Social cognitive and affective neuroscience最新文献

Although most individuals strongly prefer social fairness and punish behaviours that violate fairness norms, recent psychological studies have shown that empathy towards 'perpetrators' who violate fairness norms can affect people's fairness decision-making, resulting in tolerance for unfair behaviour, even as direct 'victims' of unfair behaviour. However, in real life, people more often view unfair events from a third-party perspective, and little is known about how empathy affects fairness decisions by third parties whose self-interests are not threatened and their neurocognitive mechanisms. The present study examined effects of empathy directed towards a 'perpetrator' on third-party punishment using event-related potentials. The results suggest that, in the nonempathy condition, unfair offers induced stronger unfairness aversion in third-party decision makers and increased motivation and cognitive resource investment to alleviate this negative emotion compared to fair offers, reflecting the greater amplitude differences of fairness effects on the anterior N1 component, medial frontal negative, and smaller late positive components in the nonempathy condition. However, in the empathy condition, the differential impact of the fairness effect disappeared. These findings reveal the neural basis for trade-offs between altruistic and fairness motives in third-party fairness decision-making processes involving empathy.

This study examined pathophysiological changes in incentive processing in migraineurs. Nineteen episodic migraine (EM) patients and 19 healthy controls (HCs) performed a monetary incentive delay task while their event-related potentials were recorded. During the incentive anticipation phase, both Cue-N2 and Cue-P3 amplitudes were responsive to incentive cues in both groups, indicating no between-group differences in the distinct anticipatory subprocesses that underly incentive cue evaluation. During the outcome phase, the feedback-related negativity amplitude, associated with performance evaluation, was larger for punishing feedback than rewarding feedback across both groups. However, the feedback-P3 amplitude, linked to attentional processing of motivational value of outcome feedback, was significantly larger for rewarding feedback than punishing feedback in HCs, but not in EM patients. Moreover, a significant negative correlation was observed between the feedback-P3 amplitude difference for rewarding minus punishing feedback and subjective pain intensity in EM patients. Finally, the feedback late-positive potential amplitude, related to affective processing of affective value of outcome feedback, was significantly larger for punishing feedback than rewarding feedback only in HCs, but not in EM patients. Our findings suggest that recurrent severe pain may relate to abnormal incentive-related brain activity during the outcome phase of incentive processing.

Social dominance is conveyed by expansive and contractive body postures, which also have feedback effects on individuals' own mood and behaviour. These feedback effects are the subject of the 'power posing' paradigm, which has grown in popularity in psychology; however, the neural mechanisms of feedback from expansive and contractive postures have never been investigated. We report here for the first time an exploratory neuroimaging study using electroencephalography during a 'power posing' design to investigate the neural correlates of this effect. We find that right-lateralized frontal asymmetry in neural activity was increased as a result of taking an expansive posture and that this asymmetry was correlated with the effects the posture exerted on participants' mood. We interpret this finding in the context of recent theories of frontal alpha asymmetry and motivational conflict.

Social dominance is conveyed by expansive and contractive body postures, which also have feedback effects on individuals' own mood and behaviour. These feedback effects are the subject of the 'power posing' paradigm, which has grown in popularity in psychology; however, the neural mechanisms of feedback from expansive and contractive postures have never been investigated. We report here for the first time an exploratory neuroimaging study using electroencephalography during a 'power posing' design to investigate the neural correlates of this effect. We find that right-lateralized frontal asymmetry in neural activity was increased as a result of taking an expansive posture and that this asymmetry was correlated with the effects the posture exerted on participants' mood. We interpret this finding in the context of recent theories of frontal alpha asymmetry and motivational conflict.

This study examined pathophysiological changes in incentive processing in migraineurs. Nineteen episodic migraine (EM) patients and 19 healthy controls (HCs) performed a monetary incentive delay task while their event-related potentials were recorded. During the incentive anticipation phase, both Cue-N2 and Cue-P3 amplitudes were responsive to incentive cues in both groups, indicating no between-group differences in the distinct anticipatory subprocesses that underly incentive cue evaluation. During the outcome phase, the feedback-related negativity amplitude, associated with performance evaluation, was larger for punishing feedback than rewarding feedback across both groups. However, the feedback-P3 amplitude, linked to attentional processing of motivational value of outcome feedback, was significantly larger for rewarding feedback than punishing feedback in HCs, but not in EM patients. Moreover, a significant negative correlation was observed between the feedback-P3 amplitude difference for rewarding minus punishing feedback and subjective pain intensity in EM patients. Finally, the feedback late-positive potential amplitude, related to affective processing of affective value of outcome feedback, was significantly larger for punishing feedback than rewarding feedback only in HCs, but not in EM patients. Our findings suggest that recurrent severe pain may relate to abnormal incentive-related brain activity during the outcome phase of incentive processing.

Grandmothers enhance grandchild survival and maternal health through caregiving. Comparative evidence suggests that human grandmotherhood reflects a unique life history strategy promoting the inclusive fitness of post-reproductive females. Despite its evolutionary importance, the proximate neural mechanisms supporting grandmaternal caregiving remain unclear. This study uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and multivariate approaches to investigate how grandmaternal brains encode information about grandchildren and translate it into caregiving. Forty-seven grandmothers (age = 59.1 ± 7 years) completed an fMRI task viewing photos of a grandchild, the grandchild's parent, unfamiliar individuals, and nonhuman objects. Multi-voxel activation patterns associated with these stimuli were analyzed using representational similarity analysis, focusing on the hypothalamic and mesolimbic regions critical for mammalian parenting. Results reveal that grandchildren had the most distinct multi-voxel pattern of activation within these regions, potentially reflecting the grandmothers' motivational readiness to engage in grandmaternal caregiving. Indeed, greater neural dissimilarity between the grandchild and other social categories correlated with higher self-reported affection and supportive behaviors towards grandchildren, particularly in paternal grandmothers. Our findings provide novel insights into the mechanisms of grandmaternal caregiving that enhances inclusive fitness.

Grandmothers enhance grandchild survival and maternal health through caregiving. Comparative evidence suggests that human grandmotherhood reflects a unique life history strategy promoting the inclusive fitness of post-reproductive females. Despite its evolutionary importance, the proximate neural mechanisms supporting grandmaternal caregiving remain unclear. This study uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and multivariate approaches to investigate how grandmaternal brains encode information about grandchildren and translate it into caregiving. Forty-seven grandmothers (age = 59.1 ± 7 years) completed an fMRI task viewing photos of a grandchild, the grandchild's parent, unfamiliar individuals, and nonhuman objects. Multi-voxel activation patterns associated with these stimuli were analyzed using representational similarity analysis, focusing on the hypothalamic and mesolimbic regions critical for mammalian parenting. Results reveal that grandchildren had the most distinct multi-voxel pattern of activation within these regions, potentially reflecting the grandmothers' motivational readiness to engage in grandmaternal caregiving. Indeed, greater neural dissimilarity between the grandchild and other social categories correlated with higher self-reported affection and supportive behaviors towards grandchildren, particularly in paternal grandmothers. Our findings provide novel insights into the mechanisms of grandmaternal caregiving that enhances inclusive fitness.

In human society, successful social interactions often hinge upon the ability to accurately estimate other's perspectives, a skill that necessitates integrating contextual cues. This study investigates the neural mechanism involved in this capacity through a preference estimation task. In this task, participants were presented with the target's face and asked to predict their preference for a given item. Preference estimation accuracy was assessed by calculating the percentage of correct guesses, where participants' responses matched the target's preferences on a 4-point Likert scale. Our research demonstrates that, based on inter-subject representational similarity analysis (IS-RSA), the multi-voxel patterns in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the anterior insula (AI) predict individual differences in preference estimation accuracy. Specifically, the varying behavioral tendencies among participants in inferring others' preferences were mirrored in the multivariate neural representations within these regions, both of which are known for their involvement in individual differences in interoception and context-dependent interpretation of ambiguous facial emotion. These findings suggest that mPFC and AI play pivotal roles in accurately estimating others' preferences based on minimal information and provide insights that transcend the limitations of traditional univariate approaches by employing multivariate pattern analysis.

To cluster others into male and female groups during face perception is pivotal for appropriate social behaviours. What remains unclear is whether gender categorization of faces is mediated by the same pattern of cognitive and neural processes in women and men. The perception bias hypothesis predicts earlier gender categorization of female (vs. male) faces regardless of an observer's gender. In contrast, the social task demand hypothesis predicts earlier gender categorization of faces that are of the same (vs. different) sex of an observer. We tested these predictions by recording electroencephalography signals to faces of one gender presented in a repetition condition and to both female and male faces in an alternating condition. The neural processes underlying gender categorization were assessed by quantifying repetition suppression of brain activities to faces in the repetition relative to alternating conditions. We found significant repetition suppression of a positive frontal-central activity at 170-210 ms after face onset (the P2 component) to female (but not to male) faces in women. However, repetition suppression of the P2 amplitude occurred to male (but not to female) faces in men. Our findings suggest that observers' genders are pivotal for prioritization of gender categorization of male or female faces in young adults.

To cluster others into male and female groups during face perception is pivotal for appropriate social behaviours. What remains unclear is whether gender categorization of faces is mediated by the same pattern of cognitive and neural processes in women and men. The perception bias hypothesis predicts earlier gender categorization of female (vs. male) faces regardless of an observer's gender. In contrast, the social task demand hypothesis predicts earlier gender categorization of faces that are of the same (vs. different) sex of an observer. We tested these predictions by recording electroencephalography signals to faces of one gender presented in a repetition condition and to both female and male faces in an alternating condition. The neural processes underlying gender categorization were assessed by quantifying repetition suppression of brain activities to faces in the repetition relative to alternating conditions. We found significant repetition suppression of a positive frontal-central activity at 170-210 ms after face onset (the P2 component) to female (but not to male) faces in women. However, repetition suppression of the P2 amplitude occurred to male (but not to female) faces in men. Our findings suggest that observers' genders are pivotal for prioritization of gender categorization of male or female faces in young adults.