scholarly journals Enlarged Ingroup Effect: How a Shared Culture Shapes In-Group Perception

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola Rigo ◽  
Bindiya L. Ragunath ◽  
Marc H. Bornstein ◽  
Gianluca Esposito
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Environmental Context ◽  
Social Perceptions ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Multicultural Society ◽  
Emergent Phenomenon ◽  
The Social ◽  
Shared Culture ◽  
Group Members

ABSTRACTIncreasing levels of migration and constant redefinition of a ‘sense of belonging’ characterize modern societies. Thus, social perception of people from different ethnicities as in-group or out-group members is influenced by a shared culture that might go beyond ethnicity. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we aim to study how sharing a common culture changes the social perceptions of in-groups and out-groups. We presented same- and different-race faces to young adults living in an integrated multicultural society. Same- and different-race faces were primed by images of environmental context that promotes identification with the participants’ ethnicity or a common shared culture.We found that same and different-race faces recruit similar brain networks only when associated with an environmental context, which promoted identification with a common shared culture. These results support a possible emergent phenomenon in multicultural societies that we call enlarged multi-ethnic in-group effect, which may form the basis of a potential new way to categorize oneself and others in terms of membership.

scholarly journals Perceiving actions before they happen: psychological dimensions scaffold neural action prediction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A Thornton ◽  
Diana I Tamir
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Social World ◽  
Action Space ◽  
Action Prediction ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
The Social ◽  
Psychological Dimensions ◽  
The Brain

Abstract The social world buzzes with action. People constantly walk, talk, eat, work, play, snooze and so on. To interact with others successfully, we need to both understand their current actions and predict their future actions. Here we used functional neuroimaging to test the hypothesis that people do both at the same time: when the brain perceives an action, it simultaneously encodes likely future actions. Specifically, we hypothesized that the brain represents perceived actions using a map that encodes which actions will occur next: the six-dimensional Abstraction, Creation, Tradition, Food(-relevance), Animacy and Spiritualism Taxonomy (ACT-FAST) action space. Within this space, the closer two actions are, the more likely they are to precede or follow each other. To test this hypothesis, participants watched a video featuring naturalistic sequences of actions while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning. We first use a decoding model to demonstrate that the brain uses ACT-FAST to represent current actions. We then successfully predicted as-yet unseen actions, up to three actions into the future, based on their proximity to the current action’s coordinates in ACT-FAST space. This finding suggests that the brain represents actions using a six-dimensional action space that gives people an automatic glimpse of future actions.

scholarly journals Functional connectivity in human auditory networks and the origins of variation in the transmission of musical systems

eLife ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Massimo Lumaca ◽  
Boris Kleber ◽  
Elvira Brattico ◽  
Peter Vuust ◽  
Giosue Baggio
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Structural Modification ◽  
Laboratory Model ◽  
Signaling Game ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
The Social ◽  
Musical Systems ◽  
Processing Mechanisms

Music producers, whether original composers or performers, vary in their ability to acquire and faithfully transmit music. This form of variation may serve as a mechanism for the emergence of new traits in musical systems. In this study, we aim to investigate whether individual differences in the social learning and transmission of music relate to intrinsic neural dynamics of auditory processing systems. We combined auditory and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with an interactive laboratory model of cultural transmission, the signaling game, in an experiment with a large cohort of participants (N=51). We found that the degree of interhemispheric rs-FC within fronto-temporal auditory networks predicts—weeks after scanning—learning, transmission, and structural modification of an artificial tone system. Our study introduces neuroimaging in cultural transmission research and points to specific neural auditory processing mechanisms that constrain and drive variation in the cultural transmission and regularization of musical systems.

scholarly journals A Simultaneous [11C]Raclopride Positron Emission Tomography and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of Striatal Dopamine Binding in Autism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole R. Zürcher ◽  
Erin C. Walsh ◽  
Rachel D. Phillips ◽  
Paul M. Cernasov ◽  
Chieh-En J. Tseng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Positron Emission Tomography ◽  
Social Motivation ◽  
Striatal Dopamine ◽  
Emission Tomography ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Positron Emission ◽  
The Social ◽  
Da Release

Background: The social motivation hypothesis of autism suggests that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by impaired motivation to seek out social experience early in life that interferes with the development of social functioning. This framework posits that impaired mesolimbic dopamine (DA) function underlies compromised responses to social rewards in ASD. Although this hypothesis is supported by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, no molecular imaging study has evaluated striatal dopamine functioning in response to rewards in ASD. Methods: This study evaluated striatal dopaminergic functioning during incentive processing in ASD using simultaneous positron emission tomography (PET) and fMRI using the D2/D3 dopamine receptor antagonist [11C]raclopride. Using a bolus + infusion protocol, voxel-wise binding potential (BPND) was compared between groups (Controls=12, ASD=10) in the striatum. Results: Relative to controls, the ASD group demonstrated relatively decreased phasic DA release to incentives in the right and left putamen and left caudate. Striatal clusters showing significant between-group BPND differences were used as seeds in whole-brain fMRI general functional connectivity analyses. This revealed increased connectivity between the PET-derived right putamen seed and clusters in the precuneus and right insula in the ASD group. Within the ASD group, decreased phasic DA release in the left putamen was related to poorer theory-of-mind skills. Conclusions: ASD was characterized by impaired striatal phasic DA release and abnormally increased functional connectivity, providing support for the social motivation hypothesis of autism. PET measures of dopamine receptor target occupancy may be suitable to evaluate novel ASD therapeutics targeting the striatal dopamine system.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Measures of Blood Flow Patterns in the Human Auditory Cortex in Response to Sound

1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 538-548 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean C. Huckins ◽  
Christopher W. Turner ◽  
Karen A. Doherty ◽  
Michael M. Fonte ◽  
Nikolaus M. Szeverenyi
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Blood Flow ◽  
Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Complex Stimuli ◽  
Scanning Session ◽  
Auditory Research

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) holds exciting potential as a research and clinical tool for exploring the human auditory system. This noninvasive technique allows the measurement of discrete changes in cerebral cortical blood flow in response to sensory stimuli, allowing determination of precise neuroanatomical locations of the underlying brain parenchymal activity. Application of fMRI in auditory research, however, has been limited. One problem is that fMRI utilizing echo-planar imaging technology (EPI) generates intense noise that could potentially affect the results of auditory experiments. Also, issues relating to the reliability of fMRI for listeners with normal hearing need to be resolved before this technique can be used to study listeners with hearing loss. This preliminary study examines the feasibility of using fMRI in auditory research by performing a simple set of experiments to test the reliability of scanning parameters that use a high resolution and high signal-to-noise ratio unlike that presently reported in the literature. We used consonant-vowel (CV) speech stimuli to investigate whether or not we could observe reproducible and consistent changes in cortical blood flow in listeners during a single scanning session, across more than one scanning session, and in more than one listener. In addition, we wanted to determine if there were differences between CV speech and nonspeech complex stimuli across listeners. Our study shows reproducibility within and across listeners for CV speech stimuli. Results were reproducible for CV speech stimuli within fMRI scanning sessions for 5 out of 9 listeners and were reproducible for 6 out of 8 listeners across fMRI scanning sessions. Results of nonspeech complex stimuli across listeners showed activity in 4 out of 9 individuals tested.

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