The interpretation of social cues is a fundamental function of human social behavior, and resolution of inconsistencies between spoken and gestural cues plays an important role in successful interactions. words. Participants identified the communicative intent of the gestures as either positive or negative. In the color task, participants were presented the words red and green in either red or green font and were asked to identify the color of the letters. We observed a classic Stroop behavioral interference effect, with participants showing increased response time for incongruent trials relative to congruent ones for both the gesture and color tasks. Hemodynamic signals acquired using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) were increased in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) for incongruent trials relative to congruent trials for both tasks consistent with a common, domain-general mechanism for detecting conflict. However, activity in the left DLPFC and frontal eye fields and the right temporal-parietal 509-18-2 supplier junction (TPJ), superior temporal gyrus (STG), supramarginal gyrus (SMG), and primary and auditory association cortices was greater for the gesture task than the color task. Thus, in addition to domain-general conflict processing mechanisms, as suggested by common engagement of right DLPFC, socially specialized neural modules localized to the left DLPFC and right TPJ including adjacent homologous receptive language areas were engaged when processing conflicting communications. These findings contribute to an emerging view of specialization within the TPJ and adjacent areas for interpretation of social cues and indicate a role for the region in processing social conflict. Introduction Spoken language is a gold standard for communication, but humans also rely on gestures as a fundamental source of social information [1]. Gestural elements in conversation are known to enhance verbal communication particularly when speakers agree or disagree, and interpretation of gesture may contradict verbal content [2]. Congruence between gestural and verbal communication has been associated with enhanced comprehension [3], whereas incongruence can serve as an alerting social cue. An incongruence between gestures and spoken language can signify that increased attention to the information stream is needed to parse meaning in a conversation. Interpretation of conflicting verbal and non-verbal cues is often considered an important part of lie detection. Frameworks for control in conflict tasks, such as the Stroop color task or the Wisconsin Card Sorting task, suggest activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLFPC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) that provide a guided activation in top-down processing [4]. Other studies have added to this framework, indicating that prefrontal cortex structures contribute to domain-general processing of conflict while other regions of the brain display activity specific to the domain of the task, such as emotion or faces [5]. In this study, we aim to determine if spoken language when paired with incongruent body language, activates domain-general areas of cognitive processing as in the DLPFC and/or domain-specific areas including social and language areas of the cortex such as the temporal-parietal junction (TPJ) and adjacent homologues of receptive language processing areas, respectively. The classic Stroop task [6, 7] introduced conflict between the written and perceptual domains of colors and words. Subsequent Stroop tasks have varied stimulus dimensions and/or response choices to investigate the neural correlates of conflict monitoring and resolution [8], emotional conflict [5], contextual and nonverbal components of social conflict [9], and integration of speech and iconic gestures [10]. Delays in reaction time to incongruent stimuli in these tasks are assumed to represent interference between conflicting stimulus dimensions, and associated activity in neural circuits localized to the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is usually taken as a marker of conflict processing in these tasks [4, Rabbit Polyclonal to Tau 11]. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex has been associated with general conflict detection and resolution [12, 13]. Together, the anterior cingulate cortex and the DLPFC are thought to form a network that detects conflict and recruits attention and response mechanisms in order to resolve the conflict in a task-relevant fashion [4, 11, 13]. For example, in a previous study, Zaki (2010) reported that reliance on nonverbal cues conveying facial and emotional information preferentially engaged areas such as the fusiform gyrus and amygdala, 509-18-2 supplier which are known to be involved in face and emotion processing. In another variant of the Stroop task, Egner and Hirsch (2005) found that conflict related to faces was resolved by up-regulation of task-specific processes and that the fusiform face area was more engaged when faces were the target, rather than the distracter, stimulus dimension. Crucially, both studies also found elevated DLPFC activity during incongruent trials [9, 12], furthering the hypothesis that this region is engaged in domain-general mechanisms of conflict processing alongside more domain-specific areas. The temporal-parietal junction (TPJ) has been associated with social processing and consists of structures in the inferior parietal and posterior temporal lobes bilaterally [14C16]. The TPJ consists of nodes which are thought to play 509-18-2 supplier roles in theory of mind, intention analysis, and mentalizing, as well as coordination of gaze and processing of.