Social Communication. The next construct in Social Processes, Social Communication, and the sub-construct Reception of Facial Communication (including either implicit or explicit communication such as affect recognition, facial recognition and characterization) clearly involves the amygdala, particularly in the perception of emotions that signal danger, e.g. fear or anger (Xxxxxxx et al., 1999, 1998; Gamer and Buchel, 2009). The amygdala’s role was formerly thought to be only in automatic and non- conscious rapid processing of such stimuli (XxXxxx, 1996; Xxxxxx et al., 1999; Xxxxx et al., 2007). Today, we know that the purview of the amygdala is broad, neuroimaging studies show that the amygdala is activated in response to all faces, and not only to fearful expressions (Xxxxxxxxxx et al., 2006). These studies also show that the involvement of the amygdala in processing information from faces is complex, can show inter-individual variability, and is dependent on context (Xxxxx et al., 2003; Xxx et al., 2004). The involvement of the amygdala in controlling attention and ambiguity resolution extends to this construct: SM’s fear recognition impairment (Section 2.2) appears to arise from a failure to make spontaneous use of the eye region of faces, a potent source of disambiguating social information (Xxxxxxx et al., 2005). In addition, it has been shown that when interpreting equivocal expressions positive interpretations are associated with decreased amygdala activation, and negative with increased (Xxx et al., 2003; X. X. Xxx et al., 2011). The amygdala’s response to faces is also dependent on the motivational state of the perceiving individual; Xxxxx (2015) discovered that testosterone administration biased individuals towards threat approach and increased amygdala activation, away from threat avoidance and decreased activity. Anatomical differences affect facial reception as well; Zhang (2012) found a strong correlation in monkeys between larger amygdala and longer periods of gazing into the eye region of other monkeys. There is also evidence that the function of the amygdala in interpreting gaze changes throughout development, with amygdala size in children positively correlated to cognitive mental state inferences and in adults to emotional ones (Rice et al., 2014). Clearly the amygdala has a significant role in social bonding and communication, how important is it for the last domain in RDoC, Arousal and Regulatory Systems?
