Mechanisms of Social Cognition Chris D. Frith 1,3 and Uta Frith 2,3 1 Wellcome Trust Center for Neuroimaging and 2 Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, WCIN 3AR United Kingdom, and 3 Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark; email: c.frith@ucl.ac.uk, u.frith@ucl.ac.uk Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2012. 63:287–313 First published online as a Review in Advance on August 11, 2011 The Annual Review of Psychology is online at psych.annualreviews.org This article’s doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100449 Copyright c  2012 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved 0066-4308/12/0110-0287$20.00 Keywords observational learning, imitation, reputation, teaching, mentalizing, meta-cognition Abstract Social animals including humans share a range of social mechanisms that are automatic and implicit and enable learning by observation. Learning from others includes imitation of actions and mirroring of emotions. Learning about others, such as their group membership and reputa- tion, is crucial for social interactions that depend on trust. For accurate prediction of others’ changeable dispositions, mentalizing is required, i.e., tracking of intentions, desires, and beliefs. Implicit mentalizing is present in infants less than one year old as well as in some nonhuman species. Explicit mentalizing is a meta-cognitive process and enhances the ability to learn about the world through self-monitoring and reflec- tion, and may be uniquely human. Meta-cognitive processes can also exert control over automatic behavior, for instance, when short-term gains oppose long-term aims or when selfish and prosocial interests col- lide. We suggest that they also underlie the ability to explicitly share experiences with other agents, as in reflective discussion and teaching. These are key in increasing the accuracy of the models of the world that we construct. 287 Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2012.63:287-313. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org by University of Oxford - Bodleian Library on 12/03/11. For personal use only.