Neural mechanisms of implicit and explicit processes in visual preference decisions

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26330177
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Cognitive science
• Research Institution: Tamagawa University
• Principal Investigator: Takahashi Muneyoshi 玉川大学, 脳科学研究所, 特任准教授 (70407683)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): MATSUDA Tetsuya 玉川大学, 脳科学研究所, 教授 (30384720) ; SHIMOJO Shinsuke 玉川大学, 脳科学研究所, 特別研究員(客員教授) (70183837)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 潜在認知 / 選好判断 / 顔 / 同人種バイアス / 魅力度 / 視覚情報処理 / fMRI

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, we investigated differences in brain activity between implicit and explicit processes in visual preference decisions using fMRI. We found that activity in the caudate head increased when the participants evaluated the attractiveness of a central object (neither attractive nor unattractive) while ignoring the surroundings (highly attractive or unattractive). In contrast, we found that activity in the orbitofrontal cortex increased when they explicitly examined each image and evaluated their attractiveness as a whole. Because the basal ganglia including the caudate are known to be involved in unconscious value representation, our findings suggest that the reason why the attractiveness of ignored objects influences on the attended one would be a misattribution of evoked emotion by surroundings to the target.

Free Research Field

認知科学