Through the Looking Glass: Distinguishing Neural Correlates of Relational and Non-relational Self-reference and Person-representation

Neuroimaging research finds a substantial overlap between self-related and social cognitive processes. This study examines this overlap by comparing participant brain activity across three different judgments about the self and a friend that varied based on their degree of social embeddedness - traits, roles, and groups. Contrasting trait and role judgments, there was preferential activation for roles in canonical mentalizing regions, whereas traits activated areas associated with semantic processing. Additionally, activations associated with roles overlapped substantially with those associated with reflecting on the friend (rather than the self), as well as with the degree to which participants believed that the stimulus reflected a social specialization. Our findings provide evidence for a dissociation between two modes of self-reference - one associated with more social relational processing (roles) and the other associated with semantic memory processes (traits). This suggests that socially-embedded aspects of identity may form a significant component of the self-concept.M.A