Cassidy Brittany S, Lee Eunice J, Krendl Anne C
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2016 Nov;11(11):1752-1761. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsw081. Epub 2016 Jun 21.
Decreased executive ability elicits racial bias. We clarified the neural correlates of how executive ability contributes to race perception by comparing young adults (YA) to a population with highly variable executive ability: older adults (OA). After replicating work showing higher race bias in OA vs YA and a negative association between bias and executive ability, a subsample of White YA and OA perceived Black and White faces and cars during functional magnetic resonance imaging. YA had higher executive ability than OA, and OA had higher variability in executive ability. When perceiving Black vs White faces, YA exhibited more dorsolateral prefrontal cortex recruitment-a region previously implicated in regulating prejudiced responses-than OA. Moreover, OA with relatively impaired executive ability had more amygdala activity toward Black faces vs OA with relatively intact executive ability, whereas responses to White faces did not differ. Both YA and OA with relatively intact executive ability had stronger amygdala-ventrolateral prefrontal cortex connectivity when perceiving Black vs White faces. These findings are the first to disentangle age from executive ability differences in neural recruitment when perceiving race, potentially informing past behavioral work on aging and race perception.
执行能力下降会引发种族偏见。我们通过将年轻人（YA）与执行能力高度可变的人群：老年人（OA）进行比较，阐明了执行能力如何影响种族认知的神经关联。在重复了显示OA比YA存在更高种族偏见以及偏见与执行能力呈负相关的研究后，选取了白人YA和OA的一个子样本，在功能磁共振成像期间让他们观看黑人和白人的面孔以及汽车。YA的执行能力高于OA，且OA的执行能力变异性更大。在观看黑人与白人面孔时，与OA相比，YA表现出更多的背外侧前额叶皮层激活——该区域先前被认为与调节偏见反应有关。此外，执行能力相对受损的OA对黑人面孔的杏仁核活动比对执行能力相对完好的OA更多，而对白人面孔的反应则没有差异。在观看黑人与白人面孔时，执行能力相对完好的YA和OA都具有更强的杏仁核-腹外侧前额叶皮层连接。这些发现首次在种族认知时将年龄与执行能力差异在神经激活方面区分开来，这可能为过去关于衰老和种族认知的行为研究提供参考。
