Mentalizing from self and friend perspectives: Relations between inter-brain neural similarity, affective similarity and social anxiety symptoms.
6 affiliations
- 1Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States.
- 2Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, United States.
- 3Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States.
- 4Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States.
- 5Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, United States.
- 6Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, United States.
Abstract
Social interactions are dynamic and complex, relying on tracking variation in your own and your partner's affective and mental states. Being "in-sync" neurally and building a shared consensus can mark successful social interactions. In addition, social anxiety can impact social experiences. We used a novel, naturalistic paradigm to investigate relations between inter-brain neural similarity within mentalizing regions, affective similarity, and social anxiety symptoms. Undergraduate student friend pairs (N = 34, 85% White, 65% Women) engaged in a social interaction while videos captured from their individual perspectives were recorded. Participants watched clips of the social interaction from both their own perspective (their personal view of the social interaction) and their friend's perspective (their friend's personal view of the social interaction) while fMRI data were collected. They rated their affect after each clip. Inter-brain neural similarity was computed across three conditions: 1) Same-Stimuli: both participants viewed identical visual stimuli as in a traditional neural similarity paradigm, 2) Self-Perspective: both participants viewed the clip from their own perspective like the originally experienced social interaction, and 3) Friend-Perspective: both participants viewed the clip from their friend's perspective, a novel perspective. Participants self-reported their social anxiety symptoms, and affective similarity captured affect rating concordance within dyads. In contrast to the Same-Stimuli condition, when participants viewed the clips like they originally experienced the social interaction (Self-Perspective), greater affective similarity was associated with greater inter-brain neural similarity. When participants viewed the clips from a novel perspective (Friend-Perspective), participants lower in social anxiety symptoms exhibited greater inter-brain neural similarity with greater affective similarity; whereas participants higher in social anxiety symptoms exhibited greater inter-brain neural similarity with less affective similarity. The results suggest stimuli from socially relevant perspectives, rather than identical stimuli, may reveal more nuanced brain-behavior dynamics, allowing for a better understanding of individual differences in socioemotional experience.
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BibTeX
@article{vallorani2026mentalizing,
title = {{Mentalizing from self and friend perspectives: Relations between inter-brain neural similarity, affective similarity and social anxiety symptoms.}},
author = {Alicia Vallorani and Kathryn A McNaughton and Marisa N Lytle and Michael N Hallquist and Elizabeth Redcay and Koraly Pérez-Edgar},
journal = {Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1162/imag.a.1403},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42903551},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Mentalizing from self and friend perspectives: Relations between inter-brain neural similarity, affective similarity and social anxiety symptoms.
AU - Alicia Vallorani
AU - Kathryn A McNaughton
AU - Marisa N Lytle
AU - Michael N Hallquist
AU - Elizabeth Redcay
AU - Koraly Pérez-Edgar
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/16
JO - Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)
DO - 10.1162/imag.a.1403
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42903551
AB - Social interactions are dynamic and complex, relying on tracking variation in your own and your partner's affective and mental states. Being "in-sync" neurally and building a shared consensus can mark successful social interactions. In addition, social anxiety can impact social experiences. We used a novel, naturalistic paradigm to investigate relations between inter-brain neural similarity within mentalizing regions, affective similarity, and social anxiety symptoms. Undergraduate student friend pairs (N = 34, 85% White, 65% Women) engaged in a social interaction while videos captured from their individual perspectives were recorded. Participants watched clips of the social interaction from both their own perspective (their personal view of the social interaction) and their friend's perspective (their friend's personal view of the social interaction) while fMRI data were collected. They rated their affect after each clip. Inter-brain neural similarity was computed across three conditions: 1) Same-Stimuli: both participants viewed identical visual stimuli as in a traditional neural similarity paradigm, 2) Self-Perspective: both participants viewed the clip from their own perspective like the originally experienced social interaction, and 3) Friend-Perspective: both participants viewed the clip from their friend's perspective, a novel perspective. Participants self-reported their social anxiety symptoms, and affective similarity captured affect rating concordance within dyads. In contrast to the Same-Stimuli condition, when participants viewed the clips like they originally experienced the social interaction (Self-Perspective), greater affective similarity was associated with greater inter-brain neural similarity. When participants viewed the clips from a novel perspective (Friend-Perspective), participants lower in social anxiety symptoms exhibited greater inter-brain neural similarity with greater affective similarity; whereas participants higher in social anxiety symptoms exhibited greater inter-brain neural similarity with less affective similarity. The results suggest stimuli from socially relevant perspectives, rather than identical stimuli, may reveal more nuanced brain-behavior dynamics, allowing for a better understanding of individual differences in socioemotional experience.
SN - 2837-6056
ER -