Sex-related differences in behavioral and amygdalar responses to compound facial threat cues

AbstractTrust is essential in initiating social relationships. Due to the differential evolution of sex hormones as well as the fitness burdens of producing offspring, evaluations of a potential mating partner’s trustworthiness likely differ across sexes. Here, we explore unknown sex-specific effects of facial attractiveness and threat on trusting other-sex individuals. Ninety-three participants (singles; 46 women) attracted by the other sex performed an incentivized trust game. They had to decide whether to trust individuals of the other sex represented by a priori-created face stimuli gradually varying in the intensities of both attractiveness and threat. Male and female participants trusted attractive and unthreatening-looking individuals more often. However, whereas male participants’ trust behavior was affected equally by attractiveness and threat, female participants’ trust behavior was more strongly affected by threat than by attractiveness. This indicates that a partner’s high facial attractiveness might compensate for high facial threat in male but not female participants. Our findings suggest that men and women prioritize attractiveness and threat differentially, with women paying relatively more attention to threat cues inversely signaling parental investment than to attractiveness cues signaling reproductive fitness. This difference might be attributable to an evolutionary, biologically sex-specific decision regarding parental investment and reproduction behavior.

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Sex-related differences in behavioral and amygdalar responses to compound facial threat cues

10.1101/179051 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Hee Yeon Im ◽

Reginald B. Adams ◽

Cody A. Cushing ◽

Jasmine Boshyan ◽

Noreen Ward ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Eye Gaze ◽

Dual Processing ◽

Direct Gaze ◽

Emotional Perception ◽

The Face ◽

Threat Cues ◽

Face Stimuli ◽

The Right ◽

Averted Gaze ◽

Facial Threat

AbstractDuring face perception, we integrate facial expression and eye gaze to take advantage of their shared signals. For example, fear with averted gaze provides a congruent avoidance cue, signaling both threat presence and its location, whereas fear with direct gaze sends an incongruent cue, leaving threat location ambiguous. It has been proposed that the processing of different combinations of threat cues is mediated by dual processing routes: reflexive processing via magnocellular (M) pathway and reflective processing via parvocellular (P) pathway. Because growing evidence has identified a variety of sex differences in emotional perception, here we also investigated how M and P processing of fear and eye gaze might be modulated by observer’s sex, focusing on the amygdala, a structure important to threat perception and affective appraisal. We adjusted luminance and color of face stimuli to selectively engage M or P processing and asked observers to identify emotion of the face. Female observers showed more accurate behavioral responses to faces with averted gaze and greater left amygdala reactivity both to fearful and neutral faces. Conversely, males showed greater right amygdala activation only for M-biased averted-gaze fear faces. In addition to functional reactivity differences, females had greater bilateral amygdala volumes, which positively correlated with behavioral accuracy for M-biased fear. Conversely, in males only the right amygdala volume was positively correlated with accuracy for M-biased fear faces. Our findings suggest that M and P processing of facial threat cues is modulated by functional and structural differences in the amygdalae associated with observer’s sex.

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Intact implicit processing of facial threat cues in schizophrenia

Schizophrenia Research ◽

10.1016/j.schres.2015.11.029 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 170 (1) ◽

pp. 150-155 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Jonathon R. Shasteen ◽

Amy E. Pinkham ◽

Skylar Kelsven ◽

Kelsey Ludwig ◽

B. Keith Payne ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Implicit Processing ◽

Threat Cues ◽

Facial Threat

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The effects of aging in neural processing of facial threat cues via magnocellular and parvocellular pathways.

Journal of Vision ◽

10.1167/18.10.572 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 18 (10) ◽

pp. 572

Author(s):

Hee Yeon Im ◽

Reginald Adams, Jr. ◽

Cody Cushing ◽

Jasmine Boshyan ◽

Noreen Ward ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Neural Processing ◽

Threat Cues ◽

Effects Of Aging ◽

Facial Threat

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Psychobiological reactivity to perceived threat cues of different types of dissociative parts of the personality in women with DID: Preliminary findings of a symptom provocation study

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e609212012-028 ◽

2004 ◽

Author(s):

Helga Matthess ◽

E. R. S. Nijenhuis ◽

Martin Sack ◽

E. Stephan

Keyword(s):

Perceived Threat ◽

Symptom Provocation ◽

Different Types ◽

Threat Cues

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A review on aversive Pavlovian-to-Instrumental transfer in humans

10.31234/osf.io/dyz29 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Anna Gerlicher ◽

Merel Kindt

Keyword(s):

Avoidance Behavior ◽

Neural Circuits ◽

Transfer Effects ◽

Future Directions ◽

Transfer Paradigm ◽

Wide Range ◽

Threat Cues ◽

Imminent Threat ◽

Fear And Anxiety ◽

Pathological Anxiety

A cue that indicates imminent threat elicits a wide range of physiological, hormonal, autonomic, cognitive, and emotional fear responses in humans and facilitates threat-specific avoidance behavior. The occurrence of a threat cue can, however, also have general motivational effects and affect behavior. That is, the encounter with a threat cue can increase our tendency to engage in general avoidance behavior that does neither terminate nor prevent the threat-cue or the threat itself. Furthermore, the encounter with a threat-cue can substantially reduce our likelihood to engage in behavior that leads to rewarding outcomes. Such general motivational effects of threat-cues on behavior can be informative about the transition from normal to pathological anxiety and could also explain the development of comorbid disorders, such as depression and substance abuse. Despite the unmistakable relevance of the motivational effects of threat for our understanding of anxiety disorders, their investigation is still in its infancy. Pavlovian-to-Instrumental transfer is one paradigm that allows us to investigate such motivational effects of threat cues. Here, we review studies investigating aversive transfer in humans and discuss recent results on the neural circuits mediating Pavlovian-to-Instrumental transfer effects. Finally, we discuss potential limitations of the transfer paradigm and future directions for employing Pavlovian-to-Instrumental transfer for the investigation of motivational effects of fear and anxiety.

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