Human brain recognizes race

From the public release:

Typically, when people observe others perform a simple task, their motor cortex region fires similarly to when they are performing the task themselves. However, the UofT research team, led by PhD student Jennifer Gutsell and Assistant Professor Dr. Michael Inzlicht, found that participants' motor cortex was significantly less likely to fire when they watched the visible minority men perform the simple task. In some cases when participants watched the non-white men performing the task, their brains actually registered as little activity as when they watched a blank screen.

From the paper:

A deficit in the spontaneous ‘‘catching” of outgroup members’ actions and intentions can have serious consequences for intergroup interactions. Perception–action-coupling, and the sharing of somatic, autonomic, and emotional states, facilitate social understanding and foster helping, morality, altruism, and justice
(Batson et al., 1997; Cialdini, Brown, Lewis, Luce, & Neuberg, 1997). Thus, people might not be as responsive to outgroup member’s needs and feelings and be less likely to understand their intentions; they might also be less likely to help and effectively communicate with them.

This sounds like a good example of what I called friction in a recent post.

Also from the paper:

When we breakdown the omnibus outgroup correlation into the specific racial outgroups, we find results that are consistent with a Canadian context: the correlation was strongest for South-Asians, r (28) = .56, p less than .01, and followed by Blacks, r (28) = .36, p = .05; the correlation for East Asians, however, fell below traditional levels of significance, r (28) = .30, p = .11. Since mu activity is inversely related to motor cortex activity, these findings suggest that the more participants are prejudiced, the less their motor cortex fires in response to the passive viewing of outgroup members’ actions—an effect that is magnified for disliked outgroups (South-Asians, then Blacks, followed by East Asians).

The order of the outgroups suggests that genetic-phenotypic similarity is not the end-all, as South Asians are closer to whites but perhaps less familiar to them, due to a shorter period of their presence in Western societies.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2010.03.011

Empathy constrained: Prejudice predicts reduced mental simulation of actions during observation of outgroups

Jennifer N. Gutsell, and Michael Inzlicht

Abstract

Perception–action-coupling refers to the vicarious activation of the neural system for action during perception of action, and is considered important for forms of interpersonal sensitivity, including empathy. We hypothesize that perception–action-coupling is limited to the ingroup: neural motor networks will fire upon the perception of action, but only when the object–person belongs to the ingroup; if the object–person belongs to an outgroup these motor neurons will not fire. Using electroencephalographic oscillations as an index of perception–action-coupling, we found exactly this: participants displayed activity over motor cortex when acting and when observing ingroups act, but not when observing outgroups – an effect magnified by prejudice and for disliked groups (South-Asians, then Blacks, followed by East Asians). These findings provide evidence from brain activity for yet another detrimental aspect of prejudice: a spontaneous and implicit simulation of others’ action states may be limited to close others and, without active effort, may not be available for outgroups.

Link