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WIREs Cogn Sci

An integrative cognitive neuroscience theory of social reasoning and moral judgment

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Cognitive neuroscience has made considerable progress in understanding the involvement of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in social cognition and moral judgment. Accumulating evidence suggests that representations within the lateral PFC enable people to orchestrate their thoughts and actions in concert with their intentions to support goal‐directed social behavior. Despite the pivotal role of this region in guiding social interactions, remarkably little is known about the functional organization and forms of social knowledge mediated by the lateral PFC. Here, we review recent theoretical developments in evolutionary psychology and emerging evidence from the social and decision neuroscience literatures demonstrating the importance of the lateral PFC for orchestrating behavior on the basis of evolutionarily adaptive social norms for obligatory, prohibited, and permissible courses of action. WIREs Cogn Sci 2011 2 55–67 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.84

Figure 1.

Brodmann map of the lateral prefrontal cortex (Reprinted with permission from Ref 53 Copyright 2004 Nature Reviews)..

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Figure 2.

Ontogenetic map of the prefrontal cortex according to Flechsig.62,63 The numeration of the areas indicates the order of their myelination. Modified with permission from Flechsig.63.

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Figure 3.

An evolutionarily adaptive neural architecture for goal‐directed social behavior. (a) Summa‐ rizes the functional organization of the lateral PFC, and (b–d) illustrate supportive evidence.

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Figure 4.

Integrative anatomy of the macaque monkey prefrontal cortex. Numbers refer to subregions within the lateral prefrontal cortex defined by Brodmann. Modified with permission from Miller.52.

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Konrad Körding

Konrad Körding

Konrad Körding is Assistant Professor of Physiology and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, part of Northwestern University. Before joining Northwestern in 2006, Professor Körding worked in three different research groups, most recently in 2004-2005 at MIT, studying machine learning and hierarchical Bayesian models.


Professor Körding is a member of the Swiss Society for Neuroscience, the German Society for Neuroscience, the Society for Neuroscience (USA) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Professor Körding’s current research with the Bayesian Behavior group aims to improve rehabilitation procedures through a greater understanding of motor learning. In order to do this the team studies how people move, and how these movements are affected by uncertainty.

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