Neural Representations Behind ‘Social Norm’ Inferences In Humans

Humans are highly skilled in social reasoning, e.g., inferring thoughts of others. This mentalizing ability systematically recruits brain regions such as Temporo-Parietal Junction (TPJ), Precuneus (PC) and medial Prefrontal Cortex (mPFC). Further, posterior mPFC is associated with allocentric mentalizing and conflict monitoring while anterior mPFC is associated with self-reference (egocentric) processing. Here we extend this work to how we reason not just about what one person thinks but about the abstract shared social norm. We apply functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate neural representations while participants judge the social congruency between emotional auditory utterances in relation to visual scenes according to how ‘most people’ would perceive it. Behaviorally, judging according to a social norm increased the similarity of response patterns among participants. Multivoxel pattern analysis revealed that social congruency information was not represented in visual and auditory areas, but was clear in most parts of the mentalizing network: TPJ, PC and posterior (but not anterior) mPFC. Furthermore, interindividual variability in anterior mPFC representations was inversely related to the behavioral ability to adjust to the social norm. Our results suggest that social norm inferencing is associated with a distributed and partially individually specific representation of social congruency in the mentalizing network.