The ability to recognize and interpret the actions of other people is essential for many aspects of daily life - from things as simple as avoiding collisions to detecting suspicious behavior or recognizing someone else's emotions. The research efforts of the Computational Social Neuroscience Group (CSNG), led by Dr. James Thompson, are focused on i) examining how we recognize and make sense of other peoples' actions and emotions; ii) how we represent our own social and nonsocial behavior in relation to the external environment; iii) and how we use this information to guide future actions. We investigate these issues using a combination of behavioral paradigms, virtual reality, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and electroencephalography (EEG). The goal of the group's research is to further the understanding of how we see and act with others as part of everyday life and in conditions in which social cognition may be impaired.