Attractiveness Differentially Affects Direct Versus Indirect Face Evaluations in Two Cultures.

Although decades of research have identified facial features relating to people's evaluations of faces, specific features have largely been examined in isolation from each other. Recent work shows that considering the relative importance of these features in face evaluations is important to test theoretical assumptions of impression formation. Here, we examined how two facial features of evolutionary interest, facial attractiveness and facial-width-to-height ratio (FWHR), relate to evaluations of faces across two cultures. Because face evaluations are typically directly measured via self-reports, we also examined whether these features exert differential effects on both direct and indirect face evaluations. Evaluations of standardized photos naturally varying in facial attractiveness and FWHR were collected using the Affect Misattribution Procedure in the United States and Turkey. When their relative contributions were considered in the same model, facial attractiveness, but not FWHR, related to face evaluations across cultures. This positive attractiveness effect was stronger for direct versus indirect evaluations across cultures. These findings highlight the importance of considering the relative contributions of facial features to evaluations across cultures and suggest a culturally invariant role of attractiveness when intentionally evaluating faces.

Perceiver and target partisanship shift facial trustworthiness effects on likability.

The affective polarization characteristic of the United States' political climate contributes to pervasive intergroup tension. This tension polarizes basic aspects of person perception, such as face impressions. For instance, face impressions are polarized by partisanship disclosure such that people form positive and negative impressions of, respectively, shared and opposing partisan faces. How partisanship interacts with other facial cues affecting impressions remains unclear. Building on work showing that facial trustworthiness, a core dimension of face perception, is especially salient for ingroup members, we reasoned that shared and opposing partisanship may also affect the relation between facial trustworthiness characteristics and subsequent likability impressions. A stronger positive relation emerged for shared versus opposing partisan faces across more conservative and liberal perceivers (Experiments 1 and 2). Exploratory analyses showed that this difference links to perceived partisan threat (Experiment 1) and that experimentally manipulating inter-party threat strengthened opposing partisan derogation and shared partisan enhancement patterns (Experiment 2). These findings suggest that partisanship extends from affecting overall face impressions of partisans to affecting the relation between a core dimension of face perception and subsequent impressions. These findings highlight the prevalence of partisanship effects in basic aspects of person perception and have implications for intergroup behavior.

Age-related differences in the social associative learning of trust information.

Trust is a key component of social interaction. Older adults, however, often exhibit excessive trust relative to younger adults. One explanation is that older adults may learn to trust differently than younger adults. Here, we examine how younger (N = 33) and older adults (N = 30) learn to trust over time. Participants completed a classic iterative trust game with 3 partners. Younger and older adults shared similar amounts but differed in how they shared money. Compared to younger adults, older adults invested more with untrustworthy partners and less with trustworthy partners. As a group, older adults displayed less learning than younger adults. However, computational modeling suggests that this is not because older adults learn differently from positive and negative feedback than younger adults. Model-based fMRI analyses revealed several age- and learning-related differences in neural processing. Specifically, we found that older learners (N = 19), relative to older non-learners (N = 11), had greater reputation-related activity in metalizing/memory areas while making their decisions. Collectively, these findings suggest that older adult learners use social cues differently from non-learners.

Disclosing political partisanship polarizes first impressions of faces.

Americans' increasing levels of ideological polarization contribute to pervasive intergroup tensions based on political partisanship. Cues to partisanship may affect even the most basic aspects of perception. First impressions of faces constitute a widely-studied basic aspect of person perception relating to intergroup tensions. To understand the relation between face impressions and political polarization, two experiments were designed to test whether disclosing political partisanship affected face impressions based on perceivers' political ideology. Disclosed partisanship more strongly affected people's face impressions than actual, undisclosed, categories (Experiment 1). In a replication and extension, disclosed shared and opposing partisanship also engendered, respectively, positive and negative changes in face impressions (Experiment 2). Partisan disclosure effects on face impressions were paralleled by the extent of people's partisan threat perceptions (Experiments 1 and 2). These findings suggest that partisan biases appear in basic aspects of person perception and may emerge concomitant with perceived partisan threat.

Mental Representations of Sickness Positively Relate to Adaptive Health Behaviors.

An ecological approach to social perception states that impressions of faces have functional value in that they guide adaptive behavior ensuring people's survival. For example, people may avoid others whose faces appear sick to avoid an illness representing a survival threat. We broadened the ecological approach in the current work by examining whether merely thinking about what illnesses on faces look like (i.e., how sickness on faces is represented) holds functional value in guiding behavior to ensure survival. Using an example of a real illness threat as proof of concept, we showed that people self-reported performing more adaptive health behaviors in response to COVID-19 if they had sicker representations of COVID-19 on faces (Experiment 1a). These sicker representations of COVID-19 on faces explained, in part, a positive relation between perceptions of COVID-19 as threatening and people's self-reported adaptive health behaviors. We then replicated these patterns when experimentally manipulating illness threat (Experiment 1b). We found that people expected more adaptive health behaviors and had sicker representations of illness on faces in response to illness threats that were more relative to less threatening. These findings suggest that mentally representing sickness on faces is enough to guide people's behaviors in response to illness threats.

Decoding complex emotions and humanization show related face processing effects.

Inferring others' complex emotions is central to ascribing humanness to others. However, little past research has investigated the perceptual processes linking the inference of complex emotions to judging others' humanness. To this end, we disrupted the low-level perceptual processes typically employed in face processing via face inversion. Of interest was whether the inversion-driven deficits in complex emotion judgments and in humanness judgments were related. In three experiments, we find that disrupting efficient face processing via face inversion undermined the accurate decoding of complex emotions from the eyes (Experiments 1a, 1b, and 2) and triggered more dehumanized evaluations of target eye regions (Experiments 1a and 1b) and faces (Experiment 2). Critically, these inversion effects on emotion decoding and dehumanization were positively correlated. People who demonstrated stronger inversion effects on the accuracy of decoding complex emotions also demonstrated stronger inversion effects on dehumanizing evaluations. Taken together, these findings provide novel evidence that sensitivity to complex emotions and (de)humanization are related through a shared perceptual basis in efficient face processing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Intrinsic functional connectivity in the default mode network predicts mnemonic discrimination: A connectome-based modeling approach.

The ability to distinguish existing memories from similar perceptual experiences is a core feature of episodic memory. This ability is often examined using the mnemonic similarity task in which people discriminate memories of studied objects from perceptually similar lures. Studies of the neural basis of such mnemonic discrimination have mostly focused on hippocampal function and connectivity. However, default mode network (DMN) connectivity may also support such discrimination, given that the DMN includes the hippocampus, and its connectivity supports many aspects of episodic memory. Here, we used connectome-based predictive modeling to identify associations between intrinsic DMN connectivity and mnemonic discrimination. We leveraged a wide range of abilities across healthy younger and older adults to facilitate this predictive approach. Resting-state functional connectivity in the DMN predicted mnemonic discrimination outside the MRI scanner, especially among prefrontal and temporal regions and including several hippocampal regions. This predictive relationship was stronger for younger than older adults, primarily for temporal-prefrontal connectivity. The novel associations established here are consistent with mounting evidence that broader cortical networks including the hippocampus support mnemonic discrimination. They also suggest that age-related network disruptions undermine the extent that the DMN supports this ability. This study provides the first indication of how intrinsic functional properties of the DMN support mnemonic discrimination.

Age differences in neural activity related to mentalizing during person perception.

Mentalizing, or thinking about others' mental states, shapes social interactions. Older adults (OA) have reduced mentalizing capacities reflected by lower medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) activation. The current study assessed if OA' lower mPFC activation reflects less spontaneous mentalizing during person perception. Younger adults (YA) and OA viewed ingroup White and outgroup Black and Asian faces and completed a mentalizing task during fMRI. Afterward, they completed a task in which they inferred mental states from faces. Using an mPFC region defined by the mentalizing task, OA had lower activity than YA during person perception. OA' mPFC activity toward faces positively related to their mentalizing outside the scanner. The extent of OA' lower mPFC activation during person perception may depend on their actual detection of mental states in faces. Further, YA', but not OA', mPFC activity distinguished between outgroups. OA' lower mentalizing-related mPFC activity may reduce their ability to individuate outgroup members.

A stronger relationship between reward responsivity and trustworthiness evaluations emerges in healthy aging.

Older adults (OA) evaluate faces to be more trustworthy than do younger adults (YA), yet the processes supporting these more positive evaluations are unclear. This study identified neural mechanisms spontaneously engaged during face perception that differentially relate to OA' and YA' later trustworthiness evaluations. We examined two mechanisms: salience (reflected by amygdala activation) and reward (reflected by caudate activation) - both of which are implicated in evaluating trustworthiness. We emphasized the salience and reward value of specific faces by having OA and YA evaluate ingroup male White and outgroup Black and Asian faces. Participants perceived faces during fMRI and made trustworthiness evaluations after the scan. OA rated White and Black faces as more trustworthy than YA. OA had a stronger positive relationship between caudate activity and trustworthiness than YA when perceiving ingroup, but not outgroup, faces. Ingroup cues might intensify how trustworthiness is rewarding to OA, potentially reinforcing their overall positivity.

Valenced appearance-behavior cues affect the extent of impression memory.

Prior work has often shown higher memory for impressions of valenced verbal cues when such valence is congruent with valence conveyed by actors' facial characteristics. The current work examined specific valence contributions to appearance-congruent memory advantages. Untrustworthy and trustworthy faces were paired with positive, negative, and neutral behaviours (Study 1) and traits (Study 2). Negative versus positive trust-related behaviours are more highly diagnostic and weigh more heavily into impressions, suggesting that impressions of negative behaviours should also be more memorable. Consistent with this possibility, an appearance-congruity advantage for memory of impressions formed from behaviours was larger for untrustworthy versus trustworthy faces after correcting for appearance-congruent response biases (Study 1). When forming impressions from traits, verbal cues less contextualised than behaviours, a larger appearance-congruity advantage in impression memory for untrustworthy versus trustworthy faces could be attributed to appearance-congruent responding (Study 2). Across studies, more extremely valenced impressions were better remembered than more neutral impressions regardless of facial trustworthiness. True appearance-congruity advantages in impression memory may thus be larger for untrustworthy faces when verbal cues can be more contextualised. Further, forming impressions of more extremely valenced verbal cues may enhance impression memory regardless of whether cues are incongruent with facial characteristics.

Aging relates to a disproportionately weaker functional architecture of brain networks during rest and task states.

Functional connectivity - the co-activation of brain regions - forms the basis of the brain's functional architecture. Often measured during resting-state (i.e., in a task-free setting), patterns of functional connectivity within and between brain networks change with age. These patterns are of interest to aging researchers because age differences in resting-state connectivity relate to older adults' relative cognitive declines. Less is known about age differences in large-scale brain networks during directed tasks. Recent work in younger adults has shown that patterns of functional connectivity are highly correlated between rest and task states. Whether this finding extends to older adults remains largely unexplored. To this end, we assessed younger and older adults' functional connectivity across the whole brain using fMRI while participants underwent resting-state or completed directed tasks (e.g., a reasoning judgement task). Resting-state and task functional connectivity were less strongly correlated in older as compared to younger adults. This age-dependent difference could be attributed to significantly lower consistency in network organization between rest and task states among older adults. Older adults had less distinct or segregated networks during resting-state. This more diffuse pattern of organization was exacerbated during directed tasks. Finally, the default mode network, often implicated in neurocognitive aging, contributed strongly to this pattern. These findings establish that age differences in functional connectivity are state-dependent, providing greater insight into the mechanisms by which aging may lead to cognitive declines.

Effects of executive ability on bias and ingroup perceptions in aging.

Prior work on aging and prejudice has identified that declining executive ability underlies older adults' (OA') increased anti-outgroup bias. The current work, however, suggests that there may also be a motivational reason. Here, we explored the possibility that for OA with relatively lower executive ability, anti-outgroup bias may serve an ironic purpose of maximizing a fundamental social goal: maintaining ingroup positivity. OA are more motivated than young adults (YA) to maximize positivity in everyday life. This process, however, can be cognitively effortful. We tested the novel predictions that (a) OA' executive ability positively predicts their evaluations of ingroup members and (b) OA might preserve positive ingroup perceptions through anti-outgroup bias if they have lower executive ability. The present work tested these predictions using a timely example of an outgroup: Muslims. Study 1 verified that non-Muslim YA and OA identified with non-Muslims (vs. Muslims) as an ingroup. Study 2 then had 3 key findings. First, we replicated work showing a negative relationship between OA' executive ability and their anti-outgroup bias by showing a negative relationship with their anti-Muslim bias. Second, OA' higher executive ability related to their having more positive perceptions of ingroup non-Muslims. Finally, OA with lower executive ability had higher ingroup positivity by having higher anti-Muslim bias. These findings suggest that when OA lack the executive ability to directly maintain a motivational goal of being positive about themselves and their ingroups, they maintain positivity at the expense of others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Age differences in specific neural connections within the Default Mode Network underlie theory of mind.

Theory of mind (i.e., the ability to infer others' mental states) - a fundamental social cognitive ability - declines with increasing age. Prior investigations have focused on identifying task-evoked differences in neural activation that underlie these performance declines. However, these declines could also be related to dysregulation of the baseline, or 'intrinsic', functional connectivity of the brain. If so, age differences in intrinsic connectivity may provide novel insight into the mechanisms that contribute to poorer theory of mind in older adults. To examine this possibility, we assessed younger and older adults' theory of mind while they underwent task-based fMRI, as well as the intrinsic functional connectivity measured during resting-state within the (task-defined) theory of mind network. Older adults exhibited poorer theory of mind behavioral performance and weaker intrinsic connectivity within this network compared to younger adults. Intrinsic connectivity between the right temporoparietal junction and the right temporal pole mediated age differences in theory of mind. Specifically, older adults had weaker intrinsic connectivity between right temporoparietal junction and right temporal pole that explained their poorer theory of mind behavioral performance. These findings broaden our understanding of aging and social cognition and reveal more specific mechanisms of how aging impacts theory of mind.

Age Effects on Trustworthiness Activation and Trust Biases in Face Perception.

Objective: Older adults evaluate faces as being more trustworthy than do younger adults. The present work examined whether aging is associated with changes in the dynamic activation of trustworthiness categories toward faces, and if category activation relates to enhanced trust. Method: Younger and older adults categorized faces as trustworthy or untrustworthy while computer mouse trajectories were recorded to measure dynamic category activation. Results: Older, but not younger, adults had more dynamic category activation (i.e., trustworthy and untrustworthy) when they viewed untrustworthy versus trustworthy faces. This tendency predicted a bias (pronounced with age) toward evaluating faces as being trustworthy. Discussion: A pronounced trust bias in aging may be related to greater dynamic activation of trustworthiness (vs untrustworthiness) when perceiving faces.

Neural response to evaluating depression predicts perceivers' mental health treatment recommendations.

Nonstigmatized perceivers' initial evaluations of stigmatized individuals have profound consequences for the well-being of those stigmatized individuals. However, the mechanism by which this occurs remains underexplored. Specifically, what beliefs about the stigmatized condition (stigma-related beliefs) shape how nonstigmatized perceivers evaluate and behave toward stigmatized individuals? We examined these questions with respect to depression-related stigmatization because depression is highly stigmatized and nondepressed individuals' behavior (e.g., willingness to recommend treatment) directly relates to removing stigma and increasing well-being. In Study 1, we identified common stigma-related beliefs associated with depression (e.g., not a serious illness, controllable, threatening), and found that only perceptions that depression is a serious condition predicted nondepressed perceivers' willingness to recommend mental health treatment. Moreover, perceivers' beliefs that depression is a distressing condition mediated the relationship between perceived seriousness and treatment recommendations (Study 1). In Study 2, we used fMRI to disentangle the potential processes connecting distress to nondepressed perceivers' self-reported treatment intentions. Heightened activity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC)-a region widely implicated in evaluating others-and the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC)-a region widely implicated in regulating negative emotions-emerged when nondepressed perceivers evaluated individuals who were ostensibly depressed. Beliefs that depression is a distressing condition mediated the relationship between dmPFC (but not vlPFC) activity and nondepressed individuals' self-reported treatment recommendations.

Looking the part (to me): effects of racial prototypicality on race perception vary by prejudice.

Less racially prototypic faces elicit more category competition during race categorization. Top-down factors (e.g. stereotypes), however, affect categorizations, suggesting racial prototypicality may enhance category competition in certain perceivers. Here, we examined how prejudice affects race category competition and stabilization when perceiving faces varying in racial prototypicality. Prototypically low vs high Black relative to White faces elicited more category competition and slower response latencies during categorization (Experiment 1), suggesting a pronounced racial prototypicality effect on minority race categorization. However, prejudice predicted the extent of category competition between prototypically low vs high Black faces. Suggesting more response conflict toward less prototypic Black vs White faces, anterior cingulate cortex activity increased toward Black vs White faces as they decreased in racial prototypicality, with prejudice positively predicting this difference (Experiment 2). These findings extend the literature on racial prototypicality and categorization by showing that relative prejudice tempers the extent of category competition and response conflict engaged when initially perceiving faces.

Configural face processing impacts race disparities in humanization and trust.

The dehumanization of Black Americans is an ongoing societal problem. Reducing configural face processing, a well-studied aspect of typical face encoding, decreases the activation of human-related concepts to White faces, suggesting that the extent that faces are configurally processed contributes to dehumanization. Because Black individuals are more dehumanized relative to White individuals, the current work examined how configural processing might contribute to their greater dehumanization. Study 1 showed that inverting faces (which reduces configural processing) reduced the activation of human-related concepts toward Black more than White faces. Studies 2a and 2b showed that reducing configural processing affects dehumanization by decreasing trust and increasing homogeneity among Black versus White faces. Studies 3a-d showed that configural processing effects emerge in racial outgroups for whom untrustworthiness may be a more salient group stereotype (i.e., Black, but not Asian, faces). Study 4 provided evidence that these effects are specific to reduced configural processing versus more general perceptual disfluency. Reduced configural processing may thus contribute to the greater dehumanization of Black relative to White individuals.

Age differences in hippocampal activation during gist-based false recognition.

Age-related increases in reliance on gist-based processes can cause increased false recognition. Understanding the neural basis for this increase helps to elucidate a mechanism underlying this vulnerability in memory. We assessed age differences in gist-based false memory by increasing image set size at encoding, thereby increasing the rate of false alarms. False alarms during a recognition test elicited increased hippocampal activity for older adults as compared to younger adults for the small set sizes, whereas the age groups had similar hippocampal activation for items associated with larger set sizes. Interestingly, younger adults had stronger connectivity between the hippocampus and posterior temporal regions relative to older adults during false alarms for items associated with large versus small set sizes. With increased gist, younger adults might rely more on additional processes (e.g., semantic associations) during recognition than older adults. Parametric modulation revealed that younger adults had increased anterior cingulate activity than older adults with decreasing set size, perhaps indicating difficulty in using monitoring processes in error-prone situations.

Age and executive ability impact the neural correlates of race perception.

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.