Neural representations of social status hierarchy in human inferior parietal cortex

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• 作者：Joan Y. Chiao ; Tokiko Harada ; Emily R. Oby ; Zhang Li ; Todd Parrish ; Donna J. Bridge
• 关键词：fMRI ; Inferior parietal cortex ; Number ; Semantic distance effect ; Social status hierarchy ; Social comparison ; Social neuroscience
• 刊名：Neuropsychologia
• 出版年：2009
• 出版时间：January 2009
• 年：2009
• 卷：47
• 期：2
• 页码：354-363
• 全文大小：993 K

文摘

Mental representations of social status hierarchy share properties with that of numbers. Previous neuroimaging studies have shown that the neural representation of numerical magnitude lies within a network of regions within inferior parietal cortex. However the neural basis of social status hierarchy remains unknown. Using fMRI, we studied subjects while they compared social status magnitude of people, objects and symbols, as well as numerical magnitude. Both social status and number comparisons recruited bilateral intraparietal sulci. We also observed a semantic distance effect whereby neural activity within bilateral intraparietal sulci increased for semantically close relative to far numerical and social status comparisons. These results demonstrate that social status and number comparisons recruit distinct and overlapping neuronal representations within human inferior parietal cortex.