Individual differences in our capacity to read other people’s emotions and to remember faces we have seen before are highly variable in the general population. Some people are super-recognizers; others have difficulty remembering their own family members. Such abilities are also highly heritable, implying our genetic makeup exerts an important influence.

But what genes are involved in social perception? Where do they act when our brains process social signals? What happens if the social perception system malfunctions? How does it affect our social behaviour?

Professor Peter Halligan, Director of the BNPA, asks David Skuse, Professor of Behavioural and Brain Sciences at the Institute of Child Health, University College London, the answers to these questions.