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Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Advance Access originally published online on March 26, 2008
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 2008 3(2):119-127; doi:10.1093/scan/nsn009
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© The Author (2008). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Evaluating face trustworthiness: a model based approach

Alexander Todorov, Sean G. Baron and Nikolaas N. Oosterhof

Department of Psychology and Center for the Study of Brain, Mind and Behavior, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA

Judgments of trustworthiness from faces determine basic approach/avoidance responses and approximate the valence evaluation of faces that runs across multiple person judgments. Here, based on trustworthiness judgments and using a computer model for face representation, we built a model for representing face trustworthiness (study 1). Using this model, we generated novel faces with an increased range of trustworthiness and used these faces as stimuli in a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging study (study 2). Although participants did not engage in explicit evaluation of the faces, the amygdala response changed as a function of face trustworthiness. An area in the right amygdala showed a negative linear response—as the untrustworthiness of faces increased so did the amygdala response. Areas in the left and right putamen, the latter area extended into the anterior insula, showed a similar negative linear response. The response in the left amygdala was quadratic—strongest for faces on both extremes of the trustworthiness dimension. The medial prefrontal cortex and precuneus also showed a quadratic response, but their response was strongest to faces in the middle range of the trustworthiness dimension.

Keywords: faces; person perception; trustworthiness; amygdala

Correspondence should be addressed to Alexander Todorov, Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA. E-mail: atodorov{at}princeton.edu.

Received October 10, 2007. Accepted February 28, 2008.


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