How the brain helps us navigate social differences

Date:
October 5, 2020
Source:
University College London
Summary:
Researchers found that, among pairs of people who had very different
socioeconomic backgrounds - calculated according to education
level and family income - there was a higher level of activity in
an area of the frontal lobe called the left dorsolateral prefrontal
cortex. The area is associated with speech production and rule-based
language as well as cognitive and attentional control.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
Our brain responds differently if we talk to a person of a different socioeconomic background from our own compared to when we speak to
someone whose background is similar, according to a new imaging study
by UCL and Yale researchers.


==========================================================================
In the study, published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 39 pairs of participants had a conversation with each
other while wearing headsets that tracked brain activity.

Researchers found that, among pairs of people who had very different socioeconomic backgrounds -- calculated according to education level and
family income -- there was a higher level of activity in an area of the
frontal lobe called the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The area
is associated with speech production and rule-based language as well as cognitive and attentional control.

The findings support previous research suggesting that frontal lobe
systems play a role in detecting bias and helping us to regulate our
behaviour to avoid bias expression. The increased activity in the left
frontal lobe was observed in both participants and was more alike than
the brain responses of participants talking to someone of a similar
background.

In a questionnaire following their task, participants paired with people
of different backgrounds reported a slightly higher level of anxiety and
effort during their conversation than those in similar-background pairs.

Professor Joy Hirsch (UCL Medical Physics & Biomedical Engineering and
Yale) said: "For the first time, we have identified the neural mechanisms involved in social interactions between people of different backgrounds.

"I believe our findings offer a hopeful message. We know that humans can
have positive social encounters with others who are different. Now we
have the neurobiological basis -- our brains have apparently developed a frontal lobe system that helps us deal with diversity." Participants'
brain activity was tracked using a new technique called functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), which monitors blood flow and blood oxygenation by measuring changes in near-infrared light and involves
wearing only a light headset. Previous studies have involved using
MRI scans, which require patients to lie down and keep still, making conversation difficult.

The conversation task lasted for 12 minutes and involved participants
being randomly assigned four subjects on themes such as "What did you do
last summer?" and "How do you bake a cake?" After their conversation
task, participants were asked about the level of education they had
completed and their parents' annual income and given a score based on
these details. Pairs of participants were classified as either "high- disparity" or "low-disparity" depending on how different their scores
were.

The two groups -- different-background pairs and similar-background pairs
- - were matched in terms of age, race and gender, minimising the impact
of these variables on the results. The participants were recruited from
Yale's home city of New Haven in Connecticut, both from within the campus
and beyond. They ranged in age from 19 to 44 and had a wide variety of socioeconomic backgrounds.

Lead author Olivia Descorbeth, a Yale University graduate who came up
with the research proposal while still at school, said: "We wanted to
know if the brain responded differently when we talked to others of a
different socioeconomic background. Now we know that it does and that
humans have a neurobiology that helps us navigate social differences."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_College_London. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Olivia Descorbeth, Xian Zhang, J Adam Noah, Joy Hirsch. Neural
processes
for live pro-social dialogue between dyads with socioeconomic
disparity.

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2020; DOI:
10.1093/scan/ nsaa120 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201005080906.htm

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