The bigger your pupils, the better my comprehension: an ERP study of how pupil size and gaze of the speaker affect syntactic processing.

Gaze direction and pupil dilation play a critical role in communication and social interaction due to their ability to redirect and capture our attention and their relevance for emotional information. The present study aimed to explore whether the pupil size and gaze direction of the speaker affect language comprehension. Participants listened to sentences that could be correct or contain a syntactic anomaly, while the static face of a speaker was manipulated in terms of gaze direction (direct, averted) and pupil size (mydriasis, miosis). Left anterior negativity (LAN) and P600 linguistic event-related potential components were observed in response to syntactic anomalies across all conditions. The speaker's gaze did not impact syntactic comprehension. However, the amplitude of the LAN component for mydriasis (dilated pupil) was larger than for miosis (constricted pupil) condition. Larger pupils are generally associated with care, trust, interest, and attention, which might facilitate syntactic processing at early automatic stages. The result also supports the permeable and context-dependent nature of syntax. Previous studies also support an automatic nature of syntax (fast and efficient), which combined with the permeability to relevant sources of communicative information, such as pupil size and emotions, is highly adaptive for language comprehension and social interaction.

The Self-reference Effect Can Modulate Language Syntactic Processing Even Without Explicit Awareness: An Electroencephalography Study.

Although it is well established that self-related information can rapidly capture our attention and bias cognitive functioning, whether this self-bias can affect language processing remains largely unknown. In addition, there is an ongoing debate as to the functional independence of language processes, notably regarding the syntactic domain. Hence, this study investigated the influence of self-related content on syntactic speech processing. Participants listened to sentences that could contain morphosyntactic anomalies while the masked face identity (self, friend, or unknown faces) was presented for 16 msec preceding the critical word. The language-related ERP components (left anterior negativity [LAN] and P600) appeared for all identity conditions. However, the largest LAN effect followed by a reduced P600 effect was observed for self-faces, whereas a larger LAN with no reduction of the P600 was found for friend faces compared with unknown faces. These data suggest that both early and late syntactic processes can be modulated by self-related content. In addition, alpha power was more suppressed over the left inferior frontal gyrus only when self-faces appeared before the critical word. This may reflect higher semantic demands concomitant to early syntactic operations (around 150-550 msec). Our data also provide further evidence of self-specific response, as reflected by the N250 component. Collectively, our results suggest that identity-related information is rapidly decoded from facial stimuli and may impact core linguistic processes, supporting an interactive view of syntactic processing. This study provides evidence that the self-reference effect can be extended to syntactic processing.

Subliminal Priming Effects of Masked Social Hierarchies During a Categorization Task: An Event-Related Brain Potentials Study.

Evidence so far shows that status detection increases attentional resources, especially for high hierarchies. However, little is known about the effects of masked social status cues on cognition. Here, we explore the masked priming effects of social status cues during a categorization task. For this purpose, we use Event-Related brain Potentials (ERP) time-locked to the presentation of two types of artworks (Christian, non-Christian) primed by masked social hierarchies sorted into two types (religious, military), and in two ranks (high, low) each. ERP results indicate early attention effects at N1, showing larger amplitudes for the processing of artworks after high and military ranks. Thereafter, the P3a increased for all artworks primed by religious vs. military figures, indicating a relevant role of task demands at this processing stage. Our results remark the automaticity of hierarchy detection and extend previous findings on the effects of social status cues on complex cognitive processes.

Spatio-temporal brain dynamics of self-identity: an EEG source analysis of the current and past self.

Current research on self-identity suggests that the self is settled in a unique mental representation updated across the lifespan in autobiographical memory. Spatio-temporal brain dynamics of these cognitive processes are poorly understood. ERP studies revealed early (N170-N250) and late (P3-LPC) waveforms modulations tracking the temporal processing of global face configuration, familiarity processes, and access to autobiographical contents. Neuroimaging studies revealed that such processes encompass face-specific regions of the occipitotemporal cortex, and medial cortical regions tracing the self-identity into autobiographical memory across the life span. The present study combined both approaches, analyzing brain source power using a data-driven, beamforming approach. Face recognition was used in two separate tasks: identity (self, close friend and unknown) and life stages (childhood, adolescence, adulthood) recognition. The main areas observed were specific-face areas (fusiform area), autobiographical memory areas (medial prefrontal cortex, parahippocampus, posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus), along with executive areas (dorsolateral prefrontal and anterior temporal cortices). The cluster-permutation test yielded no significant early effects (150-200 ms). However, during the 250-300 ms time window, the precuneus and the fusiform cortices exhibited larger activation to familiar compared to unknown faces, regardless of life stages. Subsequently (300-600 ms), the medial prefrontal cortex discriminates between self-identity vs. close-familiar and unknown. Moreover, significant effects were found in the cluster-permutation test specifically on self-identity discriminating between adulthood from adolescence and childhood. These findings suggest that recognizing self-identity from other facial identities (diachronic self) comprises the temporal coordination of anterior and posterior areas. While mPFC maintained an updated representation of self-identity (diachronic self) based on actual rewarding value, the dlPFC, FG, MTG, paraHC, PCC was sensitive to different life stages of self-identity (synchronic self) during the access to autobiographical memory.

Individual responsiveness to a school-based karate intervention: An ancillary analysis of a randomized controlled trial.

INTRODUCTION: School-based sport interventions have shown beneficial effects on psychosocial functioning and academic performance in children. However, the inter-individual variability in response to these types of interventions remains unclear. We aimed to determine which children benefit most from a school-based sport intervention. METHODS: This is an ancillary analysis of a randomized controlled trial assessing the effects of a 1-year school-based karate intervention (versus "traditional" physical education lessons) in children (7-8 years) from twenty schools across five European countries. Outcomes included psychosocial functioning (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire [SDQ] for parents) and academic performance (grade point average). Only participants of the intervention group were included in the present ancillary analysis, and were categorized as responders or non-responders for the analyzed outcomes attending to whether improvements surpassed a minimal clinically important difference. RESULTS: About 388 children (187 girls) from the intervention group completed the study, of which 17% and 46% were considered responders for SDQ and academic performance, respectively. Responders for the SDQ presented higher SDQ scores (i.e., higher psychosocial difficulties) at baseline than non-responders (p < 0.001). Responders for academic performance were mostly males (p = 0.017), with an older age (p = 0.030), and with worse academic performance (p < 0.001) at baseline compared with non-responders, and tended to present higher SDQ scores (p = 0.055). Responders for one outcome obtained greater benefits from the intervention on the other outcome (e.g., responders for SDQ improved academic performance [p < 0.001] compared with non-responders). CONCLUSIONS: A school-based sport intervention (karate) seems particularly effective for children with psychosocial difficulties and low academic performance.

Effects of a school-based karate intervention on academic achievement, psychosocial functioning, and physical fitness: A multi-country cluster randomized controlled trial.

PURPOSE: To examine the effects of a school-based karate intervention on academic achievement, psychosocial functioning, and physical fitness in children aged 7-8 years. METHODS: Twenty schools in 5 different European countries (2 second-grade classrooms per school) participated in a cluster randomized controlled trial (Sport at School trial). Participants were assigned to either a control group, which continued with their habitual physical education lessons, or to an intervention group, which replaced these lessons with a 1-year karate intervention (Karate Mind and Movement program). A total of 721 children (344 girls and 377 boys, 7.4 ± 0.5 years old, mean ± SD) completed the study, of which 333 and 388 were assigned to the control group and intervention group, respectively. Outcomes included academic performance (average grade), psychosocial functioning (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire for parents), and different markers of physical fitness (cardiorespiratory fitness, balance, and flexibility). RESULTS: The intervention provided small but significant benefits compared to the control group for academic achievement (d = 0.16; p = 0.003), conduct problems (d = -0.28; p = 0.003), cardiorespiratory fitness (d = 0.36; p < 0.001), and balance (d = 0.24; p = 0.015). There was a trend towards significant benefits for flexibility (d = 0.24; p = 0.056). No significant benefits were observed for other variables, including psychosocial difficulties, emotional symptoms, hyperactivity/inattention, peer problems, or prosocial behaviour (all p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: A 1-year school-based karate intervention was effective in improving academic achievement, conduct problems, and physical fitness in primary school children. The results support the inclusion of karate during physical education lessons.

Effects of a school-based karate intervention on academic achievement, psychosocial functioning, and physical fitness: A multi-country cluster randomized controlled trial.

PURPOSE: To examine the effects of a school-based karate intervention on academic achievement, psychosocial functioning, and physical fitness in children aged 7-8 years. METHODS: Twenty schools in 5 different European countries (2 second-grade classrooms per school) participated in a cluster randomized controlled trial (Sport at School trial). Participants were assigned to either a control group, which continued with their habitual physical education lessons, or to an intervention group, which replaced these lessons with a 1-year karate intervention (Karate Mind and Movement program). A total of 721 children (344 girls and 377 boys, 7.4 ± 0.5 years old, mean ± standard deviation) completed the study, of which 333 and 388 were assigned to the control group and intervention group, respectively. Outcomes included academic performance (average grade), psychosocial functioning (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire for parents), and different markers of physical fitness (cardiorespiratory fitness, balance, and flexibility). RESULTS: The intervention provided small but significant benefits compared to the control group for academic achievement (d = 0.16; p = 0.003), conduct problems (d = -0.28; p = 0.003), cardiorespiratory fitness (d = 0.36; p < 0.001), and balance (d = 0.24; p = 0.015). There was a trend towards significant benefits for flexibility (d = 0.24; p = 0.056). No significant benefits were observed for other variables, including psychosocial difficulties, emotional symptoms, hyperactivity/inattention, peer problems, or prosocial behavior (all p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: A 1-year school-based karate intervention was effective in improving academic achievement, conduct problems, and physical fitness in primary school children. The results support the inclusion of karate during physical education lessons.

The Automatic but Flexible and Content-Dependent Nature of Syntax.

Syntactic processing has often been considered an utmost example of unconscious automatic processing. In this line, it has been demonstrated that masked words containing syntactic anomalies are processed by our brain triggering event related potential (ERP) components similar to the ones triggered by conscious syntactic anomalies, thus supporting the automatic nature of the syntactic processing. Conversely, recent evidence also points out that regardless of the level of awareness, emotional information and other relevant extralinguistic information modulate conscious syntactic processing too. These results are also in line with suggestions that, under certain circumstances, syntactic processing could also be flexible and context-dependent. However, the study of the concomitant automatic but flexible conception of syntactic parsing is very scarce. Hence, to this aim, we examined whether and how masked emotional words (positive, negative, and neutral masked adjectives) containing morphosyntactic anomalies (half of the cases) affect linguistic comprehension of an ongoing unmasked sentence that also can contain a number agreement anomaly between the noun and the verb. ERP components were observed to emotional information (EPN), masked anomalies (LAN and a weak P600), and unmasked ones (LAN/N400 and P600). Furthermore, interactions in the processing of conscious and unconscious morphosyntactic anomalies and between unconscious emotional information and conscious anomalies were detected. The findings support, on the one hand, the automatic nature of syntax, given that syntactic components LAN and P600 were observed to unconscious anomalies. On the other hand, the flexible, permeable, and context-dependent nature of the syntactic processing is also supported, since unconscious information modulated conscious syntactic components. This double nature of syntactic processing is in line with theories of automaticity, suggesting that even unconscious/automatic, syntactic processing is flexible, adaptable, and context-dependent.

Neural dynamics of pride and shame in social context: an approach with event-related brain electrical potentials.

The neural underpinnings of social emotions such as pride and shame are largely unknown. The present study aims to add evidence by exploiting the advantage of event-related brain electrical potentials (ERP) to examine the neural processes as they unfold over time. For this purpose, a dot-estimation task was adapted to explore these emotions as elicited in a simulated social context. Pride prompted an early negativity seemingly originated in medial parietal regions (precuneus) and possibly reflecting social comparison processes in successful trials. This was followed by a late positivity originated in medial frontal regions, probably reflecting the verification of singularly successful trials. Shame, in turn, elicited an early negativity apparently originated in the cuneus, probably related to mental imagery of the social situation. It was followed by a late positivity mainly originated in the same regions as the early negativity for pride, then conceivably reflecting social comparison processes, in this occasion in unsuccessful trials. None of these fluctuations correlated with self-reported feelings of either emotion, suggesting that they instead relate to social cognitive computations necessary to achieve them. The present results provide a dynamic depiction of neural mechanisms underlying these social emotions, probing the necessity to study them using an integrated approach with different techniques.

Situating language in a minimal social context: how seeing a picture of the speaker's face affects language comprehension.

Natural use of language involves at least two individuals. Some studies have focused on the interaction between senders in communicative situations and how the knowledge about the speaker can bias language comprehension. However, the mere effect of a face as a social context on language processing remains unknown. In the present study, we used event-related potentials to investigate the semantic and morphosyntactic processing of speech in the presence of a photographic portrait of the speaker. In Experiment 1, we show that the N400, a component related to semantic comprehension, increased its amplitude when processed within this minimal social context compared to a scrambled face control condition. Hence, the semantic neural processing of speech is sensitive to the concomitant perception of a picture of the speaker's face, even if irrelevant to the content of the sentences. Moreover, a late posterior negativity effect was found to the presentation of the speaker's face compared to control stimuli. In contrast, in Experiment 2, we found that morphosyntactic processing, as reflected in left anterior negativity and P600 effects, is not notably affected by the presence of the speaker's portrait. Overall, the present findings suggest that the mere presence of the speaker's image seems to trigger a minimal communicative context, increasing processing resources for language comprehension at the semantic level.

How society modulates our behavior: Effects on error processing of masked emotional cues contextualized in social status.

In the present study, we investigate whether subliminal complex social cues have an impact on error-monitoring processes. For this purpose, we presented two social status ranks (high and low) with three possible emotional expressions (happy, neutral, angry), using a backward masking paradigm. Participants were instructed to perform a flanker task while recording Event-Related brain Potentials. Results showed larger amplitudes for the Error-Related Negativity index after the presentation of high relative to low social ranks, only for neutral expressions. Neither the angry nor the happy faces induced significant differences in social rank processing. This indicates that subliminal high social ranks, specifically with neutral expressions, increase error processing by boosting attentional control to perform the ongoing task. Our findings extend current knowledge on the automaticity of social and emotional processing and its influence on performance monitoring mechanisms.

Am I the same person across my life span? An event-related brain potentials study of the temporal perspective in self-identity.

While self-identity recognition has been largely explored, less is known on how self-identity changes as a function of time. The present work aims to explore the influence of the temporal perspective on self-identity by studying event-related brain potentials (ERP) associated with face processing. To this purpose, participants had to perform a recognition task in two blocks with different task demands: (i) identity recognition (self, close-friend, unknown), and (ii) life stage recognition (adulthood -current-, adolescence, and childhood). The results showed that the N170 component was sensitive to changes in the global face configuration when comparing adulthood with other life stages. The N250 was the earliest neural marker discriminating self from other identities and may be related to a preferential deployment of attentional resources to recognize own face. The P3 was a robust index of self-specificity, reflecting stimulus categorization and presumably adding an emotional value. The results of interest emerged for the subsequent late positive complex (LPC). The larger amplitude for the LPC to the self-face was probably associated with further personal significance. The LPC, therefore, was able to distinguish the continuity of the self over time (i.e., between current self and past selves). Likewise, this component also could discriminate, at each life stage, the self-identity from other identities (e.g., between past self and past close-friend). This would confirm a remarkable role of the LPC reflecting higher self-relevance processes. Taken together, the neural representation of oneself (i.e., "I am myself") seems to be stable and also updated across time.

Language comprehension in the social brain: Electrophysiological brain signals of social presence effects during syntactic and semantic sentence processing.

Although, evolutionarily, language emerged predominantly for social purposes, much has yet to be uncovered regarding how language processing is affected by social context. Social presence research studies the ways in which the presence of a conspecific affects processing, but has yet to be thoroughly applied to language processes. The principal aim of this study was to see how syntactic and semantic language processing might be subject to mere social presence effects by studying Event-Related brain Potentials (ERP). In a sentence correctness task, participants read sentences with a semantic or syntactic anomaly while being either alone or in the mere presence of a confederate. Compared to the alone condition, the presence condition was associated with an enhanced N400 component and a more centro-posterior LAN component (interpreted as an N400). The results seem to imply a boosting of heuristic language processing strategies, proper of lexico-semantic operations, which actually entails a shift in the strategy to process morphosyntactic violations, typically based on algorithmic or rule-based strategies. The effects cannot be related to increased arousal levels. The apparent enhancement of the activity in the precuneus while in presence of another person suggests that the effects conceivably relate to social cognitive and attentional factors. The present results suggest that understanding language comprehension would not be complete without considering the impact of social presence effects, inherent to the most natural and fundamental communicative scenarios.

Effects of reader's facial expression on syntactic processing: A brain potential study.

Embodied views of language support that facial sensorimotor information can modulate language comprehension. The aim of this study is to test whether the syntactic processing of simple sentences, as measured with event-related brain potentials (ERP), could be affected by reader's facial expressions. Participants performed a correctness decision task using sentences that could be either correct (50%) or contain a morphosyntactic disagreement (either in gender or number), while making one of four facial expressions: participants either (a) posed no facial expression ("control" condition) (b) brought their eyebrows together, making the ends of two golf tees touch ("frown" condition), (c) held a pencil with their teeth ("smile" condition), or (d) held the pencil using their lips ("non-smile" condition). In all conditions the customary left anterior negativities did not appear. In contrast, an N400-like component emerged, which was larger for the "frown" condition and reduced in the "smile" and "non-smile" conditions. These results can be interpreted as the consequence of either an unconscious emotion induction or an interplay between the motor and the language systems subsequent to the effort needed to hold the facial expression.

He had it Comin': ERPs Reveal a Facilitation for the Processing of Misfortunes to Antisocial Characters.

Human sociality and prosociality rely on social and moral feelings of empathy, compassion, envy, schadenfreude, as well as on the preference for prosocial over antisocial others. We examined the neural underpinnings of the processing of lexical input designed to tap into these type of social feelings. Brainwave responses from 20 participants were measured as they read sentences comprising a randomly delivered ending outcome (fortunate or unfortunate) to social agents previously profiled as prosocial or antisocial individuals. Fortunate outcomes delivered to prosocial and antisocial agents aimed to tap into empathy and envy/annoying feelings, respectively, whereas unfortunate ones into compassion for prosocial agents and schadenfreude for antisocial ones. ERP modulations in early attention-capture (100-200 ms), semantic fit (400 ms), and late reanalysis processes (600 ms) were analyzed. According to the functional interpretation of each of these event-related electrophysiological effects, we conclude that: 1) a higher capture of attention is initially obtained in response to any type of outcome delivered to a prosocial versus an antisocial agent (frontal P2); 2) a facilitated semantic processing occurs for unfortunate outcomes delivered to antisocial agents (N400); and 3) regardless of the protagonist's social profile, an increased later reevaluation for overall unfortunate versus fortunate outcomes takes place (Late Positive Potential). Thus, neural online measures capture a stepwise unfolding impact of social factors during language comprehension, which include a facilitated processing of misfortunes when they happen to occur to antisocial peers (i.e., schadenfreude).

Neural Dynamics in the Processing of Personal Objects as an Index of the Brain Representation of the Self.

Across time, personal belongings incorporate semantic self-knowledge contributing to the subjective meaning of mineness and preference, whose access is prioritized. Although neuroimaging is starting to explore self-knowledge processes, more research is still necessary to better understand many aspects of these processes. One, the timing of the mechanisms involved, is the main purpose of the present study. Here, we investigate the differential patterns of event-related brain potentials and the underlying dynamic causal connectivity between neural generators to self-related objects ranging in self-relevance, as compared to non-personal-related objects. Personal objects elicited lower N2 and higher P3 components compared to non-personal objects, and those with high relevance showed the lowest N2 and the highest P3 amplitudes. Brain sources connectivity corresponding to N2-P3 ERP complex revealed an early connectivity between posterior cingulate/precuneus and parahippocampal gyrus, common for both types of objects. However, this parietal connectivity was kept in later latencies only for personal objects, also intervening the anterior cingulate as the main driver of information flow to the parietal network. Personal objects showed more extensive connectivity between parietal areas and these with anterior cingulate. These findings provide new evidence of a neural connectivity and its temporal course underlying the interplay of lower-level and higher-level cognitive processes relative to personal objects. Further, the results offer new insights on how superordinate mental representations enable distinctive processing of relevant belongings, starting relatively early in time.

Neurofunctional characterization of early prefrontal processes contributing to interpersonal guilt.

Guilt is a social emotion that plays a central role in promoting prosocial behavior. Despite its relevance, it remains poorly understood. The present study aimed to fill this gap by verifying and characterizing a frontal negative fluctuation of the event-related brain potentials (ERP) emerging in conditions of interpersonal guilt. Paired participants would earn money if both performed correctly a dot estimation task (both right); otherwise, both would lose a similar amount (self wrong, partner wrong, and both wrong conditions). The reported feeling of guilt was noticeable in the self wrong condition, which yielded a frontal negativity between 300 and 500 ms after the onset of performance feedback. The amplitude of this fluctuation, however, did not correlate with the amount of guilt reported by the participants, whereas both these values did so with standard measures of empathy. Neither anxiety (trait or state) nor arousal (skin conductance response) seemed to relate to this negativity. A neural source (LORETA) analysis established its generators in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), a region linked to guilt in fMRI studies but also, importantly, to empathy. The frontal negative fluctuation thus might reflect empathic processes contributing to achieve feelings of interpersonal guilt.

The nature of morphosyntactic processing during language perception. Evidence from an additional-task study in Spanish and German.

The present study investigates in how far morphosyntactic processing is affected by an additional non-verbal task and whether this effect differs between German and Spanish, two languages with differences in processing grammatical gender (lexical vs. cue-based processing). By manipulating task load and language we aimed at getting an insight into subprocesses of morphosyntax and their dependence on resources of general and verbal working memory, respectively. In more general terms, this study contributes to the debate on the modularity of morphosyntax. Written German or Spanish sentences with or without gender violations were presented word by word to native speakers. The critical words temporally overlapped in different degrees with a non-linguistic stimulus (a high or low tone). In a single task (Experiment 1) participants judged sentence acceptability and ignored the tones. Experiment 2 required a response to the tones. Left-anterior negativity (LAN) and P600 components were analyzed in the ERPs to critical words. Whereas the LAN was not affected by any of the experimental manipulations, the P600 was modulated as a function of language during the single task conditions (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2 the additional task did not add up with this effect; instead, the differences between language groups vanished. This may indicate that the processes reflected in the P600 draw on resources of general working memory. The LAN data seem to be in line with modularity of first pass morphosyntactic processing, although this interpretation contradicts findings from other studies. The P600 results may highlight the flexibility of sentence-based syntactic processing.

Isolating the Effects of Word's Emotional Valence on Subsequent Morphosyntactic Processing: An Event-Related Brain Potentials Study.

Emotional information significantly affects cognitive processes, as proved by research in the past decades. Recently, emotional effects on language comprehension and, particularly, syntactic processing, have been reported. However, more research is needed, as this is yet very scarce. The present paper focuses on the effects of emotion-laden linguistic material (words) on subsequent morphosyntactic processing, by using Event-Related brain Potentials (ERP). The main aim of this paper is to clarify whether the effects previously reported remain when positive, negative and neutral stimuli are equated in arousal levels and whether they remain long-lasting. In addition, we aimed at testing whether these effects vary as a function of the task performed with the emotion-laden words, to assess their robustness across variations in attention and cognitive load during the processing of the emotional words. In this regard, two different tasks were performed: a reading aloud (RA) task, where participants simply read aloud the words, written in black on white background, and an Emotional Stroop (ES) task, where participants named the colors in which the emotional words were shown. After these words, neutral sentences followed, that had to be evaluated for grammaticality while recording ERPs (50% containing a morphosyntactic anomaly). ERP analyses showed main effects of valence across tasks on the two components reflecting morphosyntactic processing: The Left Anterior Negativity (LAN) is increased by previous emotional words (more by negative than positive) relative to neutral ones, while the P600 is similarly decreased. No interactions between task and valence were found. As a result, an emotion-laden word preceding a sentence can modulate the syntactic processing of the latter, independently of the arousal and processing conditions of the emotional word.

Lunching for Relaxation or Cognitive Control? After-Effects of Social and Solitary Meals.

Meals, especially when taken in company, may affect the diner's mood. In line with findings that mood may alter cognitive control, a previous study by the authors found that after solitary meals, the Simon effect was diminished as compared to a premeal condition, whereas a social meal did not reduce the Simon effect. Here, we investigated whether this finding generalizes across different demands in cognitive control and, therefore, applied a flanker task. Obtained questionnaire data indicated differential effects in mood and relaxation of a social as compared to a solitary meal. Replicating our previous findings, the flanker compatibility effect decreased after a solitary meal but increased after a social meal. The present results support our previous findings with new evidence that a meal taken in a social context attenuates subsequent cognitive control processes compared with a solitary meal.