The human amygdala in social judgment

• Published in: Nature (London) Vol. 393; no. 6684; pp. 470 - 474
• Main Authors: Adolphs, Ralph, Tranel, Daniel, Damasio, Antonio R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 04.06.1998; Nature Publishing; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: Adult; Aggressiveness; Amygdala - physiology; Anatomical correlates of behavior; Behavioral psychophysiology; Biological and medical sciences; Brain; Brain Diseases - physiopathology; Case-Control Studies; Cues; Emotions; Facial Expression; Fear & phobias; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Judgment - physiology; letter; Male; Middle Aged; multidisciplinary; Neurology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Social Behavior; Visual Perception - physiology; Human; Social perception; Physical appearance; Central nervous system; Basal ganglion; Emotion emotionality; Face; Amygdaloid nucleus; Brain (vertebrata); Social cognition; Judgment
• ISSN: 0028-0836; 1476-4687
• DOI: 10.1038/30982

Studies in animals have implicated the amygdala in emotional 1 , 2 , 3 , and social 4 , 5 , 6 , behaviours, especially those related to fear and aggression. Although lesion 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , and functional imaging 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , studies in humans have demonstrated the amygdala's participation in recognizing emotional facial expressions, its role in human social behaviour has remained unclear. We report here our investigation into the hypothesis that the human amygdala is required for accurate social judgments of other individuals on the basis of their facial appearance. We asked three subjects with complete bilateral amygdala damage to judge faces of unfamiliar people with respect to two attributes important in real-life social encounters: approachability and trustworthiness. All three subjects judged unfamiliar individuals to be more approachable and more trustworthy than did control subjects. The impairment was most striking for faces to which normal subjects assign the most negative ratings: unapproachable and untrustworthy looking individuals. Additional investigations revealed that the impairment does not extend to judging verbal descriptions of people. The amygdala appears to be an important component of the neural systems that help retrieve socially relevant knowledge on the basis of facial appearance.