面孔吸引力外显加工和内隐加工的神经机制

Neural Mechanism of Explicit and Implicit Processing of Facial Attractiveness

面孔吸引力在人类的生存和社会交往中扮演着重要的角色。前人使用ERP和fMRI技术探讨了面孔吸引力加工的神经机制及其影响因素。研究发现,由于刺激材料、范式等不同,面孔吸引力在外显任务中诱发了N3,在内隐任务中诱发了N1、N2。同时,外显任务激活了楔叶、颞中回、背侧后顶叶、顶下小叶、中央后回;内隐任务则激活了壳核、腹侧被盖区、梭状回、楔前叶、颞上回和旁中央小叶。然而,面孔吸引力在外显和内隐任务中的加工均诱发了包括P1、P2、N170、EPN、P3和LPC在内的脑电效应,并激活了诸如前额叶、尾状核、伏隔核、右侧杏仁核、脑岛、小脑、扣带回、海马和枕叶皮层(舌回、枕中回、腹侧枕叶)这些类似的脑区。表明面孔吸引力加工兼具自动性和奖赏性特点,未来可探讨面孔吸引力的无意识加工,以及跨通道吸引力整合加工的神经机制。

Facial attractiveness plays a crucial role in human survival and social interaction. A lot of researchers used ERP and fMRI to examine brain responses elicited by facial attractiveness and the factors which influence the processing of facial attractiveness. ERP studies of explicit task found differences in N3 induced by different levels of facial attractiveness, while facial attractiveness elicited N1 and N2 in implicit task, because of the differences among various studies in stimuli, paradigm, etc. Moreover, explicit tasks found that the dorsal posterior parietal cortex, cuneus, postcentralgyrus, left inferior parietal lobe, and middle temporal gyrus were activated by facial attractiveness, whereas implicit tasks found that the putamen, ventral tegmental areas, fusiform face area, paracentral lobule, superior temporal gyrus, and precuneus were activated by facial attractiveness. Meanwhile, due to the reward value of facial attractiveness, it elicited multiple similar neural activities in both explicit and implicit tasks, suggesting automatic and unconscious processing of facial attractiveness. Specifically, both explicit task and implicit task found differences in P1, P2, N170, EPN, P3 and LPC induced by different levels of facial attractiveness. The neuroimaging studies of explicit and implicit tasks found that facial attractiveness activated the amygdala, caudate nucleus, nucleus accumbens, cingulate cortex, prefrontal cortex, cerebellum, hippocampus, the occipital visual regions (lingual gyrus, middle occipital gyrus, ventral occipital region), and insula. Future research could explore the neural mechanisms of unconscious processing of facial attractiveness, and cross-channel integration processing of attractiveness.