Comprehensive investigation on social inference and learning: Basic and applied studies focusing on their interactions

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This research project mainly consisted of four studies investigating social inference and learning. Major findings can be summarized into the following two points. (1) People tend to judge others' social traits like trustworthiness and dominance from their faces. Conclusions from such social inference are similar among different people, but they are inaccurate (Studies 1 and 2). (2) Trustworthiness impression of a given person, which is initially formed by their facial appearance, can be updated by learning their reputation. In particular, the effect of bad reputation is so strong that it persists even after the reputation turns out to be arbitrary (Study 3). The activity of affect-related brain regions involves such persisting distrust (Study 4). These findings can be said to greatly contribute to the understanding of the mechanisms and characteristics of social inference and learning.