Dissociable neural correlates of stereotypes and other forms of semantic knowledge.

ABSTRACT: Semantic knowledge refers to the information that people have about categories of objects and living things. Social psychologists have long debated whether the information that perceivers have about categories of people--i.e. stereotypes--may be a unique form of semantics. Here, we examine this question against well-established findings regarding the neural basis of semantics, which suggest that two brain regions--left inferior frontal gyrus and inferotemporal cortex--are critical for general semantic knowledge. During functional magnetic resonance imaging, participants answered questions about their knowledge of both non-social and social categories. We reasoned that if stereotypes are a typical form of semantic knowledge, then these same regions should subserve the activation and retriev

SUBMITTER: Contreras JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3475353 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature