Basic information

Investigator: Mgr. Vít Třebický, Ph.D.
Main recipient: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Research period: 1/1/2019 - 30/6/2022
Total budget:6 482 000 CZK
Supported by: Czech Science Foundation (GAČR)

Annotation

Conflicts with conspecifics play an important role in our everyday lives. Since physical confrontations carry substantial risks and have taken place throughout our history, one can expect that there are adaptations which help individuals assess fighting ability and make appropriate decisions in agonistic interactions. Competition in humans is a frequently investigated subject. Studies have confirmed the existence of specific morphological traits associated with success in confrontation and demonstrated that people are attentive to these cues. Nevertheless, little is known about the neurological processes involved in the recognition and processing of morphological cues from faces and bodies and about focusing visual attention on particular morphological regions. To investigate the psychophysiological processes involved in the assessment of male-male competition, we want to study the activation of specific brain regions involved in formidability assessments triggered by visual stimuli by employing functional magnetic resonance imaging and simultaneous recording of eye movements.