Special Issue “Understanding Others”: Research Report Through the looking glass: Distinguishing neural correlates of relational and non-relational self- reference and person representation Elizabeth U. Long 1 , Nathan E. Wheeler 1 and William A. Cunningham * Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Canada article info Article history: Received 20 June 2019 Reviewed 29 July 2019 Revised 12 October 2019 Accepted 28 February 2020 Published online 5 June 2020 Keywords: Self-reference Social cognition Social roles Social groups Mentalizing fMRI abstract Background: Neuroimaging studies have found a substantial overlap between self-related and social cognitive processes. This study examines three different ways of conceptualizing a person - one that requires considering how they are embedded in their social environment (roles), one that requires considering their generalized qualities (traits), and one that identifies their relevant group memberships. To the extent that relational aspects of identity require considering how a person is embedded in their social environment we should find greater activation for role judgements in regions associated with social cognitive processes. Methods: During fMRI scanning, 38 participants made stimulus judgments about them- selves and a close other regarding the target’s traits, social roles, and group memberships in a 2 (target of judgment) x 3 (stimulus category) within-participant design. Results: Relatively greater activation in areas broadly associated with theory of mind and mentalizing (e.g., PCC, TPJ) was found for social role, compared to trait judgments. By contrast, trait judgments, compared to role judgments, activated regions associated with semantic memory (e.g., IFG). Conjunction analyses showed that activations associated with roles overlapped with regions associated with a meta-analytic map of mentalization, judgments made about others, and stimuli reflecting higher social specialization, indi- cating that roles may require considering how a person is socially embedded. Judgments about group memberships were associated with brain regions found for both trait and role judgments. Conclusion: Our findings provide evidence for a distinction between two modes of social reference - one that is relatively more associated with social relational processing (roles) and that is relatively more dependent on semantic memory processes (traits). Given the substantial overlap between the pattern of results for roles (relative to traits) and other (relative to self), it may be the case that at least part of our representation of ourselves and others may fundamentally require representing people as embedded in social networks. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. 100 St. George Street (4th floor) Toronto, ON, M5S3G3, Canada. E-mail address: cunningham@psych.utoronto.ca (W.A. Cunningham). 1 The first and second authors contributed equally to this work. Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cortex cortex 130 (2020) 257 e274 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2020.02.025 0010-9452/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.