Representations and impressions of relationships function as cognitive maps that allow for the successful navigation of the social world. At the most basic level, these representations and impressions include information about others' roles, status, kinship and affiliative relationships. Given the ubiquity of these judgments in day-to-day social interaction, it is important to examine the neural underpinnings of the perception of status and solidarity cues in order to better understand how the mind processes this form of social information. The central goal of the proposed work is to investigate the neural structures associated with the perception and representation of status and affiliation. In particular, commonalities and differences with other social perceptual domains will be examined. These domains include: the perception of emotions (e.g., fear vs. anger) and the non-social perceptual domain of facial symmetry. Importantly, the proposed experiments also contrast the processing of status with those of solidarity and affiliation. Five functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies will test specific hypotheses related to the perception and representation of status and solidarity. Three of these studies will examine the perception of dominance and status across sensory modalities. The remaining two studies will examine perceptions of solidarity relationships involving affiliation. Two additional studies including a behavioral and ERP study will be run to bolster the brain imaging experiments with behavioral and physiological data. Hypotheses regarding the activation of specific brain areas will be examined. This research will advance understanding of how core interpersonal relationships are perceived and represented in the human brain. In addition, this work will provide scientific training to students in an interdisciplinary field.
