SGER: Implicit Racial and Emotional Categorization: A Preliminary Functional Magnetic Reasonance Imaging (fMRI) Study

Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston MA

Investigators

Abstract

This project investigates the categorization of emotional ingroup and outgroup faces, using event-related functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). The goal is to compare the hemodynamic response to emotional ingroup versus outgroup faces. An investigation of the brain regions common to both types of processing will be informative regarding the existence of general emotional processing and facial processing pathways. A rich set of stimuli composed of targets drawn from a number of racial backgrounds will be viewed by subjects drawn from an equally diverse population. By assessing ingroup/outgroup processing differences across a much broader range of racial groups than have been examined in previous research, this study will extend understanding of the neural substrates of emotional and social facial categorization. Moreover, the use of event-related fMRI will enable comparisons with previous psychophysiological (ERP) studies examining the processing of outgroup emotional faces. This is a small grant for exploratory research, as part of the behavioral and cognitive science emphasis on cognitive neuroscience.