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Is the Human Amygdala Specialized for Processing Social Information?
Author(s) -
ADOLPHS RALPH
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2003.tb07091.x
Subject(s) - amygdala , information processing , cognition , psychology , cognitive psychology , stimulus (psychology) , social cognition , social information processing , function (biology) , neuroscience , cognitive science , biology , evolutionary biology
A bstract : A number of studies in humans and other animals has confirmed the amygdala's role in modulating cognition and behavior on the basis of a stimulus' motivational, emotional, and social atttributes. This raises the question of how these attributes are related: is social information processing reducible to motivational processing? Some recent data suggest the possibility that the amygdala's primitive function may be motivational processing that is domain‐general, but that its function in primates, and especially humans, may have evolved to process social information specifically. While the issue is unresolved, future experiments could provide additional support.