Dataset Information

Living in a Disadvantaged Neighborhood Affects Neural Processing of Facial Trustworthiness.

ABSTRACT: Neighborhood disorder (i.e., physical or social decay) is associated with decreased trust, which reinforces criminal behavior among some individuals in these communities. However, past research largely is descriptive and has not measured processes underlying trust. Using behavioral and neural indices [the late positive potential (LPP), a marker of salience elaboration] in a sample of adults (N = 55), we examined the association between perceived neighborhood disorder and facial trustworthiness perception as well as the potential moderating role of trustworthiness perception on the association between PND and criminal behavior. Individuals with higher perceived neighborhood disorder displayed less LPP differentiation between untrustworthy and trustworthy faces. Moreover, individuals with higher perceived neighborhood disorder and less LPP differentiation were less likely to commit a variety of crimes, whereas those with higher perceptions of neighborhood disorder and high LPP differentiation were more likely to commit a variety of crimes. Combined, these findings suggest that similarly processing trustworthy and untrustworthy faces, as indexed by less LPP differentiation, may reflect an adaptation among those with higher perceived neighborhood disorder that mitigates against deviant behavior and contacts with the law. Understanding the intersection between neighborhood characteristics and individual-level cognitive-affective processing may provide insight into what shapes beliefs and behaviors about important social information.

SUBMITTER: Chang SA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7115212 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Living in a Disadvantaged Neighborhood Affects Neural Processing of Facial Trustworthiness.

Chang Shou-An A SA Baskin-Sommers Arielle A

Frontiers in psychology 20200326

Neighborhood disorder (i.e., physical or social decay) is associated with decreased trust, which reinforces criminal behavior among some individuals in these communities. However, past research largely is descriptive and has not measured processes underlying trust. Using behavioral and neural indices [the late positive potential (LPP), a marker of salience elaboration] in a sample of adults (<i>N</i> = 55), we examined the association between perceived neighborhood disorder and facial trustworth ...[more]

PMID: 32273859

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Project description:BackgroundFaces play a key role in signaling social cues such as signals of trustworthiness. Although several studies identify the amygdala as a core brain region in social cognition, quantitative approaches evaluating its role are scarce.ObjectivesThis review aimed to assess the role of the amygdala in the processing of facial trustworthiness, by analyzing its amplitude BOLD response polarity to untrustworthy versus trustworthy facial signals under fMRI tasks through a Meta-analysis of effect sizes (MA). Activation Likelihood Estimation (ALE) analyses were also conducted.Data sourcesArticles were retrieved from MEDLINE, ScienceDirect and Web-of-Science in January 2016. Following the PRISMA statement guidelines, a systematic review of original research articles in English language using the search string "(face OR facial) AND (trustworthiness OR trustworthy OR untrustworthy OR trustee) AND fMRI" was conducted.Study selection and data extractionThe MA concerned amygdala responses to facial trustworthiness for the contrast Untrustworthy vs. trustworthy faces, and included whole-brain and ROI studies. To prevent potential bias, results were considered even when at the single study level they did not survive correction for multiple comparisons or provided non-significant results. ALE considered whole-brain studies, using the same methodology to prevent bias. A summary of the methodological options (design and analysis) described in the articles was finally used to get further insight into the characteristics of the studies and to perform a subgroup analysis. Data were extracted by two authors and checked independently.Data synthesisTwenty fMRI studies were considered for systematic review. An MA of effect sizes with 11 articles (12 studies) showed high heterogeneity between studies [Q(11) = 265.68, p < .0001; I2 = 95.86%, 94.20% to 97.05%, with 95% confidence interval, CI]. Random effects analysis [RE(183) = 0.851, .422 to .969, 95% CI] supported the evidence that the (right) amygdala responds preferentially to untrustworthy faces. Moreover, two ALE analyses performed with 6 articles (7 studies) identified the amygdala, insula and medial dorsal nuclei of thalamus as structures with negative correlation with trustworthiness. Six articles/studies showed that posterior cingulate and medial frontal gyrus present positive correlations with increasing facial trustworthiness levels. Significant effects considering subgroup analysis based on methodological criteria were found for experiments using spatial smoothing, categorization of trustworthiness in 2 or 3 categories and paradigms which involve both explicit and implicit tasks.LimitationsSignificant heterogeneity between studies was found in MA, which might have arisen from inclusion of studies with smaller sample sizes and differences in methodological options. Studies using ROI analysis / small volume correction methods were more often devoted specifically to the amygdala region, with some results reporting uncorrected p-values based on mainly clinical a priori evidence of amygdala involvement in these processes. Nevertheless, we did not find significant evidence for publication bias.Conclusions and implications of key findingsOur results support the role of amygdala in facial trustworthiness judgment, emphasizing its predominant role during processing of negative social signals in (untrustworthy) faces. This systematic review suggests that little consistency exists among studies' methodology, and that larger sample sizes should be preferred.

Project description:BACKGROUND:Alexithymia is a personality trait characterized by difficulties identifying and describing feelings, an externally oriented style of thinking, and a reduced inclination to imagination. Previous research has shown deficits in the recognition of emotional facial expressions in alexithymia and reductions of brain responsivity to emotional stimuli. Using an affective priming paradigm, we investigated automatic perception of facial emotions as a function of alexithymia at the behavioral and neural level. In addition to self-report scales, we applied an interview to assess alexithymic tendencies. RESULTS:During 3 T fMRI scanning, 49 healthy individuals judged valence of neutral faces preceded by briefly shown happy, angry, fearful, and neutral facial expressions. Alexithymia was assessed using the 20-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire (BVAQ) and the Toronto Structured Interview for Alexithymia (TSIA). As expected, only negative correlations were found between alexithymic features and affective priming. The global level of self-reported alexithymia (as assessed by the TAS-20 and the BVAQ) was found to be related to less affective priming owing to angry faces. At the facet level, difficulties identifying feelings, difficulties analyzing feelings, and impoverished fantasy (as measured by the BVAQ) were correlated with reduced affective priming due to angry faces. Difficulties identifying feelings (BVAQ) correlated also with reduced affective priming due to fearful faces and reduced imagination (TSIA) was related to decreased affective priming due to happy faces. There was only one significant correlation between alexithymia dimensions and automatic brain response to masked facial emotions: TAS-20 alexithymia correlated with heightened brain response to masked happy faces in superior and medial frontal areas. CONCLUSIONS:Our behavioral results provide evidence that alexithymic features are related in particular to less sensitivity for covert facial expressions of anger. The perceptual alterations could reflect impaired automatic recognition or integration of social anger signals into judgemental processes and might contribute to the problems in interpersonal relationships associated with alexithymia. Our findings suggest that self-report measures of alexithymia may have an advantage over interview-based tests as research tools in the field of emotion perception at least in samples of healthy individuals characterized by rather low levels of alexithymia.

Dataset Information

Living in a Disadvantaged Neighborhood Affects Neural Processing of Facial Trustworthiness.

Publications

Living in a Disadvantaged Neighborhood Affects Neural Processing of Facial Trustworthiness.

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