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Cited by 369Face Recognition and PerceptionEvolutionary Psychology and Human BehaviorAnxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 140 of the 140 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Social threat perception and the evolution of paranoia

Green, Melissa J, Phillips, Mary L·2004·Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
DOI 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2004.03.006
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Abstract

Rapid and efficient judgments about the significance of social threat are important for species survival and may recruit specialized neurocognitive systems, consistent with biological models of threat processing. We review cognitive, psychophysiological, neuropsychological, and neuroimaging evidence in support of specialized neural networks subserving the processing of facial displays of threat. Cognitive research suggests that faces depicting anger are detected quickly when presented amongst other facial expressions, on the basis of distinguishing facial features. Psychophysiological investigations using visual scanpath techniques provide evidence for increased foveal attention to facial features of threat-related expressions (anger, fear), which may facilitate rapid detection and subsequent appraisal of the significance of threat (such as the direction of impending threat). Neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies implicate a primary role for the amygdale and pre-frontal cortices in interpreting signs of danger from facial expressions and other social stimuli. Subtle disturbances in these neurocognitive systems underlying efficient threat detection (manifesting in attentional biases and aberrant neural activity) may result in abnormally heightened perception of social threat, as seen in clinical levels of social anxiety and/or persecutory delusions in schizophrenia. Clinical states of paranoia may therefore reflect normal variation (i.e. biases) in the adaptive mechanisms which have evolved, in the Darwinian sense, to facilitate efficient threat detection in humans. As such, clinical levels of paranoia may represent the inevitable cost of efficient threat perception--or 'justified' suspicion--that is necessary for survival of the human species.

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Research works printed but not linked: 3

  1. Arguedas, 2004, Attention to threatening faces in delusion-prone individuals: pre-attentive orienting bias and or delayed disengagement?, Cog Neuropsychiatry
  2. Kissin, 1976, A tachistoscopic study of the recognition of simple visual stimuli, Voprosy Psikhologii, 1, 122
  3. Paulsen, 1998, Memory encoding and retrieval of novel faces in patients with schizophrenia: a PET study, Soc Neurosci, 24, 681

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Metadata

Authors
Green, M. J., & Phillips, M. L.
Affiliations
  • Macquarie University (AU)
  • King's College London (GB)
Corresponding author
Green, Melissa J
ORCID
Venue
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2004-05
Volume
28
Issue
3
Pages
333-342
ISSN
0149-7634 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.neubiorev.2004.03.006
OpenAlex
W2128125341
Cited by
369
References
138
Citations by year
2026: 29 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 21 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 22 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 25 · 2014: 19 · 2013: 17 · 2012: 20
FWCI
1.11
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • ORCA Online Research @Cardiff (Cardiff University) (submittedVersion)
  • Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
Keywords
paranoia, social threat perception, anger, fear, amygdala, prefrontal cortex, attentional bias, social anxiety, persecutory delusions, schizophrenia, threat detection, visual scanpath
MeSH terms
Affect, Aggression, Animals, Attention, Delusions, Emotions, Biological Evolution, Humans, Paranoid Behavior, Paranoid Disorders, Perception, Schizophrenic Psychology, Social Environment

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