Paper Info
Title
Task modulations of racial bias in neural responses to others' suffering.
Abstract
Recent event related brain potential research observed a greater frontal activity to pain expressions of racial in-group than out-group members and such racial bias in neural responses to others' suffering was modulated by task demands that emphasize race identity or painful feeling. However, as pain expressions activate multiple brain regions in the pain matrix, it remains unclear which part of the neural circuit in response to others' suffering undergoes modulations by task demands. We scanned Chinese adults, using functional MRI, while they categorized Asian and Caucasian faces with pain or neutral expressions in terms of race or identified painful feelings of each individual face. We found that pain vs. neutral expressions of Asian but not Caucasian faces activated the anterior cingulate (ACC) and anterior insular (AI) activity during race judgments. However, pain compared to race judgments increased ACC and AI activity to pain expressions of Caucasian but not Asian faces. Moreover, race judgments induced increased activity in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex whereas pain judgments increased activity in the bilateral temporoparietal junction. The results suggest that task demands emphasizing an individual's painful feeling increase ACC/AI activities to pain expressions of racial out-group members and reduce the racial bias in empathic neural responses.
Year
DOI
Venue
2014
10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.10.017
NeuroImage
Keywords
Field
DocType
fMRI,Anterior cingulate,Insula,Pain expression,Race
Insula,Developmental psychology,Race identity,Dorsum,Expression (mathematics),Prefrontal cortex,Cognitive psychology,Psychology,Temporoparietal junction,Feeling
Journal
Volume
ISSN
Citations 
88
1053-8119
3
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.46
13
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Feng Sheng130.46
Qiang Liu2173.30
Hong Li360.86
Fang Fang4485.86
Shihui Han513218.96