Neural responses to ambiguity involve domain-general and domain-specific emotion processing systems

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Social Psychology
• Decision Making Research

Background:

• Previous research on decision making under uncertainty primarily focused on semantic and visual processing.
• A gap exists in understanding how ambiguity in social signals, such as facial expressions, is processed.
• Surprised facial expressions serve as a model for social ambiguity due to their potential for both positive and negative outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate neural responses to social ambiguity using facial and non-facial emotional stimuli.
• To determine if ambiguity resolution processes differ from incidental judgments of ambiguous stimuli.
• To explore the neural mechanisms underlying the interpretation of ambiguous social cues.

Main Methods:

• Utilized fMRI to examine neural responses to ambiguous facial expressions (surprise) and non-face emotional scenes (International Affective Picture System).
• Compared brain activity during explicit ambiguity resolution tasks versus incidental judgment tasks.
• Analyzed activity in specific brain networks, including the cingulo-opercular network and the ventral amygdala.

Main Results:

• A distinct cingulo-opercular network showed increased activity during explicit ambiguity resolution.
• The ventral amygdala exhibited greater activity for faces and scenes rated explicitly for valence.
• Findings suggest specialized neural circuits for processing social ambiguity, particularly involving faces.

Conclusions:

• A complex neural architecture supports decision making in ambiguous social contexts.
• Core cortical structures are engaged for explicit ambiguity processing across different types of stimuli.
• Dedicated neural circuits are involved in processing biologically relevant learning situations, especially those involving social cues like faces.