Attention modulations on the perception of social hierarchy at distinct temporal stages: An electrophysiological investigation

Feng, Chunliang; Tian, Tengxiang; Xue, Feng; Luo, Yuejia

doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.02.013

Cited by 20 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Since our study focused on the responses to neutral faces outside competitive, learning or rewarding contexts and used no perceptual cues such as symbols (eg. stars indicating the rank), uniforms, facial dominance features or body postures12142021222324, the DLPFC and the pSTS activations observed here may constitute the minimal, task-independent brain network involved in social rank perception. Predominantly right-sided, this core network may coordinate with additional areas depending on the task and/or the nature of the ongoing social interaction.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Social brains and divides: the interplay between social dominance orientation and the neural sensitivity to hierarchical ranks

Ligneul

Girard

Dreher

2017

Sci Rep

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Ubiquitous in the animal kingdom, dominance hierarchies emerge through social competition and underlie the control of resources. Confronting the disruptive influence of socioeconomic inequalities, human populations tend to split into groups who legitimize existing dominance hierarchies and groups who condemn them. Here, we hypothesized that variations in the neural sensitivity to dominance ranks partly underpins this ideological split, as measured by the social dominance orientation scale (SDO). Following a competitive task used to induce dominance representations about three opponents (superior, equal and inferior), subjects were passively presented the faces of these opponents while undergoing fMRI. Analyses demonstrated that two key brain regions, the superior temporal sulcus (STS) and anterior dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (aDLPFC) were sensitive to social ranks. Confirming our hypothesis, the sensitivity of the right aDLPFC to social ranks correlated positively with the SDO scale, which is known to predict behaviors and political attitudes associated with the legitimization of dominance hierarchies. This study opens new perspectives for the neurosciences of political orientation and social dominance.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Social brains and divides: the interplay between social dominance orientation and the neural sensitivity to hierarchical ranks

Ligneul

Girard

Dreher

2017

Sci Rep

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“…Recently, a handful of studies attempted to examine the temporal dynamics of brain activities while participants observed high-and lowranking faces, with the aim of identifying the ERP components modu-lated by social rank (Breton et al, 2014;Feng et al, 2015;Hu et al, 2014;Santamaria-Garcia et al, 2015). A key issue emerging from this literature is whether hierarchy affects the early stage of face processing, as indexed by the N170 component, or only influences ERP components reflecting higher level cortical processes such as the Late Positive Po-tentials (LPP).…”

Section: The Influence Of Social Rank On Face Processing: Eeg Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

How occupational status influences the processing of faces: An EEG study

et al. 2019

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This study examines the influence of social hierarchy on the neural electrophysiological responses to faces. In contrast with earlier EEG studies that typically manipulate social rank through competitive situations, we implemented hierarchy through occupational status and thus contrasted faces associated with high- vs. low-status (e.g. lawyer vs. waiter). Since social hierarchies are largely intertwined with gender, both female and male faces were used as stimuli, and both female and male participants were tested. The procedure consisted in presenting a status label before the face it was associated with. The analyses focused mainly on two components that have been shown to be modulated by competitive hierarchies and other social contexts, namely the N170 and the Late Positive Potential (LPP). The results indicated that gender, but not status, modulated the N170 amplitude. Moreover, high-status faces elicited larger LPP amplitude than low-status faces but this difference was driven by female participants. This gender effect is discussed in line with research showing that women and men are sensitive to different kinds of hierarchy. Methodological differences are considered to account for the discrepancy between studies that find an effect of hierarchy on the N170 and those that do not.

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“…While in previous eye-tracking studies, hierarchy was conveyed through physical cues [19] or power and influence in collective discussions [20], in the current study, the hierarchical context relied upon a competitive game situation involving a comparative evaluation of cognitive skills. Such a procedure, which was inspired by our previous EEG study on face perception ( [20], see also [21][22][23]), allows us to go beyond the dichotomous contrast between high and low absolute status. By introducing three ranks, we could distinguish targets that occupy the highest or lowest ranks from targets that occupy a higher or lower rank than the participant rank.…”

Section: ======================= Figure 1 About Here ================mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With respect to hierarchy, the greater gaze cueing effect elicited by high-status targets as compared to low-status targets [14][15][16] suggests that, everything else being equal, participants may look more at the eyes of high-status faces. Moreover, recent EEG studies have reported that ERP components associated with face processing can be modulated by the face's social status [21][22][23][24]. In a study using a similar design as the present experiment [21], but in which only the face presentation phase was analyzed, we found that the highest-ranking faces elicited a larger amplitude of the late positive potential than the lowest-status faces and were associated with a larger reduction in oscillatory alpha power [20,39, see 40 for a review]).…”

Section: How Are Faces Gazed Upon In a Hierarchy Context?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Status lies in the eye of the beholder: Evidence from eye-tracking data

Breton¹,

Cheylus²,

Baudouin³

et al. 2018

Preprint

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Using eye-tracking methodology, the current study investigates how people look at faces in the context of a social hierarchy. The first goal of the study was to characterize how participants distribute their attentional resources to a set of faces displayed on a vertical hierarchical scale including three social ranks (high, middle and low). In the first phase of the experiment, participants had to learn a hierarchy based on performance in competitive games. The participants’ rank, the other players’ rank, and the spatial orientation of the scale (highest social rank at the top of the vertical scale vs. highest social rank at the bottom) were manipulated. The results revealed that participants looked more at other players who occupy the highest than the lowest social rank but did not look more at another player who was ranked higher than lower than themselves when that player was in the middle position. Hence, participants were more sensitive to the highest vs. lowest rank contrast than to the higher vs. lower rank contrast. The results also revealed an influence of spatial orientation of the scale: less visual attention was allocated to the highest-ranking players when they appeared at the bottom than at the top of the spatial scale. The second goal of the study was to investigate how participants explored the face of each player. This was addressed in the second phase of the experiment, in which participants were presented with each player’s face individually. The results did not show any effect of players’ rank but revealed that in some circumstances, participants in the higher-ranking position were less likely to allocate visual resources to other players.

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Attention modulations on the perception of social hierarchy at distinct temporal stages: An electrophysiological investigation

Cited by 20 publications

References 55 publications

Social brains and divides: the interplay between social dominance orientation and the neural sensitivity to hierarchical ranks

Social brains and divides: the interplay between social dominance orientation and the neural sensitivity to hierarchical ranks

How occupational status influences the processing of faces: An EEG study

Status lies in the eye of the beholder: Evidence from eye-tracking data

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