Perceiving faces through reconnection-colored glasses after social exclusion: Evidence from N100

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Social Psychology

Background:

• Social exclusion motivates individuals to seek reconnection.
• Face categorization is crucial for social interaction.
• The interplay between reconnection possibility and early face perception remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how the possibility of social reconnection influences early-stage face categorization following social exclusion.
• To examine the neural correlates of face perception under varying reconnection possibilities after social exclusion.

Main Methods:

• Social exclusion/inclusion priming.
• Participants selected a 'coworker' (high reconnection) or 'stranger' (low reconnection).
• Event-related brain potential (ERP) recordings during a face orientation judgment task.

Main Results:

• Excluded participants showed enhanced early neural responses (N100) to potential coworkers compared to strangers.
• Included participants did not exhibit this differential response.
• A negative correlation between N100 amplitude and exclusion ratings was observed in excluded individuals.

Conclusions:

• Social reconnection desire can bias early face perception in socially excluded individuals.
• This perceptual bias may facilitate the categorization of faces relevant to social reconnection.
• Findings highlight the adaptive nature of face perception in response to social exclusion.