The medial prefrontal cortex in constructing personality models

Jonathan B Freeman; Ryan M Stolier

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2014.09.009

The medial prefrontal cortex in constructing personality models

Trends Cogn Sci. 2014 Nov;18(11):571-2. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2014.09.009. Epub 2014 Sep 30.

Authors

Jonathan B Freeman¹, Ryan M Stolier²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, New York University, 6 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, USA. Electronic address: jon.freeman@nyu.edu.
² Department of Psychology, New York University, 6 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, USA.

PMID: 25278367
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2014.09.009

Abstract

A recent study by Hassabis et al. suggests that the brain constructs 'personality models' of other people. When imagining another individual, multi-voxel patterns of fMRI activation in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) contained information about the individual's unique combination of personality traits. The authors propose that, in concert with other regions, the mPFC assembles a model of another's personality that is ultimately used to predict behavior.

Keywords: impressions; mPFC; person perception; personality; social neuroscience; traits.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Functional Neuroimaging
Gyrus Cinguli / physiology
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Personality / physiology*
Prefrontal Cortex / physiology*
Social Perception
Temporal Lobe / physiology