title: How the Human Brain Represents Perceived Dangerousness or "Predacity" of Animals.
abstract: Common or folk knowledge about animals is dominated by three dimensions: (1) level of cognitive complexity or "animacy;" (2) dangerousness or "predacity;" and (3) size. We investigated the neural basis of the perceived dangerousness or aggressiveness of animals, which we refer to more generally as "perception of threat." Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we analyzed neural activity evoked by viewing images of animal categories that spanned the dissociable semantic dimensions of threat and taxonomic class. The results reveal a distributed network for perception of threat extending along the right superior temporal sulcus. We compared neural representational spaces with target representational spaces based on behavioral judgments and a computational model of early vision and found a processing pathway in which perceived threat emerges as a dominant dimension: whereas visual features predominate in early visual cortex and taxonomy in lateral occipital and ventral temporal cortices, these dimensions fall away progressively from posterior to anterior temporal cortices, leaving threat as the dominant explanatory variable. Our results suggest that the perception of threat in the human brain is associated with neural structures that underlie perception and cognition of social actions and intentions, suggesting a broader role for these regions than has been thought previously, one that includes the perception of potential threat from agents independent of their biological class.
  
  
  
  For centuries, philosophers have wondered how the human mind organizes the world into meaningful categories and concepts. Today this question is at the core of cognitive science, but our focus has shifted to understanding how knowledge manifests in dynamic activity of neural systems in the human brain. This study advances the young field of empirical neuroepistemology by characterizing the neural systems engaged by an important dimension in our cognitive representation of the animal kingdom ontological subdomain: how the brain represents the perceived threat, dangerousness, or "predacity" of animals. Our findings reveal how activity for domain-specific knowledge of animals overlaps the social perception networks of the brain, suggesting domain-general mechanisms underlying the representation of conspecifics and other animals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755, andrew.c.connolly@dartmouth.edu.
authors.forename: Andrew C
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-4366-8230
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Connolly
authors.affiliation: Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, New York 10003.
authors.forename: Long
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-5765-1953
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sha
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755.
authors.forename: J Swaroop
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-0677-5590
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Guntupalli
authors.affiliation: Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, 38068 Rovereto, Trento, Italy.
authors.forename: Nikolaas
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-0880-0734
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Oosterhof
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755.
authors.forename: Yaroslav O
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-3456-2493
authors.initials: YO
authors.lastname: Halchenko
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755.
authors.forename: Samuel A
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-7013-5275
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Nastase
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755.
authors.forename: Matteo Visconti
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-7931-5272
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: di Oleggio Castello
authors.affiliation: School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas 75080, and.
authors.forename: Hervé
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-9522-1978
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Abdi
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755.
authors.forename: Barbara C
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-9243-2238
authors.initials: BC
authors.lastname: Jobst
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755, Department of Specialized Medicine, Diagnostic and Experimental, Medical School, University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy.
authors.forename: M Ida
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-6727-7934
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Gobbini
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755, Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, 38068 Rovereto, Trento, Italy.
authors.forename: James V
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-6558-3118
authors.initials: JV
authors.lastname: Haxby
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000663:Amphibians / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D001181:Arthropods / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition; D063132:Connectome; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D011235:Predatory Behavior / Q000145:classification*; D012104:Reptiles / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception
keywords: MVPA; STATIS; categories; fMRI; representation similarity analysis; vision