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Empathy-related response towards faces of female rape victims - An fMRI study.Author: Nikita Sharma Date: 2019-05-20 Report no: IIIT/TH/2019/61 Advisor:Kavita Vemuri AbstractEmpathy allows one to understand distinct cognitive and emotional states of another. Empathy is critical for social interactions and survival. For researchers it is an interesting but challenging proposition to study either in an observer or in the perpetrator of a crime. In the context of rape, observer’s empathic response is required to help the victim overcome the trauma and deliver justice, while lack of empathy in the perpetrator is of interest to understand deviant behavior. Empathy or the lack of it is influenced by perceptions, from self-experiences or those imposed by social stereotypes, and this is in particular evidenced in attitude towards rape victims. The ability to empathize with a rape victim or display the empathy to not commit an aggressive criminal act is based on complex processing of one’s expectations of the physical characteristics, socioeconomic status, and perceptions of credibility and hence deemed to be highly subjective. Each of societal stereotypes requires in-depth study to model expected empathic response or profile deviation. In this thesis we examine a small but critical parameterthat is the rape victim’s appearance and its relation to observer’s empathy. Our hypothesis is loosely based on observations of typical responses post-rape incidence are reported, which is that female victim carrying a non-traditional (as defined by a particular culture- that is, short hair with no bindi/dot on forehead) look, with a darker skin tone and resident of a village evokes lower empathy response in the common citizens. A set of two experiments were designed to understand behavioral (pupillary response) and the neural activations (functional magnetic resonance imaging) associated with empathy networks. In this first study, for stimuli the average female Indian computer-generated faces are photoshopped to reflect a) variation in skin tone/color, b) (non)traditional appearance and c) inclusion of place of residence(urban/rural). Prior to being shown the faces, the participants (20 male graduate students) were informed that the faces were of rape victims. The faces were designed to not show any expression, to reduce bias from facial cues. The results from a preliminary investigation, shown the presence of the motion/empathy network comprising of the insulaanterior cingulate cortex (ACC)-inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) areas to female faces of purported rape victims for all the category of faces, though higher activation in the Insula (area crucial for emotional empathy) was observed for traditional faces compared to non-traditional faces. Similarly, higher activation in empathy network was observed for fair/lighter skin tone faces compared to darker tone faces. No differential activation was found on the basis of place of residence. Interestingly, activations in the perspective or cognitive empathy regions covering the prefrontal cortex were not observed for any condition. In the second experiment, computer-generated faces were photoshopped to reflect lighter to darker skin tones, and pupil size changes as a function of reflected light were correlated to cognitive processes of ‘like’ through rating provided by the participants (70 engineering students). The hypothesis was that reflex reaction to skin tone was partly due to inadequate contrasts especially in darker skin tone before social bias of race is triggered. The results show slight differences in pupil size when perceiving a light tone face or a dark tone face but statistical significance was not found. The average values from the data indicate that people who ‘like’ dark color have smaller pupil size and larger pupil size was noticed in the group that ‘like’ lighter face tones. It is also observed that subjects who marked their self-color as the dark/medium tend to have a preference for the same skin tones in others. The results of the two independent studies provide preliminary evidence for social perceptions of physical appearance and the strength of the techniques (fMRI or eye tracking) to measure empathy and perceptions. Further studies on convicted rapists are required to understand empathy deficiency for rape victims and the underlying reasons for it. Full thesis: pdf Centre for Cognitive Science |
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