Y elevating signal (Wyart et al. The topdown effects of attention and expectation do not operate only in the degree of perception but can also modulate our actions. 1 instance of this can be the modulation of imitation by social context. People imitate extra when inside a positive social context (Lakin PubMed ID:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26193637 and Chartrand,and uncomplicated social ostensive cues for example direct eyegaze impact automatic imitation mechanisms: men and women are more quickly to carry out actions that match,as an alternative to deviate from,observed actions (Wang et al a). Even prosocial,when compared with nonsocial,priming that is certainly subliminal final results in considerably higher levels of automatic imitation (Leighton et al. Cook and Bird,a,b). As an example,Leighton et al. asked participants to rearrange five words such that they formed a grammatically correct sentence; these sentences either comprised optimistic social words (e.g friend,group,assist) or antisocial words (e.g rebel,obstinate,distrust). Despite reporting no awareness with the underlying theme,folks who had rearranged the optimistic social words exhibited greater levels of automatic imitation than men and women who had rearranged the antisocial words. Such facilitation of imitation in line with social context is likely a crucial component in the development of smooth and harmonious social interactions: beingFrontiers in Human Neurosciencewww.frontiersin.orgJune Volume Post Cook et al.Topdown modulation in autism and schizophreniaimitated increases rapport (Chartrand and Bargh,,altruistic behavior (van Baaren et al and trust (Bailenson and Yee.NEURAL MECHANISMS OF TOPDOWN MODULATION OF SOCIAL PERCEPTIONIn recent years a variety of studies have investigated the neural mechanisms that underpin the topdown modulation of social perception.ATTENTIONThe modulatory effects of attention are thought to proceed by way of feedback connections from frontal and parietal regions such as the superior parietal lobule,intraparietal sulcus,frontal eye fields,and supplementary eye fields (Corbetta et al. Fink et al to sensory processing regions (Cavada and GoldmanRakic Ungerleider et al. see Figure for instance relating to auditory sensory processing). Such feedback connections are believed to play a part in amplifying activity in stimulusspecific neural regions (Kastner and Ungerleider Pessoa et al. For example,activity in motion particular visual cortex,and connectivity between early visual cortex (V) and visual motion processing places (hMTV),was enhanced when order Rebaudioside A attending to visual motion when compared with when not attending (B hel et al. This enhanced connectivity was modulated by topdown signals from parietal and prefrontal cortex. This explanatory framework,which states that topdown signals from parietal and frontal regions boost stimulus processing in stimulusspecific cortex,extends for the processing of social stimuli. Focus to faces (compared with interest to a place that does not feature faces) is related with enhanced activity inside the fusiform face location (FFA; Vuilleumier et al. Bird et al along with the amygdala (Pessoa et al. Attention to faces is also related with increased FFA to V connectivity (Bird et al.EXPECTATIONFurthermore,connectivity analyses recommended a topdown influence of frontal cortex activity on faceresponsive regions inside the fusiform gyrus and the amygdala (Summerfield et al. Earlier research have suggested that vmPFC plays a role in confirming and reinforcing the validity of prior expectations (Daw et al. Hampton et al. We lately investigated the.