Neural correlates of beauty retouching to enhance attractiveness of self-depictions in women

Ota, Chisa; Nakano, Tamami

doi:10.1080/17470919.2021.1873178

Cited by 8 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Based on prior work, we hypothesized that the cortical and subcortical regions that show differences in activity between the self- and other-faces at the supraliminal level are also involved in self-other discrimination at the subliminal level. Therefore, we used a small-volume corrected FWE cluster-level threshold of P < 0.05 in spheres with a 10-mm radius around previous coordinates in the amygdala (right [27, −4, −19] and left [−27, −10, −19]; Ota and Nakano 2021 ), VTA [3, −16, −12] ( Trutti et al. 2021 ), NA (right [12, 8, −7] and left [−15, 5, −10]), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG; [48, 29, 5]), superior marginal gyrus (SMG, right [63, −22, 23], left [−63, −37, 32]), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC; [0, 26, 23]), and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC; [12, −31, 41]; Ota and Nakano 2021 ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2005 ; Ota and Nakano 2021 ). Self-recognition has also been found to activate the cortical midline structures ( Northoff 2016 ; Ota and Nakano 2021 ), which overlaps with the intrinsic default mode network ( Raichle et al. 2001 ) and is involved in self-consciousness ( Northoff et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2012 ; Ueno et al. 2014 ; Ota and Nakano 2021 ). Instead, the amygdala, which generates a fear response, is activated to the unknown other’s face ( Schwartz et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Instead, the amygdala, which generates a fear response, is activated to the unknown other’s face ( Schwartz et al. 2003 ; Ota and Nakano 2021 ). Both self-face and self-related thoughts induced activation in the reward system including the VTA, NA, and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex ( de Greck et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To address this issue, we also examined the effect of modification of facial configuration on the neural activity of subliminal self-other differences. In our recent study, we showed that a supraliminal presentation of mildly modified self-face by using a beauty filter, which made the eyes larger and the chin narrower without changing the shape of facial parts, activated the NA in addition to the self-relevant brain regions ( Ota and Nakano 2021 ). By contrast, an extreme facial modification, which resulted in making the self-face “creepy,” no longer activated the self-relevant brain regions or the NA, but instead induced activation in the amygdala.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Self-Face Activates the Dopamine Reward Pathway without Awareness

Ota

Nakano

2021

Cerebral Cortex

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The self-face advantage has been demonstrated not only at the supraliminal level, but also at the subliminal level. However, it remains unclear whether subliminal self-face processing involves the same neural networks as those for supraliminal self-face processing. Here, we show that the ventral tegmental area, a center of the dopamine reward pathway, exhibited greater activation to subliminal presentations of the self-face than those of the others’ faces, whereas subliminal presentations of the others’ faces induced activation in the amygdala, which generally responds to unfamiliar information. This self-other difference in brain response was consistently observed even when the facial configuration was modified without changing the shape of the facial parts. The present findings suggest that the dopamine reward pathway is involved in automatic self-advantage in face processing, and the subliminal self-other facial discrimination does not depend on information of the precise facial configuration.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2012 ; Ueno et al. 2014 ; Ota and Nakano 2021 ). Instead, the amygdala, which generates a fear response, is activated to the unknown other’s face ( Schwartz et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Self-Face Activates the Dopamine Reward Pathway without Awareness

Ota

Nakano

2021

Cerebral Cortex

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The salience network is activated during self‐recognition from both first‐person and third‐person perspectives

Asakage

Nakano

2022

Human Brain Mapping

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We usually observe ourselves from two perspectives. One is the first‐person perspective, which we perceive directly with our own eyes, and the other is the third‐person perspective, which we observe ourselves in a mirror or a picture. However, whether the self‐recognition associated with these two perspectives has a common or separate neural basis remains unclear. To address this, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine brain activity while participants viewed pretaped video clips of themselves and others engaged in meal preparation taken from first‐person and third‐person perspectives. We found that the first‐person behavioral videos of the participants and others induced greater activation in the premotor‐intraparietal region. In contrast, the third‐person behavioral videos induced greater activation in the default mode network compared with the first‐person videos. Regardless of the perspective, the videos of the participants induced greater activation in the salience network than the videos of others. On the other hand, the videos of others induced greater activation in the precuneus and lingual gyrus than the videos of the participants. These results suggest that the salience network is commonly involved in self‐recognition from both perspectives, even though the brain regions involved in action observation for the two perspectives are distinct.

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Using photo editing to understand the impact of species aesthetics on support for conservation

Shaw,

Dunn,

Crowley

et al. 2024

People and Nature

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Many threatened species suffer from a lack of conservation attention compared to others. Prioritisation of funding, research and conservation efforts seem to be driven by reasons beyond conservation need. This could be due to a ‘beauty bias’, whereby aesthetically pleasing species receive more attention. We examined how editing an image to increase a species' aesthetic appeal may impact donation choices and public attitude towards that species. We posed two research questions; first, ‘do people make different donation choices when they see original images of a species compared to when they see images of the same species that have been edited to match aesthetic preferences?’ Using hypothetical donation experiments, we asked respondents to allocate funds to the conservation of three pictured species, one ‘aesthetically appealing’, one ‘aesthetically unappealing’, and one whose image was either edited to reflect common aesthetic preferences or left unedited. Our findings suggest that images edited to make an animal more visually appealing tend to receive higher hypothetical donation amounts than original images. We also posed a second research question; ‘How do people of varying conservation expertise respond to original versus edited images of wildlife?’ To investigate this, we ran three focus groups with individuals unfamiliar with our test species, those familiar with two or more of our test species, and with conservation professionals, which showed mixed reactions both within and between groups. Focus group participants with less conservation expertise noted that edited images often seemed ‘cuter’ than unedited images, and were more likely to compare them to cartoon characters. Participants with more conservation expertise and species familiarity reported greater empathy towards unedited images, and noted that the edited images prompted an ‘uncanny valley’ response, highlighting the need for further scrutiny in how photo editing might be used in conservation messaging. Our findings support the beauty bias hypothesis and highlight that decisions on conservation support should acknowledge that less aesthetically pleasing species are disadvantaged in public attention and funding. In addition, the findings highlight the role of conservation expertise in impacting viewer reactions, as well as the ethical implications of editing images of wildlife. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

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Neural correlates of beauty retouching to enhance attractiveness of self-depictions in women

Cited by 8 publications

References 26 publications

Self-Face Activates the Dopamine Reward Pathway without Awareness

Self-Face Activates the Dopamine Reward Pathway without Awareness

The salience network is activated during self‐recognition from both first‐person and third‐person perspectives

Using photo editing to understand the impact of species aesthetics on support for conservation

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