Dissociable neural correlates of stereotypes and other forms of semantic knowledge
Dissociable neural correlates of stereotypes and other forms of semantic knowledge
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DOI：
10.1093/scan/nsr053
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发表时间：
2012-10-01
影响因子：
4.2
通讯作者：
Mitchell, Jason P.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Contreras, Juan Manuel;Banaji, Mahzarin R.;Mitchell, Jason P.
语义知识是指人们对物体和生物的类别所拥有的信息。长期以来，社会心理学家一直在争论，感知者所拥有的关于人的类别的信息，例如：刻板印象——可能是语义的一种独特形式。在这里，我们针对语义的神经基础的既定发现来检验这个问题，这些发现表明两个大脑区域-左侧额下回和颞下皮层-对一般语义知识至关重要。在功能性磁共振成像期间，参与者回答了关于他们对非社会和社会类别知识的问题。我们认为，如果刻板印象是一种典型的语义知识形式，那么这些相同的区域应该支持刻板印象的激活和检索。与这种可能性不一致的是，左额下回和颞下皮层仅在非社会类别判断时才被激活。相反，社会类别的判断与经常与社会认知相关的区域有关，包括内侧前额叶皮层、后扣带皮层、双侧颞顶叶交界处和前颞叶皮层。综上所述，这些结果表明，社会刻板印象应该被认为与其他形式的语义知识不同，并且可能与表征心理状态比检索关于物体和非人类生物的语义知识有更多的共同点。
Semantic knowledge refers to the information that people have about categories of objects and living things. Social psychologists have long debated whether the information that perceivers have about categories of people-i.e. stereotypes-may be a unique form of semantics. Here, we examine this question against well-established findings regarding the neural basis of semantics, which suggest that two brain regions-left inferior frontal gyrus and inferotemporal cortex-are critical for general semantic knowledge. During functional magnetic resonance imaging, participants answered questions about their knowledge of both non-social and social categories. We reasoned that if stereotypes are a typical form of semantic knowledge, then these same regions should subserve the activation and retrieval of stereotypes. Inconsistent with this possibility, left inferior frontal gyrus and inferotemporal cortex were activated only during non-social category judgments. Instead, judgments of social categories were associated with regions frequently linked to social cognition, including medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate, bilateral temporoparietal junction and anterior temporal cortex. Together, these results suggest that social stereotypes should be considered distinct from other forms of semantic knowledge, and may have more in common with representing mental states than retrieving semantic knowledge about objects and non-human living things.