical Faculty at the University of Cologne
- German Ministry of Research and Education
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Endocrine and Autonomic Systems › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Keywords
- social interaction, ventral striatum, reward processing, gaze behavior, joint attention, virtual agents, attentional networks, social motivation
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Cooperative Behavior, Eye Movements, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Reward, User-Computer Interface, Prefrontal Cortex, Eye Movement Measurements, Young Adult, Functional Neuroimaging, Ventral Striatum
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