Suppressing Instinct Is Not Easy

The left inferior frontal cortex lights up when instinct is suppressed

It usually takes some effort to make yourself go against your instinct. Researchers at York University have located the area of the brain that lights up when you suppress an automatic reaction, such as forcing yourself not to look at the faces of people in the lift you’re entering. A York study, published in a recent issue of the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, used fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) to track brain activity while study participants looked at an image of a facial expression with a word superimposed on it. The participants processed the word faster than the expression. However, when the image and word did not match—say, if the face was a smiling one, but the superimposed word was ‘sad’—then participants reacted less quickly to a request to read the word.

“The emotion in the word doesn’t match the emotion in the facial expression, which creates a conflict,” says Joseph DeSouza, assistant professor of psychology in York’s Faculty of Health. “Our study showed—for the first time—an increase in signal from the left inferior frontal cortex when the study participant was confronted by this conflict between the word and the image and asked to respond to directions that went against [his/her] automatic instincts.”

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