TY - JOUR
T1 - Politics on the brain
T2 - an FMRI investigation.
AU - Knutson, Kristine M.
AU - Wood, Jacqueline N.
AU - Spampinato, Maria V.
AU - Grafman, Jordan
N1 - Funding Information:
Correspondence should be addressed to: Jordan Grafman, Cognitive Neuroscience Section, National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Building 10, Room 5C205, MSC 1440, 10 Center Drive, Bethesda, MD 20892·/ 1440, USA. E-mail: grafmanj@ninds.nih.gov This research was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, NIH. We thank Matteo Pardini for his help in performing this experiment.
PY - 2006
Y1 - 2006
N2 - We assessed political attitudes using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) in which participants were presented faces and names of well-known Democrat and Republican politicians along with positive and negative words while undergoing functional MRI. We found a significant behavioral IAT effect for the face, but not the name, condition. The fMRI face condition results indicated that ventromedial and anterior prefrontal cortices were activated during political attitude inducement. Amygdala and fusiform gyrus were activated during perceptual processing of familiar faces. Amygdala activation also was associated with measures of strength of emotion. Frontopolar activation was positively correlated with an implicit measure of bias and valence strength (how strongly the participants felt about the politicians), while strength of affiliation with political party was negatively correlated with lateral PFC, lending support to the idea that two distinct but interacting networks-one emphasizing rapid, stereotypic, and emotional associative knowledge and the other emphasizing more deliberative and factual knowledge-cooperate in the processing of politicians. Our findings of ventromedial PFC activation suggests that when processing the associative knowledge concerned with politicians, stereotypic knowledge is activated, but in addition, the anterior prefrontal activations indicate that more elaborative, reflective knowledge about the politician is activated.
AB - We assessed political attitudes using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) in which participants were presented faces and names of well-known Democrat and Republican politicians along with positive and negative words while undergoing functional MRI. We found a significant behavioral IAT effect for the face, but not the name, condition. The fMRI face condition results indicated that ventromedial and anterior prefrontal cortices were activated during political attitude inducement. Amygdala and fusiform gyrus were activated during perceptual processing of familiar faces. Amygdala activation also was associated with measures of strength of emotion. Frontopolar activation was positively correlated with an implicit measure of bias and valence strength (how strongly the participants felt about the politicians), while strength of affiliation with political party was negatively correlated with lateral PFC, lending support to the idea that two distinct but interacting networks-one emphasizing rapid, stereotypic, and emotional associative knowledge and the other emphasizing more deliberative and factual knowledge-cooperate in the processing of politicians. Our findings of ventromedial PFC activation suggests that when processing the associative knowledge concerned with politicians, stereotypic knowledge is activated, but in addition, the anterior prefrontal activations indicate that more elaborative, reflective knowledge about the politician is activated.
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U2 - 10.1080/17470910600670603
DO - 10.1080/17470910600670603
M3 - Article
C2 - 17372621
AN - SCOPUS:33847043309
VL - 1
SP - 25
EP - 40
JO - Social Neuroscience
JF - Social Neuroscience
SN - 1747-0919
IS - 1
ER -