Neurodynamics of Compound Threat Cue Perception

描述(由申请人提供)：社交线索，如眼睛凝视、面部和身体情绪、性别、外表，在很大程度上是相互独立的研究，通常是孤立在不同的领域。例如，情感表达在社会心理学框架内得到了最广泛的研究，而面部认同在很大程度上是在视觉认知框架内进行的。重要的是，这两门学科都没有充分解决各种线索对社会认知的综合影响。本研究对这一问题采取了跨学科、多方法的研究方法。现在需要一种概念性的融合，它特别关注知觉处理中的社交线索的交集。由于不同线索的社会意义相同，我们预测，复合社会线索将导致已知对社会和情绪处理很重要的大脑系统的相互作用，如杏仁核、眶前皮质和上颞沟。我们还预测，在意识受限的条件下，反应将优先调谐到一致(即“明确”)的线索，而对于有意识的加工，它们将优先调谐到不一致(即“模糊”)的威胁线索。考察情感知觉的神经生物学基础的研究正在形成阶段。在目前的应用中，我们争辩说，社交和情感信息本质上是有意义的。如果得到证实，我们非语言社交语言的复杂性将更容易处理和清楚地描绘出来，反身性加工与意识加工的相互作用将得到进一步阐明。值得注意的是，大脑区域 将进行研究的感兴趣的研究涉及以自闭症、精神分裂症、边缘人格障碍和特纳综合征等精神病理障碍为特征的社会情感障碍类型，以及各种形式的相关脑损伤(例如，颞叶切除术)。我们的具体目标是在未来的工作中取得重大进展，将复合社会线索理论应用于患有焦虑症和与特定感兴趣的大脑系统相关的社会情绪感知缺陷的患者群体。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Social cues, such as eye gaze, facial and bodily emotion, gender, appearance, have largely been studied independent of one another, often isolated within separate fields. Emotional expression, for example, has been most extensively studied within a social psychological framework, and facial identity largely within a visual cognition framework. Importantly, neither discipline adequately addresses the combined influences of various cues on social perception. This research takes an interdisciplinary, multi-method approach to this question. A conceptual merger is required now, one that focuses specifically on the intersection of social cues in perceptual processing. Because of shared social meanings across cues, we predict that compound social cues will lead to interactions in brain systems known to be important for social and emotion processing, such as the amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, and superior temporal sulcus. We also predict that under conditions of restricted awareness, responses will be preferentially attuned to congruent (i.e., "clear") cues, whereas for conscious processing they will be preferentially attuned to incongruent (i.e., "ambiguous") threat cues. Research examining the neurobiological underpinnings of affective perception is in its formative stages. In the current application, we contend that social and emotional messages inherently share meaning. If substantiated, the complexities of our nonverbal social language will be more tractable and clearly delineated, and the interplay of reflexive- versus conscious-level processing will be further elucidated. Notably, the brain regions of interest that will be examined have been implicated in the types of socio-emotional impairments that characterize such psychopathological disorders as autism, schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, and Turner's syndrome, as well as various forms of related brain lesions (e.g., temporal lobectomy). We specifically aim to make significant strides toward future work applying compound social cue theory to patient populations with anxiety disorders and deficits in socio-emotional perception related to the particular brain systems of interest.