Emotion identification is associated with recruitment of a well-established brain system for emotion processing, centered around the amygdala. Human lesion and neuroimaging studies have documented the role of the amygdala in arousal and anxiety (Campbell-Sills et al., 2011) mood (Dyck et al., 2011), emotion identification (Gur et al., 2002; Loughead et al., 2008; Derntl et al., 2009), social affiliation (Carter et al., 2008) and threat perception (Feinstein et al., 2011; Guyer et al., 2008; LeDoux, 2003). Identification of emotional content of a face is a fundamental social process (LeDoux, 2000, 2003). Neuroimaging studies in healthy people have delineated a circuit involved in facial affect perception, including fusiform, temporolimbic and frontal regions, such as amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, and insula (Harris et al., 2014; Haxby et al., 2000; Vuilleumier and Pourtois, 2007). While amygdala responses have been linked to processing of stimulus salience and both positive and negative valence (Zald, 2003), convergent evidence suggests that the amygdala plays a unique role in the perception and processing of threat-related signals (Fitzgerald et al., 2006; Phelps and LeDoux, 2005). Consistent with animal studies of
