The modular neuroarchitecture of social judgments on faces - PubMed (original) (raw)

The modular neuroarchitecture of social judgments on faces

Danilo Bzdok et al. Cereb Cortex. 2012 Apr.

Abstract

Face-derived information on trustworthiness and attractiveness crucially influences social interaction. It is, however, unclear to what degree the functional neuroanatomy of these complex social judgments on faces reflects genuine social versus basic emotional and cognitive processing. To disentangle social from nonsocial contributions, we assessed commonalities and differences between the functional networks activated by judging social (trustworthiness, attractiveness), emotional (happiness), and cognitive (age) facial traits. Relative to happiness and age evaluations, both trustworthiness and attractiveness judgments selectively activated the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and inferior frontal gyrus, forming a core social cognition network. Moreover, they also elicited a higher amygdalar response than even the emotional control condition. Both social judgments differed, however, in their top-down modulation of face-sensitive regions: trustworthiness judgments recruited the posterior superior temporal sulcus, whereas attractiveness judgments recruited the fusiform gyrus. Social and emotional judgments converged and, therefore, likely interact in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Social and age judgments, on the other hand, commonly engaged the anterior insula, inferior parietal cortex, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which appear to subserve more cognitive aspects in social evaluation. These findings demonstrate the modularity of social judgments on human faces by separating the neural correlates of social, face-specific, emotional, and cognitive processing facets.

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Figures

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Timeline of screens within one block of the fMRI experiment. During the actual trials participants were required to compare the face pair based on 4 different questions: “(Who do you regard as) More trustworthy?,” “More attractive?,” “Happier?,” and “Older?.” The face pair was presented for 3 s, with an additional double arrow between the 2 faces during the last second of presentation to prompt a response if not already given (ISI, interstimulus interval).

Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Main effects of social judgments. Medial and lateral views of T1 MNI single-subject template for common activation in social judgments, relative to emotional and cognitive judgments. The significance threshold is set at P < 0.001 with a cluster-forming threshold of P < 0.05 (for subcortical and cerebellar activation, see also

Supplementary Fig. S2

).

Figure 3.

Figure 3.

Emotional and cognitive aspects in social judgments. Medial and lateral views of T1 MNI single-subject template for common activation in social judgments when not parceling out (A) emotion decision–related activation and (B) cognitive decision–related activation. Lateral and section views of T1 MNI single-subject template for (C) conjunction across trustworthiness [TR], attractiveness [AT], and happiness [HA] judgments, relative to age [AG] judgments, to specifically depict the convergence of social and emotional processes during social judgments (sagittal section at x = −10); (D) conjunction across trustworthiness, attractiveness, and age judgments, relative to happiness judgments, to specifically depict convergence of social and cognitive processes during social judgments (axial section at z = −9). The significance threshold is set at P < 0.001 with a cluster-forming threshold of P < 0.05 (for subcortical and cerebellar activation, see also

Supplementary Fig. S3

).

Figure 4.

Figure 4.

Neural differences between trustworthiness and attractiveness judgments. Activation for attractiveness versus trustworthiness judgments (A/B) and vice versa (C/D) superimposed on a T1 MNI single-subject template. (B) Horizontal section through cluster maximum in the right FG (z = −12) in the attractiveness–trustworthiness contrast, (D) sagittal section through cluster maximum in the left pSTS (x = −66) in the trustworthiness–attractiveness contrast. Coordinates in MNI space. The significance threshold is set at P < 0.001 with a cluster-forming threshold of P < 0.05. TR, trustworthiness; AT, attractiveness; HA, happiness; AG, age judgments.

Figure 5.

Figure 5.

Amygdalar response across social, emotional, and cognitive facial judgments. Small volume–corrected analysis of the difference _F_-test across conditions using an anatomical template for the (A) left amygdala and (B) right amygdala. Activity significant at voxel-level P < 0.05 (family-wise error corrected) is shown on 2 coronal sections through the T1 MNI single-subject template at (A) y = −2 and (B) y = −5. Coordinates in MNI space. Two histograms, added for purely illustrative purposes, depicting BOLD signal changes across conditions in the cluster peak voxel in the (A) left and (B) right amygdala. TR, trustworthiness; AT, attractiveness; HA, happiness; AG, age judgments. The asterisk indicates significant differences between conditions (P < 0.05).

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