Abstract

Our ability to successfully perceive and use social signals is a critical feature of our everyday lives. Difficulties in perceiving social cues contribute to deficits in communication and social competence, reduced quality of life, and social isolation. Given this, techniques that enhance social perception could be valuable. One approach that has been shown to be a useful tool to facilitate a variety of cognitive and perceptual abilities is transcranial electrical current stimulation (e.g. transcranial direct current stimulation, transcranial random noise stimulation, transcranial alternating current stimulation). While commonly employed in non-social domains (e.g. numerical cognition, motor learning), fewer studies have examined the utility of this approach for modulating the perception of social information. In this talk, I will describe a series of studies using transcranial electrical current stimulation in order to examine neural processes that are crucial to specific social perception abilities, and whether we can use brain stimulation to aid the processing of social cues. The talk will include studies examining facial identity and emotion perception, and examinig affective state modulation following transcranial electrical current stimulation. I will discuss the promises and challenges of using transcranial electrical current stimulation to modulate social perception abilities in different groups (younger and older typical adults and atypical adults).