Automatic brain response to facial emotion as a function of implicitly and explicitly measured extraversion

Extraversion/introversion is a basic dimension of personality that describes individual differences in social behavior and sensory sensitivity. Previous neuroimaging research exclusively relied on self reports for assessing personality traits. In recent years, implicit measures of personality have been developed that aim at assessing the implicit self-concept of personality and complement self report instruments which are thought to measure aspects of the explicit self-concept of personality. In the present study functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to examine automatic brain reactivity to facial expression as a function of both implicitly and explicitly measured extraversion in 30 healthy women. Sad, happy, and neutral faces were presented for 33 ms masked by neutral faces beside a no face control condition. Subjects evaluated the briefly shown neutral mask faces. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) and the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) were applied as measures of extraversion which were not correlated in our sample. IAT extraversion was negatively correlated with automatic reactivity of the caudate head, thalamus, and inferior frontal cortex to sad faces. NEO-FFI extraversion was negatively correlated with response of the inferior frontal cortex and putamen to sad faces. For masked happy faces, an inverse correlation of the IAT effect for extraversion with activation of the caudate head and superior parietal lobule was observed. NEO-FFI extraversion was inversely correlated with the response of the thalamus to happy faces. Neither NEO-FFI extraversion nor IAT effect were significantly related to brain response to masked neutral faces (compared to the no face condition). Taken together, a specific heightened responsivity of the fronto-striatal-thalamic circuit to facial emotions which are arousing stimuli might underlie introverts' preference for avoiding social interactions. Research on the neurobiology of extraversion could benefit from the application of implicit in addition to explicit measurement instruments when automatic neural responses are investigated.