title: Task modulations of racial bias in neural responses to others' suffering.
abstract: Recent event related brain potential research observed a greater frontal activity to pain expressions of racial in-group than out-group members and such racial bias in neural responses to others' suffering was modulated by task demands that emphasize race identity or painful feeling. However, as pain expressions activate multiple brain regions in the pain matrix, it remains unclear which part of the neural circuit in response to others' suffering undergoes modulations by task demands. We scanned Chinese adults, using functional MRI, while they categorized Asian and Caucasian faces with pain or neutral expressions in terms of race or identified painful feelings of each individual face. We found that pain vs. neutral expressions of Asian but not Caucasian faces activated the anterior cingulate (ACC) and anterior insular (AI) activity during race judgments. However, pain compared to race judgments increased ACC and AI activity to pain expressions of Caucasian but not Asian faces. Moreover, race judgments induced increased activity in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex whereas pain judgments increased activity in the bilateral temporoparietal junction. The results suggest that task demands emphasizing an individual's painful feeling increase ACC/AI activities to pain expressions of racial out-group members and reduce the racial bias in empathic neural responses.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing, China; Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Sheng
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China.
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China.
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing, China; PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Fang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing, China; PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University, Beijing, China. Electronic address: shan@pku.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Shihui
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Han
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D004645:Empathy / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D058748:Pain Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D063505:Racism; D012938:Social Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Anterior cingulate; Insula; Pain expression; Race; fMRI