Anger, race, and the neurocognition of threat: attention, inhibition, and error processing during a weapon identification task

This study measured event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to test competing hypotheses regarding the effects of anger and race on early visual processing (N1, P2, and N2) and error recognition (ERN and Pe) during a sequentially primed weapon identification task. The first hypothesis was that anger would impair weapon identification in a biased manner by increasing attention and vigilance to, and decreasing recognition and inhibition of weapon identification errors following, task-irrelevant Black (compared to White) faces. Our competing hypothesis was that anger would facilitate weapon identification by directing attention toward task-relevant stimuli (i.e., objects) and away from task-irrelevant stimuli (i.e., race), and increasing recognition and inhibition of biased errors. Results partially supported the second hypothesis, in that anger increased early attention to faces but minimized attentional processing of race, and did not affect error recognition. Specifically, angry (vs. neutral) participants showed increased N1 to both Black and White faces, ablated P2 race effects, and topographically restricted N2 race effects. Additionally, ERN amplitude was unaffected by emotion, race, or object type. However, Pe amplitude was affected by object type (but not emotion or race), such that Pe amplitude was larger after the misidentification of harmless objects as weapons. Finally, anger slowed overall task performance, especially the correct identification of harmless objects, but did not impact task accuracy. Task performance speed and accuracy were unaffected by the race of the face prime. Implications are discussed

Its time: a commentary on fear extinction in the human brain using fMRI

The recent meta-analysis by Fullana et al. (2018) is both timely and significant, providing a vital milestone towards understanding the neural networks involved in threat extinction in humans. Fullana et al. (2018) examined both threat extinction and recall separately using sophisticated meta-analytic methods based on raw contrast maps. Importantly, the meta-analysis highlighted a lack of consistent activation across studies for key neural "players" in the threat extinction circuit: the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). In the current commentary, we highlight reasons for which this key circuitry may not have resulted from this meta-analysis, and call for a 'gold standard' in the examination of threat extinction using fMRI

Incorporating Social Presence in the Design of the Anthropomorphic Interface of Recommendation Agents: Insights from an fMRI Study

Recommendation agents (RAs) are regularly used in online environments to give consumers advice on products. Since social components of human-like RAs (humanoid avatars) are important components in their adoption and use, this study focuses on how the design of the anthropomorphic interface of RAs in terms of social demographics, namely ethnicity and gender, can enhance the RA’s social presence to facilitate their adoption. Since social presence has been shown in the literature to predict the adoption and use of RAs, we examine whether match or mismatch in terms of the anthropomorphic RA’s ethnicity and gender can enhance the user’s social interaction with an RA. To overcome concerns of social desirability bias and political correctness when users assess the social presence of RAs that vary in their ethnicity and gender, we conducted a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) study to complement a traditional behavioral experiment. Our goal was to explain prior behavioral findings that showed that ethnicity (as opposed to gender) match is associated with higher social presence, particularly among women. Specifically, brain activity was captured in an fMRI scanner while users who varied on their ethnicity and gender to either match or mismatch the ethnicity and gender of four RAs evaluated each of the RAs on their social presence. Besides contributing to the neuroscience literature by identifying the brain activations that relate to social presence, the fMRI results shed light on the nature of social presence and explain earlier behavioral findings by showing gender differences in the neural correlates of social presence in terms of ethnicity and gender match and mismatch. Implications on designing anthropomorphic interfaces to embody social demographics to enhance social presence are discussed