Who can you trust? Behavioral and neural differences between perceptual and memory-based influences

Abstract

Decisions about whether to trust someone can be influenced by competing sources of information, such as analysis of facial features versus remembering specific information about the person. We hypothesized that such sources can differentially influence trustworthiness judgments depending on the circumstances in which judgments are made. In our experiments, subjects first learned face-word associations. Stimuli were trustworthy and untrustworthy faces, selected on the basis of consensus judgments, and personality attributes that carried either the same valence (consistent with face) or the opposite valence (inconsistent with face). Subsequently, subjects rated the trustworthiness of each face. Both learned and perceptual information influenced ratings, but learned information was less influential under speeded than under non-speeded conditions. EEG data further revealed neural evidence of the processing of these two competing sources. Perceptual influences were apparent earlier than memory influences, substantiating the conclusion that time pressure can selectively disrupt memory retrieval relevant to trustworthiness attributions.

Interfering with activity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex via TMS affects social impressions updating

“…The amygdala may be particular important here, in light of converging patients and fMRI data suggesting that it is involved in face trustworthiness evaluation (e.g., Adolphs, Tranel, & Damasio, 1998;Baron, Gobbini, Engell, & Todorov, 2011;Todorov & Olson, 2008). Indeed, social impressions are likely to be based on a first perceptual stage in which facial features are analyzed and on a further processing stage in which face appearance is integrated with information stored in memory about that agent's behavior (Rudoy & Paller, 2009). While the amygdala and/or other cortical and subcortical structures could be more relevant in the analysis of face appearance (Tamietto et al, 2005), the dmPFC is likely to intervene at a later stage, combining face appearance with available information about the agent's behavior (Baron et al, 2011; see also Costa et al, 2013).…”

Influences of appearance-behaviour congruity on memory and social judgements

“…For instance, evaluating new faces as positive or negative depends on their similarity to ones previously paired with valenced information (Verosky & Todorov, 2010, 2013). Even when congruity does not impact actual ratings, it affects reaction time, with faster ratings toward congruent over incongruent face-trait pairs under time constraints (Rudoy & Paller, 2009). This suggests congruency impacts the ease of making person judgments.…”

Trust Perception

“…A parallel line of research has sought to address the temporal dynamics of facial trustworthiness evaluation by measuring event-related potentials (ERPs; Dzhelyova, Perrett, & Jentzsch, 2012;Kovács-Bálint, Stefanics, Trunk, & Hernádi, 2014;Marzi, Righi, Ottonello, Cincotta, & Viggiano, 2014;Rudoy & Paller, 2009;Yang, Qi, Ding, & Song, 2011). Though the initial findings of these studies are somewhat mixed, taken together, they suggest that facial trustworthiness exerts an early influence on visual processing (Dzhelyova et al, 2012;Marzi et al, 2014), dovetailing with behavioral work suggesting that evaluations of facial trustworthiness are made after only 100 milliseconds of exposure to faces (Willis & Todorov, 2006).…”

“…One of the first such inquiries was an EEG experiment conducted by Rudoy and Paller (2009), where participants formed impressions of trustworthy and untrustworthy faces paired with positive and negative personality attributes. One of the first such inquiries was an EEG experiment conducted by Rudoy and Paller (2009), where participants formed impressions of trustworthy and untrustworthy faces paired with positive and negative personality attributes.…”