Modulation of the fusiform face area following minimal exposure to motivationally relevant faces: evidence of in-group enhancement (not out-group disregard)

The influence of social identity on attitudes toward wildlife

Wildlife conservation depends on supportive social as well as biophysical conditions. Social identities such as hunter and nonhunter are often associated with different attitudes toward wildlife. However, it is unknown whether dynamics within and among these identity groups explain how attitudes form and why they differ. To investigate how social identities help shape wildlife-related attitudes and the implications for wildlife policy and conservation, we built a structural equation model with survey data from Montana (USA) residents (n = 1758) that tested how social identities affect the relationship between experiences with grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis) and attitudes toward the species. Model results (r2 = 0.51) demonstrated that the hunter identity magnified the negative effect of vicarious property damage on attitudes toward grizzly bears (β = -0.381, 95% confidence interval [CI]: -0.584 to -0.178, p < 0.001), which in turn strongly influenced acceptance (β = -0.571, 95% CI: -0.611 to -0.531, p < 0.001). Our findings suggested that hunters' attitudes toward grizzly bears likely become more negative primarily because of in-group social interactions about negative experiences, and similar group dynamics may lead nonhunters to disregard the negative experiences that out-group members have with grizzly bears. Given the profound influence of social identity on human cognitions and behaviors in myriad contexts, the patterns we observed are likely important in a variety of wildlife conservation situations. To foster positive conservation outcomes and minimize polarization, management strategies should account for these identity-driven perceptions while prioritizing conflict prevention and promoting positive wildlife narratives within and among identity groups. This study illustrates the utility of social identity theory for explaining and influencing human-wildlife interactions.

Associations between childhood ethnoracial minority density, cortical thickness, and social engagement among minority youth at clinical high-risk for psychosis

An ethnoracial minority density (EMD) effect in studies of psychotic spectrum disorders has been observed, whereby the risk of psychosis in ethnoracial minority group individuals is inversely related to the proportion of minorities in their area of residence. The authors investigated the relationships among area-level EMD during childhood, cortical thickness (CT), and social engagement (SE) in clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR-P) youth. Data were collected as part of the North American Prodrome Longitudinal Study. Participants included 244 ethnoracial minoritized (predominantly Hispanic, Asian and Black) CHR-P youth and ethnoracial minoritized healthy controls. Among youth at CHR-P (n = 164), lower levels of EMD during childhood were associated with reduced CT in the right fusiform gyrus (adjusted β = 0.54; 95% CI 0.17 to 0.91) and right insula (adjusted β = 0.40; 95% CI 0.05 to 0.74). The associations between EMD and CT were significantly moderated by SE: among youth with lower SE (SE at or below the median, n = 122), lower levels of EMD were significantly associated with reduced right fusiform gyrus CT (adjusted β = 0.72; 95% CI 0.29 to 1.14) and reduced right insula CT (adjusted β = 0.57; 95% CI 0.18 to 0.97). However, among those with greater SE (n = 42), the associations between EMD and right insula and fusiform gyrus CT were not significant. We found evidence that lower levels of ethnic density during childhood were associated with reduced cortical thickness in regional brain regions, but this association may be buffered by greater levels of social engagement.

Exposure to Multicultural Context Affects Neural Response to Out-Group Faces: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Recent migration and globalization trends have led to the emergence of ethnically, religiously, and linguistically diverse countries. Understanding the unfolding of social dynamics in multicultural contexts becomes a matter of common interest to promote national harmony and social cohesion among groups. The current functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study aimed to (i) explore the neural signature of the in-group bias in the multicultural context; and (ii) assess the relationship between the brain activity and people's system-justifying ideologies. A sample of 43 (22 females) Chinese Singaporeans (M = 23.36; SD = 1.41) was recruited. All participants completed the Right Wing Authoritarianism Scale and Social Dominance Orientation Scale to assess their system-justifying ideologies. Subsequently, four types of visual stimuli were presented in an fMRI task: Chinese (in-group), Indian (typical out-group), Arabic (non-typical out-group), and Caucasian (non-typical out-group) faces. The right middle occipital gyrus and the right postcentral gyrus showed enhanced activity when participants were exposed to in-group (Chinese) rather than out-group (Arabic, Indian, and Caucasian) faces. Regions having a role in mentalization, empathetic resonance, and social cognition showed enhanced activity to Chinese (in-group) rather than Indian (typical out-group) faces. Similarly, regions typically involved in socioemotional and reward-related processing showed increased activation when participants were shown Chinese (in-group) rather than Arabic (non-typical out-group) faces. The neural activations in the right postcentral gyrus for in-group rather than out-group faces and in the right caudate in response to Chinese rather than Arabic faces were in a significant positive correlation with participants' Right Wing Authoritarianism scores (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the activity in the right middle occipital gyrus for Chinese rather than out-group faces was in a significant negative correlation with participants' Social Dominance Orientation scores (p < 0.05). Results are discussed by considering the typical role played by the activated brain regions in socioemotional processes as well as the role of familiarity to out-group faces.

Perceived Group Identity Alters Task-Unrelated Thought and Attentional Divergence During Conversations

Task-unrelated thought (TUT) occurs frequently in our daily lives and across a range of tasks, but we know little about how this phenomenon arises during and influences the way we communicate. Conversations also provide a novel opportunity to assess the alignment (or divergence) in TUT during dyadic interactions. We conducted a study to determine: (a) the frequency of TUT during conversation as well as how partners align/diverge in their rates of TUT, (b) the subjective and behavioral correlates of TUT and TUT divergence during conversation, and (c) if perceived social group identity impacts TUT and TUT divergence during conversation. We used a minimal groups induction procedure to assign participants (N = 126) to either an ingroup, outgroup, or control condition. We then asked them to converse with one another via a computer-mediated text chat application for 10 min while self-reporting TUTs. On average, participants reported TUT about once every 2 min; however, this rate was lower for participants in the ingroup condition, compared to the control condition. Conversational pairs in the ingroup condition were also aligned more in their rates of TUT compared to the outgroup condition. Finally, we discuss subjective and behavioral correlates of TUT and TUT divergence in conversations, such as valence, turn-taking ratios, and topic shifts.

Neural Basis of Prejudice and Prejudice Reduction

Social prejudices, based on race, ethnicity, gender, or other identities, pervade how we perceive, think about, and act toward others. Research on the neural basis of prejudice seeks to illuminate its effects by investigating the neurocognitive processes through which prejudice is formed, represented in the mind, expressed in behavior, and potentially reduced. In this article, we review current knowledge about the social neuroscience of prejudice regarding its influence on rapid social perception, representation in memory, emotional expression and relation to empathy, and regulation, and we discuss implications of this work for prejudice reduction interventions.

Encoding of Race Categories by Single Neurons in the Human Brain

Previous research has suggested that race-specific features are automatically processed during face perception, often with out-group faces treated categorically. Functional imaging has illuminated the hemodynamic correlates of this process, with fewer studies examining single-neuron responses. In the present experiment, epilepsy patients undergoing microwire recordings in preparation for surgical treatment were shown realistic computer-generated human faces, which they classified according to the emotional expression shown. Racial categories of the stimulus faces varied independently of the emotion shown, being irrelevant to the patients’ primary task. Nevertheless, we observed race-driven changes in neural firing rates in the amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, and hippocampus. These responses were broadly distributed, with the firing rates of 28% of recorded neurons in the amygdala and 45% in the anterior cingulate cortex predicting one or more racial categories. Nearly equal proportions of neurons responded to White and Black faces (24% vs. 22% in the amygdala and 26% vs. 28% in the anterior cingulate cortex). A smaller fraction (12%) of race-responsive neurons in the hippocampus predicted only White faces. Our results imply a distributed representation of race in brain areas involved in affective judgments, decision making, and memory. They also support the hypothesis that race-specific cues are perceptually coded even when those cues are task-irrelevant.

The labelled container: Conceptual development of social group representations

Pietraszewski contends that group representations that rely on a "containment metaphor" fail to adequately capture phenomena of group dynamics such as shifts in allegiances. We argue, in contrast, that social categories allow for computationally efficient, richly structured, and flexible group representations that explain some of the most intriguing aspects of social group behaviour.

Inter-Group Face Recognition Bias Was Modulated by the Group Status

Previous studies have shown that social categorization can induce an own-group face recognition bias. However, similar and better other-group face recognition emerged recently. In this research, we aimed to examine whether competitive cues and group status accompanied by social categorization can modulate the inter-group face recognition bias. Moreover, we investigated how the group identification of individuals with different statuses affected the inter-group face recognition bias. The results indicated that an own-group face recognition bias emerged for targets with in-group labels compared to out-group labels. Moreover, when the group labels signaled competitive cues, the own-group face recognition bias was reversed. Furthermore, low-status and similar-status individuals exhibited out-group face recognition bias, but high-status individuals did not. In addition, the higher the in-group identification scores of participants from the low-status group, the stronger the out-group face recognition bias. These results suggested that competitive cues would reverse the own-group face recognition bias and the group status would play a modulating role in face recognition bias.

Agency and Identity in the Collective Self

Contemporary research on human sociality is heavily influenced by the social identity approach, positioning social categorization as the primary mechanism governing social life. Building on the distinction between agency and identity in the individual self ("I" vs. "Me"), we emphasize the analogous importance of distinguishing collective agency from collective identity ("We" vs. "Us"). While collective identity is anchored in the unique characteristics of group members, collective agency involves the adoption of a shared subjectivity that is directed toward some object of our attention, desire, emotion, belief, or action. These distinct components of the collective self are differentiated in terms of their mental representations, neurocognitive underpinnings, conditions of emergence, mechanisms of social convergence, and functional consequences. Overall, we show that collective agency provides a useful complement to the social categorization approach, with unique implications for multiple domains of human social life, including collective action, responsibility, dignity, violence, dominance, ritual, and morality.

Impact of perceived interpersonal similarity on attention to the eyes of same-race and other-race faces

One reason for the persistence of racial discrimination may be anticipated dissimilarity with racial outgroup members that prevent meaningful interactions. In the present research, we investigated whether perceived similarity would impact the processing of same-race and other-race faces. Specifically, in two experiments, we varied the extent to which White participants were ostensibly similar to targets via bogus feedback on a personality test. With an eye tracker, we measured the effect of this manipulation on attention to the eyes, a critical region for person perception and face memory. In Experiment 1, we monitored the impact of perceived interpersonal similarity on White participants’ attention to the eyes of same-race White targets. In Experiment 2, we replicated this procedure, but White participants were presented with either same-race White targets or other-race Black targets in a between-subjects design. The pattern of results in both experiments indicated a positive linear effect of similarity—greater perceived similarity between participants and targets predicted more attention to the eyes of White and Black faces. The implications of these findings related to top-down effects of perceived similarity for our understanding of basic processes in face perception, as well as intergroup relations, are discussed.

The neuroscience of intergroup threat and violence

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a global increase in hate crimes and xenophobia. In these uncertain times, real or imaginary threats can easily lead to intergroup conflict. Here, we integrate social neuroscience findings with classic social psychology theories into a framework to better understand how intergroup threat can lead to violence. The role of moral disengagement, dehumanization, and intergroup schadenfreude in this process are discussed, together with their underlying neural mechanisms. We outline how this framework can inform social scientists and policy makers to help reduce the escalation of intergroup conflict and promote intergroup cooperation. The critical role of the media and public figures in these unprecedented times is highlighted as an important factor to achieve these goals.

Group membership moderates the process of making trust judgments based on facial cues

Trust is a foundation of interpersonal communication. Faces have a significant impact on trust judgments, and separate research demonstrates that group membership also influences trust judgments. However, it remains unclear whether and how group membership moderates the effect of face trustworthiness on trust judgments and investment decisions. In the present research, two experiments were conducted to explore the moderating effect of group membership (i.e., in-group vs. out-group) on perceptions of facial trustworthiness and trust judgments. Results showed that participants invested significantly more money on trials with trustworthy faces than trials with untrustworthy faces. Additionally, there was a significant interaction between group membership and facial trustworthiness; the investment difference between trustworthy faces and untrustworthy faces was greater for trials with in-group member faces than out-group member faces. These findings indicate that top-down and bottom-up cues jointly influence behavioral decisions.

Processing of Task-Irrelevant Race Information is Associated with Diminished Cognitive Control in Black and White Individuals

The race of an individual is a salient physical feature that is rapidly processed by the brain and can bias our perceptions of others. How the race of others explicitly impacts our actions toward them during intergroup contexts is not well understood. In the current study, we examined how task-irrelevant race information influences cognitive control in a go/no-go task in a community sample of Black (n = 54) and White (n = 51) participants. We examined the neural correlates of behavioral effects using functional magnetic resonance imaging and explored the influence of implicit racial attitudes on brain-behavior associations. Both Black and White participants showed more cognitive control failures, as indexed by dprime, to Black versus White faces, despite the irrelevance of race to the task demands. This behavioral pattern was paralleled by greater activity to Black faces in the fusiform face area, implicated in processing face and in-group information, and lateral orbitofrontal cortex, associated with resolving stimulus-response conflict. Exploratory brain-behavior associations suggest different patterns in Black and White individuals. Black participants exhibited a negative association between fusiform activity and response time during impulsive errors to Black faces, whereas White participants showed a positive association between lateral OFC activity and cognitive control performance to Black faces when accounting for implicit racial associations. Together our findings propose that attention to race information is associated with diminished cognitive control that may be driven by different mechanisms for Black and White individuals.

Anxiety Regulation: From Affective Neuroscience to Clinical Practice

According to psychoanalysis, anxiety signals a threat whenever a forbidden feeling emerges. Anxiety triggers defenses and maladaptive behaviors, thus leading to clinical problems. For these reasons, anxiety regulation is a core aspect of psychodynamic-oriented treatments to help clients. In the present theoretical paper, we review and discuss anxiety generation and dysregulation, first from a neural point of view, presenting findings from neuroimaging and psychophysiological studies. The aim is to trace parallels with psychodynamic theories of anxiety. Then, we discuss the psychological mechanisms and neural bases of emotion regulation in the laboratory, and possible neurobiological mechanisms of anxiety regulation in psychotherapy. We describe two different approaches to emotion/anxiety regulation, one based on the standard cognitive model of emotion regulation, the other based on psychodynamic principles and affective neuroscience. We then illustrate in detail a dynamic experiential approach to regulation. This model claims that emotions arise before cognition and are not inherently dysregulated. Dysregulation emerges from co-occurrences of emotions and associated anxiety. Technical consequences of this model are discussed and include strategies to regulate anxiety.

The development of race effects in face processing from childhood through adulthood: Neural and behavioral evidence

Most adults are better at recognizing recently encountered faces of their own race, relative to faces of other races. In adults, this race effect in face recognition is associated with differential neural representations of own- and other-race faces in the fusiform face area (FFA), a high-level visual region involved in face recognition. Previous research has linked these differential face representations in adults to viewers' implicit racial associations. However, despite the fact that the FFA undergoes a gradual development which continues well into adulthood, little is known about the developmental time-course of the race effect in FFA responses. Also unclear is how this race effect might relate to the development of face recognition or implicit associations with own- or other-races during childhood and adolescence. To examine the developmental trajectory of these race effects, in a cross-sectional study of European American (EA) children (ages 7-11), adolescents (ages 12-16) and adults (ages 18-35), we evaluated responses to adult African American (AA) and EA face stimuli, using functional magnetic resonance imaging and separate behavioral measures outside the scanner. We found that FFA responses to AA and EA faces differentiated during development from childhood into adulthood; meanwhile, the magnitudes of race effects increased in behavioral measures of face-recognition and implicit racial associations. These three race effects were positively correlated, even after controlling for age. These findings suggest that social and perceptual experiences shape a protracted development of the race effect in face processing that continues well into adulthood.

Fusiform Activity Distinguishes Between Subjects With Low and High Xenophobic Attitudes Toward Refugees

This study analyzes how people's attitudes to the European refugee crisis (ERC) correspond to selected psychological state and trait measures and impact the neural processing of media images of refugees. From a large pool of respondents, who filled in an online xenophobia questionnaire, we selected two groups (total N = 38) with the same socio-demographic background, but with opposite attitudes toward refugees. We found that a negative attitude toward refugees (high xenophobia - HX) was associated with a significantly higher conscientiousness score and with a higher trait aggression and hostility, but there was no group effect connected with empathy, fear, and anxiety measures. At the neural level we found that brain activity during the presentation of ERC stimuli is affected by xenophobic attitudes—with more xenophobic subjects exhibiting a higher BOLD response in the left fusiform gyrus. However, while the fMRI results demonstrate increased attention and vigilance toward ERC-related stimuli in the HX group, they do not show differentiated patterns of brain activity associated with perception of dehumanized outgroup.

Hungry for inclusion: Exposure to peer victimization and heightened social monitoring in adolescent girls

Belonging to a social group is one of the most important factors contributing to well-being. The Belonging Regulation model proposes that humans possess a social monitoring system (SMS) that evaluates social inclusion and monitors belonging needs. Here, we used a prospective longitudinal design to examine links between peer victimization experienced across 7 years and social monitoring at the behavioral and neural level in adolescent girls (n = 38, Mage = 15.43 years, SD = .33). Participants completed a social evaluation task during a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan. More severe peer victimization was associated with increased activation to in-group versus out-group peers in the amygdala, ventral striatum, fusiform gyrus, and temporoparietal junction. Moreover, participants who displayed increased activation in these regions reported lower social self esteem and higher levels of internalizing and externalizing symptoms. These results suggest that exposure to peer victimization across the school years is associated with heightened social monitoring at the neural level during adolescence, which has potential adverse implications for girls' adjustment and well-being.

The Social Neuroscience of Prejudice

The social neuroscience approach to prejudice investigates the psychology of intergroup bias by integrating models and methods of neuroscience with the social psychology of prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. Here, we review major contemporary lines of inquiry, including current accounts of group-based categorization; formation and updating of prejudice and stereotypes; effects of prejudice on perception, emotion, and decision making; and the self-regulation of prejudice. In each section, we discuss key social neuroscience findings, consider interpretational challenges and connections with the behavioral literature, and highlight how they advance psychological theories of prejudice. We conclude by discussing the next-generation questions that will continue to guide the social neuroscience approach toward addressing major societal issues of prejudice and discrimination.

Human Face-Selective Cortex Does Not Distinguish between Members of a Racial Outgroup

People often fail to individuate members of social outgroups, a phenomenon known as the outgroup homogeneity effect. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) repetition suppression to investigate the neural representation underlying this effect. In a preregistered study, White human perceivers (N = 29) responded to pairs of faces depicting White or Black targets. In each pair, the second face depicted either the same target as the first face, a different target from the same race, or a scrambled face outline. We localized face-selective neural regions via an independent task, and demonstrated that neural activity in the fusiform face area (FFA) distinguished different faces only when targets belonged to the perceivers' racial ingroup (White). By contrast, face-selective cortex did not discriminate between other-race individuals. Moreover, across two studies (total N = 67) perceivers were slower to discriminate between different outgroup members and remembered them to a lesser extent. Together, these results suggest that the outgroup homogeneity effect arises when early-to-mid-level visual processing results in an erroneous overlap of representations of outgroup members.

Effects of Minimal Grouping On Implicit Prejudice, Infrahumanization, and Neural Processing Despite Orthogonal Social Categorizations

Racial prejudice is a pervasive and pernicious form of intergroup bias. However, a mounting number of studies show that re-categorization-even into minimal groups-can overcome the typical consequences of racial and other group classifications. We tested the effects of minimal grouping on implicit prejudice and infrahumanization using a paradigm in which race was orthogonal to group membership. This allowed us to examine whether knowledge of group membership overrides obvious category differences. We found that participants infrahumanized and showed implicit bias toward the minimal out-group, despite the crosscutting presence of race, and in fact did not show any of the usual implicit racial bias. In addition, Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) showed an early race effect followed by distinct reactions on the basis of group as processing continued. This is evidence that arbitrary social classifications can engender in-group preference even in the presence of orthogonal, visually salient categorizations.

How Does Motivation Modulate the Operation of the Mentalizing Network in Person Evaluation?

The mentalizing network is theorized to play a central role in making sense of people (compared with nonsocial targets), but is its involvement affected when we make sense of people in a nondispassionate manner (e.g., favoritism toward others on the basis of group membership)? First, mixed findings and small samples have prevented strong conclusions about whether intergroup evaluation increases or decreases activation regions associated with the mentalizing network. Second, little is known about the psychological mechanism underlying mentalizing network activation shaped by ingroup versus outgroup evaluations. Psychological models suggest two hypotheses that can be challenging to disentangle with self-report: Ingroup trait evaluations may benefit from a priori expectations and/or preferential evidence accumulation. Therefore, the current study (n = 50) drew on a combination of drift diffusion modeling and fMRI to examine how group membership affects the engagement of the mentalizing network for trait evaluation and whether group-differentiated activation is associated with a priori expectations and/or preferential evidence accumulation. Outgroup trait evaluations engaged dorsomedial pFC activation, whereas ingroup trait evaluations engaged ventromedial pFC activation as well as other regions associated with mentalizing such as precuneus, posterior cingulate cortex, and right TPJ. Furthermore, the ventromedial pFC and posterior cingulate cortex activation was associated with differential expectations applied to ingroup trait evaluation. The current findings demonstrate the importance of combining motivational factors, computational modeling, and fMRI to deepen our understanding of the neural basis of person evaluation.

The effect of ethnicity and team membership on face processing: a cultural neuroscience perspective

In-ethnicity bias, as one of the in-group biases, is widespread in different cultures, interfering with cross-ethnicity communication. Recent studies have revealed that an in-ethnicity bias can be reduced by an in-team bias caused by the membership in a mixed-ethnicity team. However, the neural correlates of different in-group biases are still not clear, especially regarding possible cultural differences. A total of 44 participants (20 Chinese and 24 Germans) were recruited and completed a social categorization fMRI-task, categorizing faces according to their ethnicity and a learned team membership. Our behavioral results revealed both in-ethnicity and in-team bias in German participants, but not in Chinese participants. Our imaging results, however, showed both biases across all participants, as reflected in increased dorsal medial frontal cortex (MFC) activation for in-ethnicity, as well as in-team categorizations, while activation in ventral MFC was higher for in-ethnicity faces in Chinese participants than in the German participants. Our results highlight the importance of the dorsal MFC for in-group categorization across cultures and suggest that cultures might modulate in-group biases.

Neural Correlates of Group Bias During Natural Viewing

Individuals from different social groups interpret the world in different ways. This study explores the neural basis of these group differences using a paradigm that simulates natural viewing conditions. Our aim was to determine if group differences could be found in sensory regions involved in the perception of the world or were evident in higher-level regions that are important for the interpretation of sensory information. We measured brain responses from 2 groups of football supporters, while they watched a video of matches between their teams. The time-course of response was then compared between individuals supporting the same (within-group) or the different (between-group) team. We found high intersubject correlations in low-level and high-level regions of the visual brain. However, these regions of the brain did not show any group differences. Regions that showed higher correlations for individuals from the same group were found in a network of frontal and subcortical brain regions. The interplay between these regions suggests a range of cognitive processes from motor control to social cognition and reward are important in the establishment of social groups. These results suggest that group differences are primarily reflected in regions involved in the evaluation and interpretation of the sensory input.

Neural adaptation to faces reveals racial outgroup homogeneity effects in early perception

The tendency to view members of social outgroups as interchangeable has long been considered a core component of intergroup bias and a precursor to stereotyping and discrimination. However, the early perceptual nature of these intergroup biases is poorly understood. Here, we used a functional MRI adaptation paradigm to assess how face-selective brain regions respond to variation in physical similarity among racial ingroup (White) and outgroup (Black) faces. We conclude that differences emerge in the different tuning properties of early face-selective cortex for racial ingroup and outgroup faces and mirror behavioral differences in memory and perception of racial ingroup versus outgroup faces. These results suggest that outgroup deindividuation emerges at some of the earliest stages of perception.

A hallmark of intergroup biases is the tendency to individuate members of one’s own group but process members of other groups categorically. While the consequences of these biases for stereotyping and discrimination are well-documented, their early perceptual underpinnings remain less understood. Here, we investigated the neural mechanisms of this effect by testing whether high-level visual cortex is differentially tuned in its sensitivity to variation in own-race versus other-race faces. Using a functional MRI adaptation paradigm, we measured White participants’ habituation to blocks of White and Black faces that parametrically varied in their groupwise similarity. Participants showed a greater tendency to individuate own-race faces in perception, showing both greater release from adaptation to unique identities and increased sensitivity in the adaptation response to physical difference among faces. These group differences emerge in the tuning of early face-selective cortex and mirror behavioral differences in the memory and perception of own- versus other-race faces. Our results suggest that biases for other-race faces emerge at some of the earliest stages of sensory perception.

Tuned to voices and faces: Cerebral responses linked to social anxiety

Voices and faces are the most common sources of threat in social anxiety (SA) where the fear of negative evaluation and social exclusion is the central element. SA itself is spectrally distributed among the general population and its clinical manifestation, termed social anxiety disorder, is one of the most common anxiety disorders. While heightened cerebral responses to angry or contemptuous facial or vocal expressions are well documented, it remains unclear if the brain of socially anxious individuals is generally more sensitive to voices and faces. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we investigated how SA affects the cerebral processing of voices and faces as compared to various other stimulus types in a study population with greatly varying SA (N = 50, 26 female). While cerebral voice-sensitivity correlated positively with SA in the left temporal voice area (TVA) and the left amygdala, an association of face-sensitivity and SA was observed in the right fusiform face area (FFA) and the face processing area of the right posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTSFA). These results demonstrate that the increase of cerebral responses associated with social anxiety is not limited to facial or vocal expressions of social threat but that the respective sensory and emotion processing structures are also generally tuned to voices and faces.

Insights From fMRI Studies Into Ingroup Bias

Intergroup biases can manifest themselves between a wide variety of different groups such as people from different races, nations, ethnicities, political or religious beliefs, opposing sport teams or even arbitrary groups. In this review we provide a neuroscientific overview of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) studies that have revealed how group dynamics impact on various cognitive and emotional systems at different levels of information processing. We first describe how people can perceive the faces, words and actions of ingroup and outgroup members in a biased way. Second, we focus on how activity in brain areas involved in empathizing with the pain of others, such as the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and anterior insula (AI), are influenced by group membership. Third, we describe how group membership influences activity in brain areas involved in mentalizing such as the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and temporoparietal junction (TPJ). Fourth, we discuss the involvement of the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (lOFC) in increased moral sensitivity for outgroup threats. Finally, we discuss how brain areas involved in the reward system such as the striatum and medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC), are more active when experiencing schadenfreude for outgroup harm and when rewarding ingroup (versus outgroup) members. The value of these neuroscientific insights to better understand ingroup bias are discussed, as well as limitations and future research directions.

Subjective social status and neural processing of race in Mexican American adolescents

Adolescence is a sensitive period for sociocultural development in which facets of social identity, including social status and race, become especially salient. Despite the heightened importance of both social status and race during this developmental period, no known work has examined how individual differences in social status influence perceptions of race in adolescents. Thus, in the present study, we investigated how both subjective social status and objective socioeconomic status (SES) influence neural responses to race. Twenty-three Mexican American adolescents (15 females; mean age = 17.22 years) were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging while they viewed Black and White faces in a standard labeling task. Adolescents rated their subjective social status in US society, while their parents responded to questions about their educational background, occupation, and economic strain (objective SES). Results demonstrated a negative association between subjective social status and neural responses in the amygdala, fusiform face area, and medial prefrontal cortex when adolescents viewed Black (relative to White) faces. In other words, adolescents with lower subjective social status showed greater activity in neural regions involved in processing salience, perceptual expertise, and thinking about the minds of others when they viewed images of Black faces, suggesting enhanced salience of race for these youth. There was no relationship between objective SES and neural responses to the faces. Moreover, instructing participants to focus on the gender or emotion expression on the face attenuated the relationship between subjective social status and neural processing of race. Together, these results demonstrate that subjective social status shapes the way the brain responds to race, which may have implications for psychopathology.

Amygdala Represents Diverse Forms of Intangible Knowledge, That Illuminate Social Processing and Major Clinical Disorders

Amygdala is an intensively researched brain structure involved in social processing and multiple major clinical disorders, but its functions are not well understood. The functions of a brain structure are best hypothesized on the basis of neuroanatomical connectivity findings, and of behavioral, neuroimaging, neuropsychological and physiological findings. Among the heaviest neuroanatomical interconnections of amygdala are those with perirhinal cortex (PRC), but these are little considered in the theoretical literature. PRC integrates complex, multimodal, meaningful and fine-grained distributed representations of objects and conspecifics. Consistent with this connectivity, amygdala is hypothesized to contribute meaningful and fine-grained representations of intangible knowledge for integration by PRC. Behavioral, neuroimaging, neuropsychological and physiological findings further support amygdala mediation of a diversity of such representations. These representations include subjective valence, impact, economic value, noxiousness, importance, ingroup membership, social status, popularity, trustworthiness and moral features. Further, the formation of amygdala representations is little understood, and is proposed to be often implemented through embodied cognition mechanisms. The hypothesis builds on earlier work, and makes multiple novel contributions to the literature. It highlights intangible knowledge, which is an influential but insufficiently researched factor in social and other behaviors. It contributes to understanding the heavy but neglected amygdala-PRC interconnections, and the diversity of amygdala-mediated intangible knowledge representations. Amygdala is a social brain region, but it does not represent species-typical social behaviors. A novel proposal to clarify its role is postulated. The hypothesis is also suggested to illuminate amygdala's involvement in several core symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Specifically, novel and testable explanations are proposed for the ASD symptoms of disorganized visual scanpaths, apparent social disinterest, preference for concrete cognition, aspects of the disorder's heterogeneity, and impairment in some activities of daily living. Together, the presented hypothesis demonstrates substantial explanatory potential in the neuroscience, social and clinical domains.

High-resolution Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Reveals Configural Processing of Cars in Right Anterior Fusiform Face Area of Car Experts

Visual object expertise correlates with neural selectivity in the fusiform face area (FFA). Although behavioral studies suggest that visual expertise is associated with increased use of holistic and configural information, little is known about the nature of the supporting neural representations. Using high-resolution 7-T functional magnetic resonance imaging, we recorded the multivoxel activation patterns elicited by whole cars, configurally disrupted cars, and car parts in individuals with a wide range of car expertise. A probabilistic support vector machine classifier was trained to differentiate activation patterns elicited by whole car images from activation patterns elicited by misconfigured car images. The classifier was then used to classify new combined activation patterns that were created by averaging activation patterns elicited by individually presented top and bottom car parts. In line with the idea that the configuration of parts is critical to expert visual perception, car expertise was negatively associated with the probability of a combined activation pattern being classified as a whole car in the right anterior FFA, a region critical to vision for categories of expertise. Thus, just as found for faces in normal observers, the neural representation of cars in right anterior FFA is more holistic for car experts than car novices, consistent with common mechanisms of neural selectivity for faces and other objects of expertise in this area.

The Partisan Brain: An Identity-Based Model of Political Belief

Democracies assume accurate knowledge by the populace, but the human attraction to fake and untrustworthy news poses a serious problem for healthy democratic functioning. We articulate why and how identification with political parties - known as partisanship - can bias information processing in the human brain. There is extensive evidence that people engage in motivated political reasoning, but recent research suggests that partisanship can alter memory, implicit evaluation, and even perceptual judgments. We propose an identity-based model of belief for understanding the influence of partisanship on these cognitive processes. This framework helps to explain why people place party loyalty over policy, and even over truth. Finally, we discuss strategies for de-biasing information processing to help to create a shared reality across partisan divides.

The Neural Development of 'Us and Them'

Social groups aid human beings in several ways, ranging from the fulfillment of complex social and personal needs to the promotion of survival. Despite the importance of group affiliation to humans, there remains considerable variation in group preferences across development. In the current study, children and adolescents completed an explicit evaluation task of in-group and out-group members during functional neuroimaging. We found that participants displayed age-related increases in bilateral amygdala, fusiform gyrus and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) activation when viewing in-group relative to out-group faces. Moreover, we found an indirect effect of age on in-group favoritism via brain activation in the amygdala, fusiform and OFC. Finally, with age, youth showed greater functional coupling between the amygdala and several neural regions when viewing in-group relative to out-group peers, suggesting a role of the amygdala in directing attention to motivationally relevant cues. Our findings suggest that the motivational significance and processing of group membership undergoes important changes across development.

Does Reducing Implicit Prejudice Increase Out-Group Identification? The Downstream Consequences of Evaluative Training on Associations Between the Self and Racial Categories

The present experiments were designed to investigate whether an intervention that targeted racial attitudes influenced not only prejudice but also self–Black associations. Because past research has demonstrated that people strive to build connections with favorable social categories, we predicted that positive evaluative training would increase identification with Blacks. Results from three studies provide evidence that practice in associating positive concepts with Blacks reduced implicit prejudice which in turn increased implicit self–Black associations. Notably, prejudice, in this case, had an intervening variable effect. Study 3 also investigated the impact of an alternative intervention that directly targeted self-associations rather than racial attitudes. Unlike evaluative training, associating the self with Blacks directly reduced both implicit prejudice and increased self–Black associations. These findings extend theorizing on the causal relationship between prejudice and out-group identification and provide important process information on how particular interventions reduce intergroup biases.

Distortion in time perception as a result of concern about appearing biased

Two experiments illustrate that the perception of a given time duration slows when white participants observe faces of black men, but only if participants are concerned with appearing biased. In Experiment 1 the concern with the appearance of bias is measured as a chronic state using the external motivation to respond without prejudice scale (Plant & Devine, 1998). In Experiment 2 it is manipulated by varying the race of the experimenter (black versus white). Time perception is assessed via a temporal discrimination task commonly used in the literature. Models of time perception identify arousal as a factor that causes perceived time to slow, and we speculate that arousal arising in intergroup interactions can alter time perception.

Right wing authoritarianism is associated with race bias in face detection

Racial discrimination can be observed in a wide range of psychological processes, including even the earliest phases of face detection. It remains unclear, however, whether racially-biased low-level face processing is influenced by ideologies, such as right wing authoritarianism or social dominance orientation. In the current study, we hypothesized that socio-political ideologies such as these can substantially predict perceptive racial bias during early perception. To test this hypothesis, 67 participants detected faces within arrays of neutral objects. The faces were either Caucasian (in-group) or North African (out-group) and either had a neutral or angry expression. Results showed that participants with higher self-reported right-wing authoritarianism were more likely to show slower response times for detecting out- vs. in-groups faces. We interpreted our results according to the Dual Process Motivational Model and suggest that socio-political ideologies may foster early racial bias via attentional disengagement.