The Role of the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex in Preferential Decisions for Own- and Other-Age Faces

Abstract

Own-age bias is a well-known bias reflecting the effects of age, and its role has been demonstrated, particularly, in face recognition. However, it remains unclear whether an own-age bias exists in facial impression formation. In the present study, we used three datasets from two published and one unpublished functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study that employed the same pleasantness rating task with fMRI scanning and preferential choice task after the fMRI to investigate whether healthy young and older participants showed own-age effects in face preference. Specifically, we employed a drift-diffusion model to elaborate the existence of own-age bias in the processes of preferential choice. The behavioral results showed higher rating scores and higher drift rate for young faces than for older faces, regardless of the ages of participants. We identified a young-age effect, but not an own-age effect. Neuroimaging results from aggregation analysis of the three datasets suggest a possibility that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) was associated with evidence accumulation of own-age faces; however, no clear evidence was provided. Importantly, we found no age-related decline in the responsiveness of the vmPFC to subjective pleasantness of faces, and both young and older participants showed a contribution of the vmPFC to the parametric representation of the subjective value of face and functional coupling between the vmPFC and ventral visual area, which reflects face preference. These results suggest that the preferential choice of face is less susceptible to the own-age bias across the lifespan of individuals.

Two is company: The posterior cerebellum and sequencing for pairs versus individuals during social preference prediction

“…The temporal pole has been associated with representations of specific knowledge, such as norms and values, about others and the world (Monticelli et al, 2021 ; Schurz et al, 2014 ). The vmPFC is related to thinking about similar others, and in processing our own preferences (Heleven & Van Overwalle, 2019 ; Ito et al, 2022 ; Mitchell et al, 2006 ; Van Overwalle, 2009 ) All these processes are involved in making predictions about other persons’ actions based on their preferences, such as imaging an adequate scene, knowing the boundaries set by social norms and values, and thinking about a persons’ inner preferences.…”

Illumination and gaze effects on face evaluation: The Bi-AGI database

“…Most databases have young/middle-age models portrayed with direct gaze, but there are also available stimuli sets with models of different ages across lifespan ( Minear and Park, 2004 ; O’Reilly et al, 2016 ) and the FACES-database ( Ebner et al, 2010 ) included young, middle-age and older models posing six different emotions. Age is indeed a crucial dimension in face processing, it is linked with attractiveness ( Thornhill and Gangestad, 1999 ; Perrett et al, 2002 ) and face preference ( Ebner, 2008 ; Ito et al, 2022 ), it correlates with perceived height, masculinity and dominance ( Batres et al, 2015 ), and a same-age effect is reported for face recognition ( Bäckman, 1991 ); namely, better performances in recognizing individuals similar to own age. Moreover, a recent factor analysis carried out to model the structure of perception of personality traits from highly variable face stimuli ( Sutherland et al, 2013 ) resulted in a three-dimensional model with approachability, dominance and youthful-attractiveness as factors predicting face evaluation.…”