Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Trust in the brain

Nature Neuroscience volume 5, pages 192–193 (2002)Cite this article

A new event-related fMRI study suggests that decisions about trustworthiness involve structures that process emotions, and raises intriguing questions about cues used for such judgments.

In this issue, Winston and colleagues4 examined these two questions by using the power of event-related fMRI to study a particular class of social judgments: those of trustworthiness. Subjects were shown pictures of faces and asked to perform two tasks while in the scanner. One task investigated the neural regions that might subserve overt processing by having subjects indicate whether the face looked trustworthy or not. The other task examined automatic, implicit processing of trustworthiness by having subjects perform an unrelated cognitive evaluation (indicate whether the face looked like a high school student or a college student).

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: A neurological basis for judging trustworthiness.

AP/Wide World Photos Amy Center

References

  1. Macrae, C. N. & Bodenhausen, G. V. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 51, 93–120 (2000).

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  2. Haxby, J. V., Hoffman, E. A. & Gobbini, M. I. Trends Cogn. Sci. 4, 223–233 (2000).

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  3. Adolphs, R. Behav. Cogn. Neurosci. Rev. 1, 21–61 (2002).

    Article  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  4. Winston, J. S., Strange, B. A., O'Doherty, J. & Dolan, R. J. Nature Neurosci. 5, 277–283 (2002).

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  5. Adolphs, R., Tranel, D. & Damasio, A. R. Nature 393, 470–474 (1998).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Vuilleumier, P. et al. Neuron 30, 829–841 (2001).

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  7. Whalen, P. J. et al. J. Neurosci. 18, 411–418 (1998).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Hoffman, E. A. & Haxby, J. V. Nature Neurosci. 3, 80–84 (2000).

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  9. Narumoto, J. et al. Cogn. Brain Res. 12, 225–231 (2001).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Damasio, A. R. The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness (Harcourt Brace, New York, 1999).

    Google Scholar 

  11. Morris, J. S. et al. Nature 383, 812–815 (1996).

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  12. Phelps, E. A. et al. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 12, 729–738 (2000).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Hart, A. J. et al. Neuroreport 11, 2351–2355 (2000).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Author notes

  1. Ralph Adolphs: The author is in the Dept. of Neurology

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Iowa College of Medicine, 200 Hawkins Street, Iowa City, 52242, Iowa, USA

    Ralph Adolphs

Authors
  1. Ralph Adolphs
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Adolphs, R. Trust in the brain. Nat Neurosci 5, 192–193 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0302-192

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0302-192

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing