Neural correlates of automatic beliefs about gender and race

Studying the social mind: An updated summary of findings from the Vietnam Head Injury Study

Lesion mapping studies allow us to evaluate the potential causal contribution of specific brain areas to human cognition and complement other cognitive neuroscience methods, as several authors have recently pointed out. Here, we present an updated summary of the findings from the Vietnam Head Injury Study (VHIS) focusing on the studies conducted over the last decade, that examined the social mind and its intricate neural and cognitive underpinnings. The VHIS is a prospective, long-term follow-up study of Vietnam veterans with penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI) and healthy controls (HC). The scope of the work is to present the studies from the latest phases (3 and 4) of the VHIS, 70 studies since 2011, when the Raymont et al. paper was published (Raymont et al., 2011). These studies have contributed to our understanding of human social cognition, including political and religious beliefs, theory of mind, but also executive functions, intelligence, and personality. This work finally discusses the usefulness of lesion mapping as an approach to understanding the functions of the human brain from basic science and clinical perspectives.

Embracing beauty through leftward movements: An ERP study on metaphorical association between hand actions and aesthetic judgments

In this study, we examined the metaphorical association between aesthetic judgments of faces and horizontal hand movements as well as their cognitive neural mechanisms using a joint categorical response task. In the "aesthetic-action" metaphorical representation situation, participants were asked to classify beautiful/ugly faces by moving the mouse to the left or the right. The results showed that the joint categorization condition "judge beautiful-move mouse left, judge ugly-move mouse right" had a shorter reaction time than the "judge beautiful-move mouse right, judge ugly-move mouse left" condition, which was accompanied by larger amplitudes of the early component N170, EPN, and the late component P300. Combining the behavioral and event-related potentials (ERPs) results, the present study demonstrated a metaphorical association between horizontal hand actions and aesthetic judgments. It suggested that horizontal hand actions can affect the speed of aesthetic judgments by influencing processing fluency, emotional arousal level, categorization motivation, and attentional resources. These findings provide new perspectives to better understand the cognitive process of aesthetic judgments and provide a basis for applying embodied cognition and metaphor theory to the field of aesthetic psychology.

Right amygdala and caudate activation patterns predict implicit attitudes toward people with autism spectrum disorders and physical disabilities, respectively

Attitudes toward people with disabilities tend to be negative, regardless of the visibility of the disorder traits. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience stigmatization that is rooted in negative attitudes or prejudice toward them because of their social awkwardness. The neural underpinnings of attitudes toward people with disabilities remain unclear. In this study, we focused on implicit attitudes toward people with ASD and physical disabilities, which are more visible than ASD, and investigated whether implicit attitudes were predicted by using neural activity with multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) in the prejudice network. Thirty-six, right-handed, Japanese, university students without disabilities participated. Two implicit association tests (IAT) toward people with ASD and physical disabilities revealed negative implicit attitudes. In the MRI scanner, participants performed a one-back task by using the same picture sets of IATs to examine their neural responses toward people with ASD and physical disabilities. According to the MVPA results, activation patterns of the right amygdala and right caudate significantly predicted implicit attitudes toward people with ASD and physical disabilities, respectively. These results suggest that implicit attitudes toward ASD and physical disabilities can be predicted by using neural signals from different regions within the prejudice network.

Temporal dynamics of attitude decisions: A test of the iterative reprocessing model using event-related potentials

Although evaluative judgments are a central component of everyday decision making little is known about the temporal dynamics of the processes used to make them. The present study used the high temporal resolution of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to test Cunningham and Zelazo's (2007) posited differences in the timing of attitude tag retrieval relative to stimulus categorization for 'attitudes' and 'evaluations,' as well as tenets of their Iterative Reprocessing (IR) loop model. Participants made agree/disagree decisions about their attitudes and You/Not You decisions about their autobiographical memories in separate reaction time (RT) tasks while brain activity was recorded from 32 scalp sites. A median-split analysis on RT was used to separate fast and slow decisions. Decisions about autobiographical stimuli produced the typical results in which retrieval and stimulus categorization occurred together just before the response regardless of decision difficulty. By contrast, the relative timing of tag retrieval and categorization differed with difficulty for attitude decisions as predicted by the model. Fast attitude decisions were processed similarly to fast You decisions with retrieval and categorization timing coupled to the response. Slow attitude decisions, however, differed because, while tag retrieval timing was the same as for fast attitude decisions, post-retrieval processing delayed stimulus categorization and a response by 450 msec. ERP activity over dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in the pre-response interval was asymmetrical, with greater activity for attitude and autobiographical decisions over left and right hemispheres, respectively, while amplitude and duration increased with decision difficulty for both. Slow attitude decisions alone elicited a reduced pre-response positivity, a correlate of goal-directed response selection. The results provide empirical support for key aspects of Cunningham and Zelazo's (2007) attitude-evaluation dichotomy and the timing of the posited component processes in their IR model as well as novel information about the roles of stored tags and reflective processes in different attitude decisions.

Neurocomputational mechanisms of biased impression formation in lonely individuals

Social impressions are fundamental in our daily interactions with other people but forming accurate impressions of our social partners can be biased to different extents. Loneliness has previously been suggested to induce biases that hinder the formation of accurate impressions of others for successful social bonding. Here, we demonstrated that despite counterfactual evidence, negative first impressions bias information weighting, leading to less favorable trustworthiness beliefs. Lonely individuals did not only have more negative expectations of others' social behavior, but they also manifested a stronger weighting bias. Reduced orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) activity was associated with a stronger weighting bias in lonelier individuals and mediated the relationship between loneliness and this weighting bias. Importantly, stronger coupling between OFC and temporoparietal junction compensated for such effects, promoting more positive trustworthiness beliefs especially in lonelier individuals. These findings bear potential for future basic and clinical investigations on social cognition and the development of clinical symptoms linked to loneliness.

Effect of dual tasking on postural control in individuals with schizophrenia

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the effect of dual tasking on postural control in individuals with schizophrenia.

METHODS

Fifteen outpatients with schizophrenia and 15 healthy controls were included. Postural control was assessed with postural sway velocity (PSV) using Balance Master System during three different tasks: single task (standing on a force platform), cognitive task (categorical verbal fluency) and motor task (holding a cup of water) in four conditions: on firm surface with eyes open (1) and closed (2), on foam surface with eyes open (3) and closed (4).

RESULTS

Individuals with schizophrenia presented higher PSV during single standing on foam surface with eyes open and closed. During the cognitive task, they showed higher PSV on foam surface with eyes closed. During the motor task PSV in schizophrenia group was higher on firm surface with eyes closed and on foam surface with eyes open and closed. Individuals with schizophrenia showed higher PSV during cognitive task on firm surface with eyes closed compared to the single task.

CONCLUSIONS

Dual tasking results in a deterioration in postural control in individuals with schizophrenia. A cognitive task specifically alters postural control in the absence of visual information suggesting a possible sensorimotor dysfunction in this population.

Neural Processing of Sexist Comments: Associations between Perceptions of Sexism and Prefrontal Activity

Sexism is a widespread form of gender discrimination which includes remarks based on gender stereotypes. However, little is known about the neural basis underlying the experience of sexist-related comments and how perceptions of sexism are related to these neural processes. The present study investigated whether perceptions of sexism influence neural processing of receiving sexist-related comments. Participants (N = 67) read experimental vignettes describing scenarios of comments involving gender stereotypes while near-infrared spectroscopy recordings were made to measure the hemodynamic changes in the prefrontal cortex. Results found a significant correlation between participants' perceptions of sexism and brain activation in a brain cluster including the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and inferior frontal gyrus. There was a significant gender difference where female participants showed a stronger negative correlation compared to male participants. Future research can expand on these initial findings by looking at subcortical structures involved in emotional processing and gender stereotype application as well as examining cultural differences in perceptions of gender stereotypes and sexism.

The impact of sociality and affective valence on brain activation: A meta-analysis

Thirty years of neuroimaging reveal the set of brain regions consistently associated with pleasant and unpleasant affect in humans-or the neural reference space for valence. Yet some of humans' most potent affective states occur in the context of other humans. Prior work has yet to differentiate how the neural reference space for valence varies as a product of the sociality of affective stimuli. To address this question, we meta-analyzed across 614 social and non-social affective neuroimaging contrasts, summarizing the brain regions that are consistently activated for social and non-social affective information. We demonstrate that across the literature, social and non-social affective stimuli yield overlapping activations within regions associated with visceromotor control, including the amygdala, hypothalamus, anterior cingulate cortex and insula. However, we find that social processing differs from non-social affective processing in that it involves additional cortical activations in the medial prefrontal and posterior cingulum that have been associated with mentalizing and prediction. A Bayesian classifier was able to differentiate unpleasant from pleasant affect, but not social from non-social affective states. Moreover, it was not able to classify unpleasantness from pleasantness at the highest levels of sociality. These findings suggest that highly social scenarios may be equally salient to humans, regardless of their valence.

A neurocognitive approach to studying processes underlying parents' gender socialization

Parental gender socialization refers to ways in which parents teach their children social expectations associated with gender. Relatively little is known about the mechanisms underlying gender socialization. An overview of cognitive and neural processes underlying parental gender socialization is provided. Regarding cognitive processes, evidence exists that parents' implicit and explicit gender stereotypes, attitudes, and gendered attributions are implicated in gender socialization. Other cognitive factors, such as intergroup attitudes, gender essentialism, internal motivation for parenting without gender stereotypes, gender identity, and conflict resolution are theoretically relevant mechanisms underlying gender socialization, but need further investigation. Regarding neural processes, studies demonstrated that attentional processing, conflict monitoring, behavior regulation, and reward processing might underlie stereotypes and biased behavior. However, more research is necessary to test whether these neural processes are also related to parental gender socialization. Based on this overview, a framework is presented of neural and cognitive factors that were theoretically or empirically related to gender socialization.

Dialogue intervention for youth amidst intractable conflict attenuates neural prejudice response and promotes adults' peacemaking

Humans' dependence on group living has led to the formation of tenacious, often nonconscious negative perceptions of other social groups, a phenomenon termed "intergroup bias" that sustains one of the world's most imminent problem: intergroup conflicts. Adolescents' participation in intergroup conflicts has been continuously on the rise, rendering the need to devise interventions that can mitigate some of their deleterious effects on youth an urgent societal priority. Framed within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and targeting youth, we implemented a dialogue-enhancing intervention for adolescents (16 to 18 years) reared amidst intractable conflict that builds on social synchrony and the neurobiology of affiliation. Implementing a randomized controlled trial design, before and after the 8-week intervention adolescents underwent magnetoencephalography to assess a neural marker of implicit prejudice and interviewed on their attitudes toward the conflict. Adolescents who received the intervention showed attenuation of the neural prejudice response, as indexed by sustained occipital alpha that was significantly reduced at post-intervention and adopted attitudes of peacemaking. Change in the neural prejudice response predicted attitudes of compromise and support in peacebuilding 7 years later, when young adults can already engage in active civil duties and responsibilities. These results underscore adolescence as a window of opportunity for enhancing inter-group dialogue and demonstrate the long-term associations between the neural evaluation of prejudice and self-reported measures of proclivity for compromise and peace in the context of an intractable century-long conflict.

Common and unique neural mechanisms of social and nonsocial conflict resolving and adaptation

Humans often need to deal with various forms of information conflicts that arise when they receive inconsistent information. However, it remains unclear how we resolve them and whether the brain may recruit similar or distinct brain mechanisms to process different domains (e.g. social vs. nonsocial) of conflicts. To address this, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging and scanned 50 healthy participants when they were asked to perform 2 Stroop tasks with different forms of conflicts: social (i.e. face-gender incongruency) and nonsocial (i.e. color-word incongruency) conflicts. Neuroimaging results revealed that the ventral lateral prefrontal cortex was generally activated in processing incongruent versus congruent stimuli regardless of the task type, serving as a common mechanism for conflict resolving across domains. Notably, trial-based and model-based results jointly demonstrated that the dorsal and rostral medial prefrontal cortices were uniquely engaged in processing social incongruent stimuli, suggesting distinct neural substrates of social conflict resolving and adaptation. The findings uncover that the common but unique brain mechanisms are recruited when humans resolve and adapt to social conflicts.

The role of right insula and its functional connectivity in the regulation of negative implicit stereotypes against rural migrant workers

Previous studies have revealed that stereotyping processes involving negative affective content (e.g., antipathy) can lead to a significant increase in insula activity. However, whether the insula is sensitive to stereotype inconsistency or plays a crucial role in stereotype regulation remains unclear. To help fill this gap, 21 young adults were presented with a modified single-category implicit association test (SC-IAT) that assessed their stereotypes about rural migrant workers. In a within-subjects design, participants completed separate blocks of compatible and incompatible trials, each of which consisted of stereotype-consistent or stereotype-inconsistent trait labels that had a positive or a negative valence. Functional MRI was used to identify specific brain regions associated with negative and positive stereotyping. The behavioral results revealed a typical stereotype regulation effect in which participants responded slower to stereotype-inconsistent condition than stereotype-consistent condition, although such effect was significantly modulated by IAT compatibility, rather than by emotional valence. MRI results revealed that activity in the right insula was significantly sensitive to stereotype regulation processes in negative incompatible tasks, whereas such effect was marginally significant in positive incompatible tasks. Moreover, psychophysiological interaction analyses indicated complex functional connectivity among the right insula and cognitive control regions [e.g., ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC)], social mentalizing regions [medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC)], and motivation regions (putamen) in the condition where negative stereotypes were violated. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that the right insula serves as a crucial node in regulating implicit stereotyping, particularly in negative stereotyping tasks.

Country-Brand Fit: The Effect of COO Stereotypes and Brand Positioning Consistency on Consumer Behavior: Evidence From EEG Theta-Band Oscillation

Grounded on the cognitive consistency theory, this paper adopts the prime-probe paradigm and Electroencephalography (EEG) experiment to examine the impact of country-of-origin (COO) stereotypes-brand positioning congruence on consumer behavior, the boundary effect of brand positioning strategy, as well as the underlying cognitive mechanism. Behaviorally, consumers show a higher purchase intention in the congruence condition. Moreover, this congruence effect of purchase intention can be found for competence brand positioning strategies rather than warmth brand positioning strategies. At the brain level, we found that compared with the congruence condition, the incongruence condition enhances consumers' cognitive conflict, reflected in enhanced frontal theta-band oscillation. Furthermore, the cognitive conflict effect is accentuated in the competence positioning strategy condition rather than the warmth strategy positioning condition, confirming the boundary effect of brand positioning strategy from the brain level. These findings provide neural evidence that the congruence between COO stereotypes and brand positioning influences consumer purchase behavior, reveals a boundary effect in the COO stereotype-brand positioning congruence, and highlights the importance of the competence dimension. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Sex/Gender Attribution: When the Penis Makes the Difference

The present study aimed to replicate Kessler and McKenna's (1978) ethnomethodological study that investigated how an individual attributes gender to a person. By administering figures depicted on overlays (Overlay Study), Kessler and McKenna found that the penis more than the vulva and the male sexual characteristics more than the female ones were significantly more salient in the gender attribution process. From all this, their adage is: "See someone as female only when you cannot see them as male." Taking as a model Kessler and McKenna's Overlay Study, we administered to 592 adults 120 new digital stimuli elaborated on realistic frontal images of human nudes to verify if the previously obtained results would be confirmed by using more realistic images. We found that the participants attributed male gender 86% of the time when the penis was shown, but only attributed female gender 67% of the time when the vulva was shown. All findings had strong statistical significance, confirming the findings of the Overlay Study that the penis makes the difference in gender recognition. Beyond an ethnomethodological approach, we have interpreted and discussed our results from the outlook of evolutionary and cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, concluding that the cultural stereotypes and prejudices that affect gender attribution might not just be a mere cultural product, but rather the consequence of evolved cognitive biases.

Anodal tDCS effects over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (L-DLPFC) on the rating of facial expression: evidence for a gender-specific effect

The accurate recognition of others' facial expressions is a core skill for social interactions. The left Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (L-DLPFC) represents a key node in the network for facial emotion recognition. However, its specific role is still under debate. As such, the aim of the current neuromodulation study was to assess the causal role of the L-DLPFC in humans' rating of facial expressions of emotions and implicit attitudes toward other races. In this sham-controlled single-blind between-subject experiment, we offline administered L-DLPFC transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to 69 healthy participants who were divided into three groups of 23 (each receiving anodal 1 mA tDCS, anodal 2 mA tDCS, or Sham), before completing an "Emotion Rating task and two Implicit Association Tests (IATs). The former required the intensity rating of 192 faces (half black and half white) displaying happiness, sadness, anger, or fear. The IATs were designed to assess participants' automatic associations of positive or negative attributes with racial contents. Results on the Emotion Rating task showed participants' gender-specific effect of tDCS. Specifically, a gender bias, with only males showing a tendency to underestimate negative emotions was found in Sham, and absent in the tDCS groups. When considering the race of the stimuli, females but not males in Sham exhibited a racial bias, that is, the tendency to overestimate negative emotions of other-race faces. Again, the bias disappeared in the tDCS groups. Concerning the IATs, no significant effects emerged. We conclude that the L-DLPFC plays a critical role in humans' rating of facial expressions, and for variability in other-race emotional judgements. These results shed light on the neural bases of the human emotional system and its gender-related differences, and have potential implications for interventional settings.

Functional role of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the modulation of cognitive bias

Human cognition is often biased. It is a fundamental question in psychology how cognitive bias is modulated in the human brain. Automatic action tendency is a typical cognitive bias. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is a crucial area for processing various behavioral tasks. We investigated the functional role of DLPFC in the modulation of cognitive bias by testing the automatic action tendency during automatic and regulated behavioral tasks. Unilateral intermittent or continuous theta burst stimulation (excitatory iTBS or inhibitory cTBS) was used to manipulate the left or right DLPFC excitability and assess the changes in automatic action tendency during a manikin task. An approaching behavior with positive stimulus and avoiding behavior with negative stimulus were performed in an automatic task. An approaching behavior with negative stimulus and avoiding behavior with positive stimulus were performed in a regulated task. Reaction time was measured. We confirmed the automatic action tendency that reaction time for performing an automatic task was shorter than that for performing a regulated task. The automatic action tendency was enhanced after left DLPFC excitatory iTBS and was abolished after left DLPFC inhibitory cTBS stimulation. On the other hand, right DLPFC excitatory iTBS accelerated the avoiding behaviors and right DLPFC inhibitory cTBS accelerated approaching behaviors. The results suggest that left DLPFC modulates the automatic action tendency while the right DLPFC modulates the direction of behavioral tasks. We conclude that left DLPFC and right DLPFC are key nodes in modulating the cognitive bias while their functional roles are different.

Stereotypes bias face perception via orbitofrontal-fusiform cortical interaction

Previous research has shown that social-conceptual associations, such as stereotypes, can influence the visual representation of faces and neural pattern responses in ventral temporal cortex (VTC) regions, such as the fusiform gyrus (FG). Current models suggest that this social-conceptual impact requires medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) feedback signals during perception. Backward masking can disrupt such signals, as it is a technique known to reduce functional connectivity between VTC regions and regions outside VTC. During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), subjects passively viewed masked and unmasked faces, and following the scan, perceptual biases and stereotypical associations were assessed. Multi-voxel representations of faces across the VTC, and in the FG and mOFC, reflected stereotypically biased perceptions when faces were unmasked, but this effect was abolished when faces were masked. However, the VTC still retained the ability to process masked faces and was sensitive to their categorical distinctions. Functional connectivity analyses confirmed that masking disrupted mOFC-FG connectivity, which predicted a reduced impact of stereotypical associations in the FG. Taken together, our findings suggest that the biasing of face representations in line with stereotypical associations does not arise from intrinsic processing within the VTC and FG alone, but instead it depends in part on top-down feedback from the mOFC during perception.

Implicit Social Cognitive Processes Underlying Victim Self and Identity: Evidence With College-Aged Adults

Past research on victimization has relied predominantly on individuals' awareness of and willingness to self-report a victimization experience and its effect on self and identity processes. The present research adopts theoretical and methodological innovations in implicit social cognition research to provide a new perspective on how a violent victimization experience might influence identity processes outside of conscious awareness. Our main goal was to test whether individuals who have victimization experience implicitly associate the self with victims (implicit victim identity) and their stereotypes (implicit victim self-stereotyping), and the relation of these associations to explicit victim identity and self-stereotyping. Two pretests with undergraduate student participants (Ns = 122 and 72) identified victim-related word stimuli for two Single Category Implicit Association Test (SC-IAT) measures of implicit victim identity and self-stereotyping. In Pretest Study A, participants read crime vignettes and listed words that described a victim, then in Pretest Study B, participants rated these words on victim relatedness and valence. The Main Study recruited undergraduate student participants (N = 101) who completed the SC-IATs, self-report measures of explicit victim identity and self-stereotyping, and victimization experiences. Three of our five hypotheses were supported. Individuals with past victimization experience exhibited strong explicit victim identity and self-stereotyping, but not implicit victim identity and self-stereotyping, relative to those with no victimization experience. Explicit and implicit victim identity and self-stereotyping were unrelated. Finally, among individuals with victimization experience, a strong implicit victim identity was associated with strong implicit victim self-stereotyping. This research has implications for understanding the processes underlying revictimization and for preventing further victimization.

Frontal Theta Oscillation as a Mechanism for Implicit Gender Stereotype Control: Electrophysiological Evidence From an Extrinsic Affective Simon Task

Previous research has indicated that frontal midline theta (FMθ) reflects a domain-general cognitive control mechanism of the prefrontal cortex. Brain imaging studies have shown that the inhibition of implicit stereotypes was dependent on this domain-general cognitive control mechanism. Based on this knowledge, the present study investigated the neural oscillatory correlates of implicit gender stereotype control in an extrinsic affective Simon task (EAST) using electrophysiological methods. Participants in this task conducted verification to white gender names and colored gender traits, and their behavioral response and electroencephalogram (EEG) were recorded during their performances. As predicted, stereotype-inconsistent trials resulted in reduced response accuracies and slower response times than stereotype-consistent trials. For the event-related potential (ERP) results, the enhanced performance of stereotype-inconsistent trials was accompanied by an enhanced N400 amplitude but an attenuated late positive potential amplitude. In contrast, early attentional components such as P2 and N2 as well as their amplitudes were impacted by the experimental manipulations and individual differences in gender factors. In addition, based on time–frequency (TF) analysis, we found that the enhanced performance of stereotype-inconsistent trials was also accompanied by an event-related synchronization on the frontal theta oscillation. This frontal theta appeared at a late processing stage and persisted across a time window from N400 to late positive potential. Additionally, this enhanced frontal theta effect was not modulated by the experimental manipulations and individual differences in gender factors. Based on these findings, the feature of frontal theta oscillation in the implicit gender stereotype control process was discussed.

The Main Sources and Potential Effects of COVID-19-Related Discrimination

The outbreak of a new coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which appeared in late 2019 and eventually resulted in the announcement of a pandemic by the World Health Organization, led to global fear and panic as well as the spread of false information and fake news from different sources. As a result, a sharp increase in prejudice, discrimination, and xenophobia against different groups of people was observed in different geographical locations. This chapter presents the psychological and social sources of stereotypes and prejudices that take forms in the COVID-19 pandemic. These sources can be located in psychosocial processes, such as (i) socially generated and reinforced fears; (ii) human responses to stress induced by certain types of stimuli; (iii) sense of helplessness based on the lack of control over reality; (iv) psychological responses reinforced by conformism (crowd psychology); and (v) the stigmatization process. The chapter also presents the main groups of increased risk of experiencing prejudice and discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic (Asians, health-care workers, COVID-19 patients, and their relatives). Moreover, it provides a documented example of such behaviors. The groups at higher risk of more adverse effects of COVID-19 due to pre-pandemic discrimination are also discussed. Finally, initiatives taken to mitigate the discrimination associated with COVID-19 are presented, as well as the recommendations and good practices for preventing these behaviors during future outbreaks and for limiting discrimination against COVID-19 until the disease can be contained.

Supramodal neural networks support top-down processing of social signals

The perception of facial and vocal stimuli is driven by sensory input and cognitive top‐down influences. Important top‐down influences are attentional focus and supramodal social memory representations. The present study investigated the neural networks underlying these top‐down processes and their role in social stimulus classification. In a neuroimaging study with 45 healthy participants, we employed a social adaptation of the Implicit Association Test. Attentional focus was modified via the classification task, which compared two domains of social perception (emotion and gender), using the exactly same stimulus set. Supramodal memory representations were addressed via congruency of the target categories for the classification of auditory and visual social stimuli (voices and faces). Functional magnetic resonance imaging identified attention‐specific and supramodal networks. Emotion classification networks included bilateral anterior insula, pre‐supplementary motor area, and right inferior frontal gyrus. They were pure attention‐driven and independent from stimulus modality or congruency of the target concepts. No neural contribution of supramodal memory representations could be revealed for emotion classification. In contrast, gender classification relied on supramodal memory representations in rostral anterior cingulate and ventromedial prefrontal cortices. In summary, different domains of social perception involve different top‐down processes which take place in clearly distinguishable neural networks.

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.

The Neurophysiology of Implicit Alcohol Associations in Recently Abstinent Patients With Alcohol Use Disorder: An Event-Related Potential Study Considering Gender Effects

BACKGROUND

Neuroscientific models of alcohol use disorders (AUDs) postulate an imbalance between automatic, implicit, and controlled (conscious) processes. Implicit associations towards alcohol indicate the automatically attributed appeal of alcohol-related stimuli. First, behavioral studies indicate that negative alcohol associations are less pronounced in patients compared to controls, but potential neurophysiological differences remain unexplored. This study investigates neurophysiological correlates of implicit alcohol associations in recently abstinent patients with AUD for the first time, including possible gender effects.

METHODS

A total of 62 patients (40 males and 22 females) and 21 controls performed an alcohol valence Implicit Association Test, combining alcohol-related pictures with positive (incongruent condition) or negative (congruent condition) words, while brain activity was recorded using 64-channel electroencephalography. Event-related potentials (ERPs) for alcohol-negative and alcohol-positive trials were computed. Microstate analyses investigated the effects of group (patients, controls) and condition (incongruent, congruent); furthermore, possible gender effects in patients were analyzed. Significant effects were localized with standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic topography analysis.

RESULTS

Although no behavioral group differences were found, ERPs of patients and controls were characterized by distinct microstates from 320 ms onwards. ERPs between conditions differed only in patients with higher signal strength during incongruent trials. Around 600 ms, controls displayed higher signal strength than patients. A gender effect mirrored this pattern with enhanced signal strength in females as opposed to male patients. Around 690 ms, a group-by-valence interaction indicated enhanced signal strength in congruent compared to incongruent trials, which was more pronounced in controls.

CONCLUSIONS

For patients with AUD, the pattern, timing, and source localization of effects suggest greater effort regarding semantic and self-relevant integration around 400 ms during incongruent trials and attenuated emotional processing during the late positive potential timeframe. Interestingly, this emotional attenuation seemed reduced in female patients, thus corroborating the importance of gender-sensitive research and potential treatment of AUD.

Role of Single Low Pulse Intensity of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Over the Frontal Cortex for Cognitive Function

Background: The principal aim of this study was to measure the effect of online single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) on cognition via the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) in healthy individuals.

Methods: In a single-blind, sham-controlled study, we assessed both 50% and 60% of the resting motor threshold (RMT) over the right DLPFC in healthy right-handed (n = 42) adults using cognitive function, such as attention and memory, as a measure via CANTAB.

Results: We observed an improvement in the cognitive function level during the use of online low intensities of 50% and 60% RMT active stimulation of the DLPFC compared to the sham stimulation.

Conclusions: The results showed that low-intensity TMS can indeed effectively modulate cognitive function in DLPFC. Future research is, however, necessary to investigate the potential effects of low-intensity TMS on different brain areas to increase confidence in the observed results.

The Mentalizing Approach to Psychopathology: State of the Art and Future Directions

Mentalizing is the capacity to understand others and oneself in terms of internal mental states. It is assumed to be underpinned by four dimensions: automatic–controlled, internally–externally focused, self–other, and cognitive–affective. Research suggests that mental disorders are associated with different imbalances in these dimensions. Addressing the quality of mentalizing as part of psychosocial treatments may benefit individuals with various mental disorders. We suggest that mentalizing is a helpful transtheoretical and transdiagnostic concept to explain vulnerability to psychopathology and its treatment. This review summarizes the mentalizing approach to psychopathology from a developmental socioecological evolutionary perspective. We then focus on the application of the mentalizing approach to personality disorders, and we review studies that have extended this approach to other types of psychopathology, including depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. We summarize core principles of mentalization-based treatments and preventive interventions and the evidence for their effectiveness. We conclude with recommendations for future research.

Positive intergroup contact modulates fusiform gyrus activity to black and white faces

In this study, we investigated the effect of intergroup contact on processing of own- and other-race faces using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Previous studies have shown a neural own-race effect with greater BOLD response to own race compared to other race faces. In our study, white participants completed a social-categorization task and an individuation task while viewing the faces of both black and white strangers after having answered questions about their previous experiences with black people. We found that positive contact modulated BOLD activity in the right fusiform gyrus (rFG) and left inferior occipital gyrus (lIOC), regions associated with face processing. Within these regions, higher positive contact was associated with higher activity when processing black, compared to white faces during the social categorisation task. We also found that in both regions a greater amount of individuating experience with black people was associated with greater activation for black vs. white faces in the individuation task. Quantity of contact, implicit racial bias and negatively valenced contact showed no effects. Our findings suggest that positive contact and individuating experience directly modulate processing of out-group faces in the visual cortex, and illustrate that contact quality rather than mere familiarity is an important factor in reducing the own race face effect.

Attentional saliency and ingroup biases: From society to the brain

There is ample evidence demonstrating intergroup biases on cognition and emotion. However, it remains unclear how exactly group identification influences these processes, with issues of context sensitivity and goal dependence remaining open to scrutiny. Providing a range of interdisciplinary material, the current review attempts to inform understanding of these issues. Specifically, we provide evidence revealing that individuals show enhanced attention for stimuli associated with an ingroup compared to an outgroup. At the attentional level, such biases can be explained by the assignment of different levels of saliency to ingroup versus outgroup targets. Critically, however, salience assignment is not fixed but varies as a function of context and goal-directed behavior. We suggest that the network in the brain previously associated with social and emotional saliency and attention - notably the anterior insula, posterior superior temporal sulcus, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex - underpins these effects. Moreover, although attention typically favors ingroup targets, outgroup members can be prioritized on occasion. The implications of this viewpoint and future lines of investigation are considered.

Gender Difference in Gender Bias: Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Reduces Male's Gender Stereotypes

Stereotypes exist in the interactions between different social groups, and gender stereotypes are particularly prevalent. Previous studies have suggested that the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is involved in the social cognition that plays an important role in gender stereotypes, but the specific causal effect of the mPFC remains controversial. In this study, we aimed to use transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to identify a direct link between the mPFC and gender bias. Implicit stereotypes were measured by the gender implicit association test (IAT), and explicit prejudice was measured by the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI). We found that male and female participants had different behavioral and neural correlates of gender stereotypes. Anodal tDCS significantly reduced male participants’ gender D-IAT scores compared with cathodal and sham stimulation, while the stimulation had an insignificant effect in female participants. The reduction in male participants’ gender bias mainly resulted from a decrease in the difference in reaction time (RT) between congruent and incongruent blocks. Regarding the explicit bias measurement, male and female participants had distinct attitudes, but tDCS had no effect on ASI. Our results revealed that the mPFC played a causal role in controlling implicit gender stereotypes, which is consistent with previous observations and complements past lesion, neuroimaging, and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) studies and suggests that males and females have different neural bases for gender stereotypes.

Boys' toys, girls' toys: An fMRI study of mothers' neural responses to children violating gender expectations

This study examined 1) mothers' neural responses to pictures of boys and girls who confirmed or violated social expectations regarding toy preferences, and 2) whether neural sensitivity to targets that violated gendered expectations interacted with mothers' gender stereotypes. In an event-related fMRI experiment, 23 mothers of a 2-6 year-old child viewed and evaluated pictures of boys or girls with their favorite toy. Next, mothers gender stereotypes about children's toys and behavior, and internal motivation to behave without prejudice were assessed. Several neural processes were underlying parents' responses to children's behavior that violates gender-role expectations. Brain regions involved in mentalizing or storage of social knowledge, understanding goal-directed behavior, behavioral control, and conflict monitoring were activated when viewing child targets that violated gender expectations. In these brain areas, increased neural responses to targets that violated traditional gender expectations were associated with more stereotyped expectations about boys' and girls' toys and behavior.

An fMRI study on the neural correlates of social conformity to a sexual minority

Social conformity refers to the tendency to align one's own behaviors, beliefs and values to those of others. Little is known about social influence coming from a minority group. To test whether social pressure from sexual minorities triggers avoidance-motivated behaviors, we explored how being influenced by the preferences of gay peers modifies the behavioral and neural reactivity of individuals defined as in- vs. out- groups on the basis of sexual orientation. To this aim, we combined fMRI with a social conformity paradigm in which heterosexual and gay/bisexual (hereafter non-exclusively heterosexual, NEH) individuals provided with male body attractiveness ratings by a fictitious group of gay students may or may not alter their previous rating and may or may not conform to the mean. Behaviorally, conformity to the minority preference was found in in-group NEH more than in out-group heterosexuals. Analysis of BOLD signal showed that social pressure brought about increased brain activity in frontal and parietal regions associated with the detection of social conflict. These results show that members of a sexual majority group display a smaller level of conformity when a sexual minority group exerts social influence. However, the neural correlates of this modulation are yet to be clarified.

Scary symptoms? Functional magnetic resonance imaging evidence for symptom interpretation bias in pathological health anxiety

Patients with pathological health anxiety (PHA) tend to automatically interpret bodily sensations as sign of a severe illness. To elucidate the neural correlates of this cognitive bias, we applied an functional magnetic resonance imaging adaption of a body-symptom implicit association test with symptom words in patients with PHA (n = 32) in comparison to patients with depression (n = 29) and healthy participants (n = 35). On the behavioral level, patients with PHA did not significantly differ from the control groups. However, on the neural-level patients with PHA in comparison to the control groups showed hyperactivation independent of condition in bilateral amygdala, right parietal lobe, and left nucleus accumbens. Moreover, patients with PHA, again in comparison to the control groups, showed hyperactivation in bilateral posterior parietal cortex and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during incongruent (i.e., harmless) versus congruent (i.e., dangerous) categorizations of body symptoms. Thus, body-symptom cues seem to trigger hyperactivity in salience and emotion processing brain regions in PHA. In addition, hyperactivity in brain regions involved in cognitive control and conflict resolution during incongruent categorization emphasizes enhanced neural effort to cope with negative implicit associations to body-symptom-related information in PHA. These results suggest increased neural responding in key structures for the processing of both emotional and cognitive aspects of body-symptom information in PHA, reflecting potential neural correlates of a negative somatic symptom interpretation bias.

Neural representations of Groups and Stereotypes using fMRI repetition suppression

Categorizing people in groups and associating them with stereotypical behavior is an integral part of human social understanding and interaction. This study investigates where knowledge on social groups and their stereotypes is represented in the brain. We presented participants with two sentences describing a group member (e.g. the police officer) performing a behavior believed to be stereotypical of the group (e.g. makes an arrest, i.e. authoritative), and asked them to rate the degree to which the behavior was typical of the group. Our critical manipulation was the repetition of this information across the two sentences: Either both the group and the stereotype implied by the behavior was repeated, only the group was repeated, only the stereotype implied by the behavior, or neither. Results showed robust suppression of hemodynamic activation from the first to second sentence in the medial prefrontal cortex in response to the repetition of the stereotype implied in the behavior, but only when groups were different. This finding suggests that the neural representation of stereotypes is located in this area, and this is in line with similar repetition suppression research showing trait representation in this area. A suppression effect for the repetition of groups was observed in the posterior cingulate cortex, regardless of whether stereotypes were repeated or not. This finding suggests that the neural representation of groups is located in this area. Because this location is unexpected, we discuss several suggestions for future research to confirm this finding.

Exploring Sex Differences in the Neural Correlates of Self-and Other-Referential Gender Stereotyping

While general self-referential processes and their neural underpinnings have been extensively investigated with neuroimaging tools, limited data is available on sex differences regarding self- and other-referential processing. To fill this gap, we measured 17 healthy women and men who performed a self- vs. other-appraisal task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) using gender-stereotypical adjectives. During the self-appraisal task, typical male (e.g., "dominant," "competitive") and female adjectives (e.g., "communicative," "sensitive") were presented and participants were asked whether these adjectives applied to themselves. During the other-appraisal task, a prototypical male (Brad Pitt) and female actor (Julia Roberts) was presented and participants were asked again to judge whether typical male and female adjectives applied to these actors. Regarding self-referential processes, women ascribed significantly more female compared to male traits to themselves. At the same time both women and men indicated a stronger desire to exhibit male over female traits. While fMRI did not detect general sex differences in the self- and other-conditions, some subtle differences were revealed between the sexes: both in right putamen and bilateral amygdala stronger gender-congruent activation was found which was however not associated with behavioral measures like the number of self-ascribed female or male attributes. Furthermore, sex hormone levels showed some associations with brain activation pointing to a different pattern in women and men. Finally, the self- vs. other-condition in general led to stronger activation of the anterior cingulate cortex while the other- vs. self-condition activated the right precuneus more strongly which is in line with previous findings. To conclude, our data lend support for subtle sex differences during processing of stereotypical gender attributes. However, it remains unclear whether such differences have a behavioral relevance. We also point to several limitations of this study including the small sample size and the lack of control for potentially different hormonal states in women.

Sex and gender bias in the experimental neurosciences: the case of the maternal immune activation model

Recent and rapidly developing movements relating to the increasing awareness and reports of gender bias, discrimination, and abuse have reached the academic environments. The consideration that negative attitudes toward women and abuse of power creates a hostile environment for female scientists, facilitating sexual harassment and driving women out of science, can be easily related to. Rationally inaccessible gender biases are not only evident at the level of the researchers, but are also paralleled by a corresponding imbalance at the level of the research subjects. Here, we focus on the maternal immune activation (MIA) animal model to illustrate exemplarily the current state of ex-/inclusion of female research subjects and the consideration of sex as biological variable in the basic neurosciences. We demonstrate a strong sex disparity with a major emphasis on male animals in studies examining behavioral and neurochemical alterations in MIA offspring. We put forward the hypothesis that this neglect of female subjects in basic research may stem from a hard-wired sex/gender bias, which may also be reflected in a similar attitude toward female scientists. We suggest exploring the possibility that by dismantling sex bias and male dominance in basic research one would get an additional handle on favorably modifying the perception and appreciation for women in science.

Opening the "Black Box": Functions of the Frontal Lobes and Their Implications for Sociology

Previous research has provided theoretical frameworks for building inter-disciplinary bridges between sociology and the neurosciences; yet, more anatomically, or functionally focused perspectives offering detailed information to sociologists are largely missing from the literature. This manuscript addresses this gap by offering a comprehensive review of the functions of the frontal lobes, arguably the most important brain region involved in various "human" skills ranging from abstract thinking to language. The paper proposes that the functions of the frontal lobe sub-regions can be divided into three inter-related hierarchical systems with varying degrees of causal proximity in regulating human behavior and social connectedness: (a) the most proximate, voluntary, controlled behavior-including motor functions underlying action-perception and mirror neurons, (b) more abstract motivation and emotional regulation-such as Theory of Mind and empathy, and (c) the higher-order executive functioning-e.g., inhibition of racial bias. The paper offers insights from the social neuroscience literature on phenomena that lie at the core of social theory and research including moral cognition and behavior, and empathy and inter-group attitudes and provides future research questions for interdisciplinary research.

The Cerebellar Predictions for Social Interactions: Theory of Mind Abilities in Patients With Degenerative Cerebellar Atrophy

Recent studies have focused on the role of the cerebellum in the social domain, including in Theory of Mind (ToM). ToM, or the “mentalizing” process, is the ability to attribute mental states, such as emotion, intentions and beliefs, to others to explain and predict their behavior. It is a fundamental aspect of social cognition and crucial for social interactions, together with more automatic mechanisms, such as emotion contagion. Social cognition requires complex interactions between limbic, associative areas and subcortical structures, including the cerebellum. It has been hypothesized that the typical cerebellar role in adaptive control and predictive coding could also be extended to social behavior. The present study aimed to investigate the social cognition abilities of patients with degenerative cerebellar atrophy to understand whether the cerebellum acts in specific ToM components playing a role as predictive structure. To this aim, an ad hoc social cognition battery was administered to 27 patients with degenerative cerebellar pathology and 27 healthy controls. In addition, 3D T1-weighted and resting-state fMRI scans were collected to characterize the structural and functional changes in cerebello-cortical loops. The results evidenced that the patients were impaired in lower-level processes of immediate perception as well as in the more complex conceptual level of mentalization. Furthermore, they presented a pattern of GM reduction in cerebellar portions that are involved in the social domain such as crus I-II, lobule IX and lobule VIIIa. These areas showed decreased functional connectivity with projection cerebral areas involved in specific aspects of social cognition. These findings boost the idea that the cerebellar modulatory function on the cortical projection areas subtends the social cognition process at different levels. Particularly, regarding the lower-level processes, the cerebellum may act by implicitly matching the external information (i.e., expression of the eyes) with the respective internal representation to guarantee an immediate judgment about the mental state of others. Otherwise, at a more complex conceptual level, the cerebellum seems to be involved in the construction of internal models of mental processes during social interactions in which the prediction of sequential events plays a role, allowing us to anticipate the other person's behavior.

Neural correlates of automatic beliefs about gender stereotypes: Males are more prejudicial

Aim of this study was to investigate the neural bases of stereotype representation, including the presence of gender bias. EEG was recorded from 128 sites in 38 Italian participants. While looking for rare animal words, participants read 240 sentences, half of which expressed notions congruent with gender stereotypes, and the other half did not (e.g., "Prepared the tomato sauce and then SHAVED", "The engineer stained HER SKIRT"). Event-related potentials (ERPs) were time-locked to critical words. Findings showed enhanced anterior N400 and occipito-parietal P600 responses to items that violated gender stereotypes, mostly in men. The swLORETA analysis applied to N400 potentials in response to incongruent phrases showed that the most activated areas during stereotype processing were the right medial temporal and medial frontal gyri, as well as the TPJ. The data hint at a gender difference in stereotyping, with men being more prejudicial especially when the depicted character is a male.

Overcoming Bias: Cognitive Control Reduces Susceptibility to Framing Effects in Evaluating Musical Performance

Prior expectations can bias evaluative judgments of sensory information. We show that information about a performer’s status can bias the evaluation of musical stimuli, reflected by differential activity of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Moreover, we demonstrate that decreased susceptibility to this confirmation bias is (a) accompanied by the recruitment of and (b) correlated with the white-matter structure of the executive control network, particularly related to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). By using long-duration musical stimuli, we were able to track the initial biasing, subsequent perception, and ultimate evaluation of the stimuli, examining the full evolution of these biases over time. Our findings confirm the persistence of confirmation bias effects even when ample opportunity exists to gather information about true stimulus quality, and underline the importance of executive control in reducing bias.

Anti-TNFα therapy in IBD alters brain activity reflecting visceral sensory function and cognitive-affective biases

Background

In inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), immune activation with increased circulating TNF-α is linked to the intensity of gastrointestinal symptoms and depression or anxiety. A central feature of depression is cognitive biases linked to negative attributions about self, the world and the future. We aimed to assess the effects of anti-TNFα therapy on the central processing of self-attribution biases and visceral afferent information in patients with Crohn’s disease.

Methods

We examined 9 patients with Crohn’s disease (age 26.1±10.6. yrs, 5 female, 5 ileocolonic, 2 colonic and 2 ileal disease) during chronic anti-TNFα therapy (5 adalimumab, 4 infliximab). Patients were studied twice in randomized order before and after anti-TNFα administration. On each occasion patients underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the brain during a test of implicit attribution biases regarding sickness/health and undertook a standardized nutrient challenge.

Results

Following anti-TNFα treatment, ratings of ‘fullness’ following nutrient challenge reduced compared to pre-treatment ratings (p<0.05). Reaction times revealed improved processing of self-related and positive health words, consistent with improved implicit sense of wellbeing that correlated with improvements in sensory function after treatment (r = 0.67, p<0.05). Treatment-associated improvements in implicit processing were mirrored by alterations of prefrontal, amygdala, posterior cingulate and visual regions. Between patients, the degree of functional amygdala change was additionally explained by individual differences in attention regulation and body awareness rankings.

Conclusion

In patients with Crohn’s disease, anti-TNFα administration reduces visceral sensitivity and improves implicit cognitive-affective biases linked to alterations in limbic (amygdala) function.

Endogenous Oxytocin Release Eliminates In-Group Bias in Monetary Transfers With Perspective-Taking

Oxytocin (OT) has been shown to facilitate trust, empathy and other prosocial behaviors. At the same time, there is evidence that exogenous OT infusion may not result in prosocial behaviors in all contexts, increasing in-group biases in a number of studies. The current investigation seeks to resolve this inconsistency by examining if endogenous OT release is associated with in-group bias. We studied a large group of participants (N = 399) in existing groups and randomly formed groups. Participants provided two blood samples to measure the change in OT after a group salience task and then made computer-mediated monetary transfer decisions to in-group and out-group members. Our results show that participants with an increase in endogenous OT showed no bias in monetary offers in the ultimatum game (UG) to out-group members compared to in-groups. There was also no bias in accepting UG offers, though in-group bias persisted for a unilateral monetary transfer. Our analysis shows that the strength of identification with one's group diminished the effects that an increase in OT had on reducing bias, but bias only recurred when group identification reached 87% of its maximum value. Our results indicate that the endogenous OT system appears to reduce in-group bias in some contexts, particularly those that require perspective-taking.

The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex mediates the interaction between moral and aesthetic valuation: a TMS study on the beauty-is-good stereotype

Attractive individuals are perceived as possessing more positive personal traits than unattractive individuals. This reliance on aesthetic features to infer moral character suggests a close link between aesthetic and moral valuation. Here we aimed to investigate the neural underpinnings of the interaction between aesthetic and moral valuation by combining transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with a priming paradigm designed to assess the Beauty-is-Good stereotype. Participants evaluated the trustworthiness of a series of faces (targets), each of which was preceded by an adjective describing desirable, undesirable, or neutral aesthetic qualities (primes). TMS was applied between prime and target to interfere with activity in two regions known to be involved in aesthetic and moral valuation: the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC, a core region in social cognition) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC, critical in decision making). Our results showed that when TMS was applied over vertex (control) and over the dlPFC, participants judged faces as more trustworthy when preceded by positive than by negative aesthetic primes (as also shown in two behavioral experiments). However, when TMS was applied over the dmPFC, primes had no effect on trustworthiness judgments. A second Experiment corroborated this finding. Our results suggest that mPFC plays a causal role linking moral and aesthetic valuation.

Implicit attitudes and executive control interact to regulate interest in extra-pair relationships

Do we actively maintain monogamous relationships by force of will, or does monogamy flow automatically? During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), male participants in a romantic relationship performed the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to evaluate implicit attitudes toward adultery and a go/no-go task to measure prefrontal activity implicated in explicit executive control. Subsequently, they were engaged in a date-rating task in which they rated how much they wanted to date unfamiliar females. We found that the individuals with higher prefrontal activity during go/no-go task could regulate the interest for dates with unattractive females; moreover, the individuals with both a stronger negative attitude toward adultery and higher prefrontal activity could regulate their interest for dates with attractive females, and such individuals tended to maintain longer romantic relationships with a particular partner. These results indicate that regulation of amorous temptation via monogamous relationship is affected by the combination of automatic and reflective processes.

Cerebellar Contribution to Social Cognition

Emotion attribution (EA) from faces is key to social cognition, and deficits in perception of emotions from faces underlie neuropsychiatric disorders in which cerebellar pathology is reported. Here, we test the hypothesis that the cerebellum contributes to social cognition through EA from faces. We examined 57 patients with cerebellar disorders and 57 healthy controls. Thirty-one patients had complex cerebrocerebellar disease (complex cerebrocerebellar disease group (CD)); 26 had disease isolated to cerebellum (isolated cerebellar disease group (ID)). EA was measured with the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test (RMET), and informants were administered a novel questionnaire, the Cerebellar Neuropsychiatric Rating Scale (CNRS). EA was impaired in all patients (CD p < 0.001, ID p < 0.001). When analyzed for valence categories, both CD and ID missed more positive and negative stimuli. Positive targets produced the highest deficit (CD p < 0.001, ID p = 0.004). EA impairments correlated with CNRS measures of deficient social skills (p < 0.05) and autism spectrum behaviors (p < 0.005). Patients had difficulties with emotion regulation (CD p < 0.001, ID p < 0.001), autism spectrum behaviors (CD p < 0.049, ID p < 0.001), and psychosis spectrum symptoms (CD p < 0.021, ID p < 0.002). ID informants endorsed deficient social skills (CD p < 0.746, ID p < 0.003) and impaired attention regulation (CD p < 0.144, ID p < 0.001). Within the psychosis spectrum domain, CD patients were worse than controls for lack of empathy (CD p = 0.05; ID p = 0.49). Thus, patients with cerebellar damage were impaired on an EA task associated with deficient social skills and autism spectrum behaviors and experienced psychosocial difficulties on the CNRS. This has relevance for ataxias, the cerebellar cognitive affective/Schmahmann syndrome, and neuropsychiatric disorders with cerebellar pathology.

Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and cerebellar contribution to in-group attitudes: a transcranial magnetic stimulation study

We tend to express more positive judgments and behaviors toward individuals belonging to our own group compared to other (out-) groups. In this study, we assessed the role of the cerebellum and of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) - two regions critically implicated in social cognition processes - in mediating implicit valenced attitudes toward in-group and out-group individuals. To this aim, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in combination with a standard attitude priming task, in which Caucasian participants had to categorize the valence of a series of adjectives primed by either an in-group or an out-group face. In two behavioral experiments, we found an in-group bias (i.e. faster categorization of positive adjectives when preceded by in-group faces) but no evidence of an out-group bias. Interestingly, TMS over both the dmPFC and over the (right) cerebellum significantly interfered with the modulation exerted by group membership on adjective valence classification, abolishing the in-group bias observed at baseline. Overall, our data suggest that both the dmPFC and the cerebellum play a causal role in mediating implicit social attitudes.