Photos of groups who were low on both the dimensions of warmth and competence (i.e., homeless people and drug addicts) uniquely failed to trigger activation of the medial prefrontal cortex, a structure implicated in social cognition. Instead, activation patterns in response to members of those groups paralleled responses to depictions of objects rather than people—chilling evidence for the hypothesized dehumanization of these groups (Vaes, Paladino, Castelli, Leyens, & Giovanazzi, 2003).