Vision: A Computational Investigation into the Human Representation and Processing of Visual Information
Hemispheric Asymmetries for Whole-Based and Part-Based Face Processing in the Human Fusiform Gyrus
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Imaging Cognition II: An Empirical Review of 275 PET and fMRI Studies
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Face-specific processing in the human fusiform gyrus
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Neural correlates of stereotype application
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
The angry brain: Neural correlates of anger, angry rumination, and aggressive personality
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
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People are remarkably adroit at understanding other social agents. Quite how these information-processing abilities are realized, however, remains open to debate and empirical scrutiny. In particular, little is known about basic aspects of person perception, such as the operations that support people's ability to categorize (i. e., assign persons to groups) and individuate (i. e., discriminate among group members) others. In an attempt to rectify this situation, the current research focused on the initial perceptual stages of person construal and considered: (i) hemispheric differences in the efficiency of categorization and individuation; and (ii) the neural activity that supports these social-cognitive operations. Noting the greater role played by configural processing in individuation than categorization, it was expected that performance on the former task would be enhanced when stimuli (i. e., faces) were presented to the right rather than to the left cerebral hemisphere. The results of two experiments (Experiment 1—healthy individuals; Experiment 2—split-brain patient) confirmed this prediction. Extending these findings, a final neuroimaging investigation revealed that individuation is accompanied by neural activity in regions of the temporal and prefrontal cortices, especially in the right hemisphere. We consider the implications of these findings for contemporary treatments of person perception.