Nice or nerdy? The neural representation of social and competence traits

This study investigates to what extent social and competence traits are represented in a similar or different neural trait code. To localize these trait codes, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging repetition suppression, which is a rapid reduction of neuronal responses upon repeated presentation of the same implied trait. Participants had to infer an agent's trait from brief trait-implying behavioral descriptions. In each trial, the critical target sentence was preceded by a prime sentence that implied the same trait or a different competence-related trait which was also opposite in valence. The results revealed robust repetition suppression from prime to target in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) given a similar (social) as well as a dissimilar (competence) prime. The suppression given a similar prime confirms earlier research demonstrating that a trait code is represented in the ventral mPFC. The suppression given a dissimilar prime is interpreted as indicating that participants categorize a combination of competence and social information into novel subcategories, reflecting nice (but incompetent) or nerdy (but socially awkward) traits. A multi-voxel pattern analysis broadly confirmed these results, and pinpointed the inferior parietal cortex, cerebellum, temporo-parietal junction and mPFC as areas that differentiate between social and competence traits.