Functional MRI was used to identify the brain areas underlying automatic beliefs about gender and race, and suppression of those attitudes. Participants (n = 20; 7 females) were scanned at 3 tesla while performing the Implicit Association Test (IAT), an indirect measure of race and gender bias. We hypothesized that ventromedial prefrontal cortex areas (PFC) would mediate gender and racial stereotypic attitudes, and suppression of these beliefs would recruit dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Performance data on the IAT revealed gender and racial biases. Racial bias was correlated with an explicit measure of racism. Results showed activation of anteromedial PFC and rostral ACC while participants implicitly made associations consistent with gender and racial biases. In contrast, associations incongruent with stereotypes recruited DLPFC. Implicit gender bias was correlated with amygdala activation during stereotypic conditions. Results suggest there are dissociable roles for anteromedial and dorsolateral PFC circuits in the activation and inhibition of stereotypic attitudes.

Current models of adult arithmetic performance assume that representation includes only facts and procedures. However, other kinds of representations such as an analog scale or sets of number multiples might be useful in a variety of multiplication-related tasks. Introducing the practice transfer paradigm, we demonstrate that associations between distinct representational structures can be detected via cross-task transfer, provided that initial performance is retrieval based. Results support the predictions of the integrated-structures model of multiplication knowledge. Implications for well-established item differences such as the problem-size effect are addressed, and the question of how integration occurs is considered.

We summarize two case studies as a context for discussing the use of neuroimaging as a convergent methodology in the study of neuroplasticity in single subjects. Throughout this paper we argue for a different approach for including neuroimaging in these types of study. Previous case studies of neuroplasticity in patients (ours as well as others reported elsewhere) have added neuroimaging to the traditional neuropsychological framework of comparing patient results with matched control groups, and synthesized results through descriptions of anatomical and behavioral dissociations. This type of approach is referred to as the comparison approach. We advocate a different approach that builds on findings from previous behavioral skill learning research. Specifically, we propose adding neuroimaging throughout learning or recovery of the ability of interest and making inferences from systematic changes in activation topography and intensity that occur within the context of predicted behavioral changes. We dub this approach the online approach. This approach should allow future investigators to circumvent many of the interpretation pitfalls that are common in comparison studies.