First impression, We form an opinion on new people we meet very quickly – the minutes and activity of the brain regions involved in processing emotional information are decisive – Americans convince in the pages of the magazine “Nature Neuroscience”. Elizabeth Phelps and colleagues from the University of New York studied the brain activity of volunteers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).The participants of the experiment were asked to form an opinion about other people based on a short description of their activities. Half of the descriptions were positive, half of them were negative. The participants were to take into account all the information and on this basis answer whether the person evokes positive or negative feelings in them. During the test, the researchers studied the activity of parts of the brain, which were activated while learning the description and “coding” information, as well as making an assessment of the presented person. The authors of the work observed, that during the presentation of the person's description, different parts of the brain were activated – m.in. brain prefrontal cortex involved in social information processing.
However, this part of the brain was not involved in generating the subjective assessment of the presented person. During the initial assessment, the formation of the first impression was activated by other structures, the so-called. amygdala and posterior cingulate cortex – brain regions known for their role in controlling emotions
