Visual elements of subjective preference modulate amygdala activation
Visual elements of subjective preference modulate amygdala activation
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DOI：
10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.03.008
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发表时间：
2007-01-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.6
通讯作者：
Neta, Maital
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bar, Moshe;Neta, Maital
决定我们对日常物品偏好的基本视觉线索是什么？我们之前的研究表明，一个非常有效的线索是物体轮廓的本质：人们通常喜欢具有弯曲轮廓的物体，而不喜欢具有尖锐轮廓的物体。我们假设这种偏见源于对尖锐元素所传达的潜在威胁的内隐感知。利用人类神经成像技术来验证这一假设，我们发现杏仁核——一种参与恐惧处理的大脑结构，其激活水平与一般的觉醒程度成正比——在面对日常尖锐物体（例如，有尖角的沙发）时明显比面对弯曲轮廓的物体更活跃。因此，我们的研究结果表明，对视觉对象的偏好偏差可以由独立于语义的低水平感知特性引起，通过在某种程度上可能与威胁相关的视觉元素。我们进一步提出行为结果，为轮廓的清晰度和威胁感知之间的联系提供初步支持。我们的大脑可能会迅速提取这些基本的轮廓元素，以便在潜在危险存在时获得早期预警信号。(c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd.版权所有。
What are the basic visual cues that determine our preference towards mundane everyday objects? We previously showed that a highly potent cue is the nature of the object's contour: people generally like objects with a curved contour compared with objects that have pointed features and a sharp-angled contour. This bias is hypothesized here to stem from an implicit perception of potential threat conveyed by sharp elements. Using human neuroimaging to test this hypothesis, we report that the amygdala, a brain structure that is involved in fear processing and has been shown to exhibit activation level that is proportional to arousal in general, is significantly more active for everyday sharp objects (e.g., a sofa with sharp corners) compared with their curved contour counterparts. Therefore, our results indicate that a preference bias towards a visual object can be induced by low-level perceptual properties, independent of semantic meaning, via visual elements that on some level could be associated with threat. We further present behavioral results that provide initial support for the link between the sharpness of the contour and threat perception. Our brains might be organized to extract these basic contour elements rapidly for deriving an early warning signal in the presence of potential danger. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.