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Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Advance Access originally published online on February 28, 2007
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 2007 2(1):39-44; doi:10.1093/scan/nsl043
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© The Author (2007). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

The effects of skin tone on race-related amygdala activity: an fMRI investigation

Jaclyn Ronquillo1, Thomas F. Denson1, Brian Lickel1, Zhong-Lin Lu1, Anirvan Nandy1 and Keith B. Maddox2

1Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, CA and 2Department of Psychology, Tufts University, MA, USA

Previous work has shown differential amygdala response to African-American faces by Caucasian individuals. Furthermore, behavioral studies have demonstrated the existence of skin tone bias, the tendency to prefer light skin to dark skin. In the present study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate whether skin tone bias moderates differential race-related amygdala activity. Eleven White participants viewed photographs of unfamiliar Black and White faces with varied skin tone (light, dark). Replicating past research, greater amygdala activity was observed for Black faces than White faces. Furthermore, dark-skinned targets elicited more amygdala activity than light-skinned targets. However, these results were qualified by a significant interaction between race and skin tone, such that amygdala activity was observed at equivalent levels for light- and dark-skinned Black targets, but dark-skinned White targets elicited greater amygdala activity than light-skinned White targets.

Keywords: skin tone bias; functional magnetic resonance imaging; amygdala

Correspondence should be addressed to Jaclyn Ronquillo, Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Seeley G. Mudd Building, Room 501, Los Angeles, CA, 90089-1061, USA. E-mail: jronquil{at}usc.edu


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