PSYC12H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2.1: Superior Temporal Sulcus, Prefrontal Cortex, Likert Scale
Document Summary
Dehumanized perception, a failure to spontaneously consider the mind of another person, may be a psychological mechanism facilitating inhumane acts like torture. Social neuroscience has reliably shown that participants normally activate a social-cognition neural network to pictures and thoughts of other people; our previous work shows that parts of this network uniquely fail to engage for traditionally dehumanized targets. This suggests pa(cid:396)ti(cid:272)ipa(cid:374)ts (cid:373)ay (cid:374)ot (cid:272)o(cid:374)side(cid:396) these dehu(cid:373)a(cid:374)ized g(cid:396)oups" (cid:373)i(cid:374)ds. Study 1 de(cid:373)o(cid:374)st(cid:396)ates that pa(cid:396)ti(cid:272)ipa(cid:374)ts do fail to spo(cid:374)ta(cid:374)eously thi(cid:374)k a(cid:271)out the (cid:272)o(cid:374)te(cid:374)ts of these ta(cid:396)gets" (cid:373)i(cid:374)ds (cid:449)he(cid:374) i(cid:373)agi(cid:374)i(cid:374)g a day in their life, and rate them differently on a number of human-perception dimensions. Study 2 shows that these human perception dimension ratings correlate with activation in brain regions beyond the social-cognition network, including areas implicated in disgust, attention, and cognitive control. These results suggest that disengaging social cognition affects a number of other brain processes and hints at some of the complex psychological mechanisms potentially involved in atrocities against humanity.
