Akimoto Yoritaka, Yamazaki Ryuichi, Sugiura Motoaki, Nouchi Rui, Terao Chiaki, Tsukiura Takashi, Kawashima Ryuta
Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
Information & Management Systems Engineering, Nagaoka University of Technology, Nagaoka, Japan.
Eur J Neurosci. 2018 May 28. doi: 10.1111/ejn.13974.
Intelligence is among the key determinants of power and social status in modern societies. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we examined the neural correlates of intelligence evaluation from faces. Participants underwent scans while they evaluated the perceived intelligence and friendliness of faces. We found that medial orbitofrontal cortex activity increased linearly with friendliness ratings. The relationship between perceived intelligence and brain activity was positively linear in the right caudate nucleus and U-shaped (i.e., strong responses to unintelligent-looking or intelligent-looking faces) in the right anterior insula/inferior frontal gyrus. Perceived intelligence was also significantly positively correlated with both friendliness and attractiveness. Furthermore, intelligence rating scores had a positive linear effect on reaction times in the friendliness rating task, suggesting that participants had greater conflicts when making friendliness judgments for faces that appeared to belong to intelligent individuals. In addition, the degree of this effect predicted individual differences in the positive linear modulatory effect of intelligence scores in the right caudate nucleus. Our interpretation was that the activity in the caudate nucleus revealed an approach-avoidance conflict with regard to highly intelligent people, that is, they were perceived as attractive but also potentially threatening. Although our interpretations are merely suggestive because we did not measure the approach-avoidance behaviors directly, our findings have important implications for understanding the dynamics of human interaction in modern societies that increasingly allocate power and status based on intelligence.
在现代社会中，智力是权力和社会地位的关键决定因素之一。在这项功能磁共振成像研究中，我们考察了从面部评估智力的神经关联。参与者在评估面部的感知智力和友好程度时接受扫描。我们发现，内侧眶额皮质活动随友好程度评分呈线性增加。在右侧尾状核中，感知智力与大脑活动之间的关系呈正线性，而在右侧前脑岛/额下回中呈U形（即对看起来不聪明或聪明的面孔有强烈反应）。感知智力也与友好程度和吸引力均显著正相关。此外，智力评分在友好程度评分任务中对反应时间有正向线性影响，这表明参与者在对看起来属于聪明个体的面孔进行友好程度判断时存在更大冲突。此外，这种效应的程度预测了右侧尾状核中智力分数正向线性调节效应的个体差异。我们的解释是，尾状核的活动揭示了对高智商人群的趋近-回避冲突，也就是说，他们被认为有吸引力但也可能具有威胁性。尽管我们由于没有直接测量趋近-回避行为，这些解释只是具有启发性，但我们的发现对于理解现代社会中日益基于智力分配权力和地位的人际互动动态具有重要意义。
