Freeman Jonathan B, Ma Yina, Barth Maria, Young Steven G, Han Shihui, Ambady Nalini
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA.
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
Cereb Cortex. 2015 Feb;25(2):415-22. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bht238. Epub 2013 Sep 4.
From only brief exposure to a face, individuals spontaneously categorize another's race. Recent behavioral evidence suggests that visual context may affect such categorizations. We used fMRI to examine the neural basis of contextual influences on the race categorization of faces. Participants categorized the race of faces that varied along a White-Asian morph continuum and were surrounded by American, neutral, or Chinese scene contexts. As expected, the context systematically influenced categorization responses and their efficiency (response times). Neuroimaging results indicated that the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) exhibited highly sensitive, graded responses to the compatibility of facial and contextual cues. These regions showed linearly increasing responses as a face became more White when in an American context, and linearly increasing responses as a face became more Asian when in a Chinese context. Further, RSC activity partially mediated the effect of this face-context compatibility on the efficiency of categorization responses. Together, the findings suggest a critical role of the RSC and OFC in driving contextual influences on face categorization, and highlight the impact of extraneous cues beyond the face in categorizing other people.
仅通过短暂接触一张脸，个体就能自发地对他人的种族进行分类。最近的行为证据表明，视觉背景可能会影响此类分类。我们使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）来研究背景对人脸种族分类影响的神经基础。参与者对沿着白人 - 亚洲人形态连续体变化且被美国场景、中性场景或中国场景背景包围的人脸种族进行分类。正如预期的那样，背景系统地影响了分类反应及其效率（反应时间）。神经影像学结果表明，压后皮质（RSC）和眶额皮质（OFC）对面部和背景线索的兼容性表现出高度敏感的分级反应。当处于美国背景中时，随着人脸变得更像白人，这些区域的反应呈线性增加；当处于中国背景中时，随着人脸变得更像亚洲人，这些区域的反应也呈线性增加。此外，RSC的活动部分介导了这种面部 - 背景兼容性对分类反应效率的影响。总之，这些发现表明RSC和OFC在驱动背景对人脸分类的影响中起关键作用，并突出了面部以外的无关线索在对他人进行分类中的影响。
