Neuropsychiatry Lab, Department of Medical Neurosciences, Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 9190501, Israel.
Neuropsychiatry Lab, Department of Medical Neurosciences, Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 9190501, Israel
J Neurosci. 2022 Jun 29;42(26):5246-5253. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1436-21.2022. Epub 2022 May 25.
The cognitive system applies categorical thinking to facilitate perception of the rich environment around us. In person cognition, research has focused on the roles of gender, race, age, or appearance in social categorical thinking. Here we investigated how narrative roles, as portrayed by different cinematic characters, are categorized in the neurocognitive system. Under functional MRI, 17 human participants (7 females) were asked to make different judgments regarding personality traits of 16 renowned cinematic characters representing four roles: hero, sidekick, mentor, and villain. Classification analysis showed a brain network, comprising the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, the precuneus and the temporoparietal junction bilaterally, and the left occipital face area (OFA), to discriminate among the four roles. No such classification was found between other individual attributes including age or the associated film. Moreover, regions overlapping the default mode network (DMN) were found to better discriminate between roles, rather than the individual characters, while the OFA was found to better discriminate between individuals. These results demonstrate the inherent role of roles in person cognition, and suggest an intimate relation between roles categorization and self-referential activity. Social categorization, the assignment of different people in our social network to subgroups, is a powerful strategy in social cognition. How is this managed by the brain? We provide evidence that different characters from different stories, representing similar roles in their corresponding narrative, elicit similar brain activation patterns, as revealed by functional MRI. Unlike previous studies of social categorization, these brain activations were similar to those elicited by social cognition rather than face processing, and included regions at the prefrontal cortex, the precuneus, and the temporoparietal junction. The identified brain network significantly overlapped the default mode network. We suggest that social categorization by roles is fundamental to the cognitive system, relying on brain regions related to social cognition.
认知系统运用范畴思维来促进对周围丰富环境的感知。在个体认知中，研究集中在性别、种族、年龄或外貌在社会范畴思维中的作用。在这里，我们研究了不同电影角色所描绘的叙事角色如何在神经认知系统中被分类。在功能磁共振成像下，17 名人类参与者（7 名女性）被要求对 16 位著名电影角色的人格特质做出不同的判断，这些角色代表四种角色：英雄、配角、导师和反派。分类分析显示，一个包含背内侧前额叶皮层、楔前叶和双侧颞顶联合以及左侧枕部面孔区域（OFA）的脑网络可以区分这四个角色。在其他个体属性（包括年龄或相关电影）之间没有发现这种分类。此外，与默认模式网络（DMN）重叠的区域被发现更能区分角色，而不是个体角色，而 OFA 被发现更能区分个体。这些结果表明角色在个体认知中的固有作用，并表明角色分类与自我参照活动之间存在密切关系。社会分类，即将我们社交网络中的不同人分配到不同的小组，是社会认知中的一种强大策略。大脑是如何管理这一点的？我们提供的证据表明，来自不同故事的不同角色，代表他们相应叙事中的相似角色，会引发类似的大脑激活模式，如功能磁共振成像所揭示的那样。与之前的社会分类研究不同，这些大脑激活与社会认知而不是面部处理引起的激活相似，包括前额叶皮层、楔前叶和颞顶联合的区域。识别出的大脑网络与默认模式网络显著重叠。我们认为，角色的社会分类是认知系统的基础，依赖于与社会认知相关的大脑区域。
