The social computational brain: How the brain learns from and makes inferences about others

John P. O'Doherty
Caltech

Considerable progress has been made in understanding the neural computations underlying the capacity 
of the human brain to learn from experience and in making decisions to maximize future rewards. Much 
less is known about how the brain is able to learn and make decisions in a social context. In this talk, I 
will outline a computational model-based approach in which we combine computational modeling with 
fMRI experiments in order to gain insight into how it is that the brain is capable of learning from and 
about other people, as well as to ascertain how it is that the brain can make use of the knowledge 
acquired about or from others in order to make good decisions in a social context. Our findings point to 
the involvement of multiple mechanisms in social learning and decision making. Some of these are 
domain-general (i.e., involved in both social and non-social contexts), while other brain mechanisms 
may be more domain-specific (i.e., with a relatively more specialized involvement only in social 
contexts).