Behavioral work showed both models uniquely explain human social judgments - suggesting people use both strategies. But how are these computations organized in the brain?
This challenges a strict division-of-labor story for the social brain. Both "social perception" and "mentalizing" regions carry out a combination of relational bottom-up and higher-order inferential computations!
To study this, we recently developed two computational models:
🔵 A bottom-up GNN that makes social inferences by relationally structuring visual input
🔴 A generative inverse-planning model that infers agents' goals, beliefs, and relationships by simulating what rational agents would do
Previous work suggests a *functional hierarchy*: pSTS extracts coarse interaction structure, TPJ performs higher-order mental state inferences.
This suggests a computational-neural mapping:
pSTS ➡ 🔵 bottom-up relational computations
TPJ ➡ 🔴 inverse-planning computations
In everyday life, we can effortlessly tell if people are interacting - and whether they're being friendly or fighting. We know “social perception” and “mentalizing” regions are involved (like pSTS and TPJ respectively), but what computations are they actually performing?
We compared both models to fMRI responses while participants watched animated social interactions
Surprising result: BOTH models explained neural responses in BOTH pSTS and TPJ, even after controlling for the variance explained by the other model.
⇒Computations not strictly segregated by region.
Excited to share new work on how the brain makes social inferences from visual input! 🧠👯♂️
(With @lisik.bsky.social , @shariliu.bsky.social, @tianminshu.bsky.social , and Minjae Kim!) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Heading to #vss2026? Check out the presentations from our lab @vssmtg.bsky.social
Excited to be in Amsterdam for #CCN2025! If you're here, check out the presentations from our lab 👇@qinwenshuo.bsky.social @ziruichen.bsky.social @manasimalik.bsky.social
@cogcompneuro.bsky.social
Manasi Malik
Manasi Malik
The department of Cognitive Science @jhu.edu is seeking motivated students interested in joining our interdisciplinary PhD program! Applications due 1 Dec
Our PhD students also run an application mentoring program for prospective students. Mentoring requests due November 15.
tinyurl.com/2nrn4jf9
