Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussel, Belgium.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2007 Sep;2(3):174-88. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsm016.
This study measured event-related potentials during spontaneous and intentional trait inferences. Participants read sentences describing the behavior of a target person from which a strong moral trait could be inferred. The last word of each sentence determined the consistency with the trait induced during an introductory paragraph. In comparison with behaviors that were consistent with the implied trait, a P300 waveform was obtained when the behaviors were evaluative inconsistent with that trait. This dependency on behavioral consistency indicates that trait inferences were made previously while reading the preceding behaviors, irrespective of the participants' spontaneous or intentional goals. Overall, the P300 shows considerable parallels between spontaneous and intentional inferences, indicating that the type and timing of the inconsistency process is very similar. In contrast, source localization (LORETA) of the event-related potentials suggest that spontaneous inferences show greater activation in the temporo-parietal junction compared to intentional inferences following an inconsistency. Memory measures taken after the presentation of the stimulus material involved sentence completion and trait-cued recall, and supported the occurrence of trait inferences associated with the actor. They also showed significant correlations with the neural components (i.e. P300 and its current density at the temporo-parietal junction) predominantly following spontaneous instructions, indicating that these components are valid neural indices of spontaneous inferences.
本研究在自发性和意向性特质推断过程中测量了事件相关电位。参与者阅读描述目标人物行为的句子，从这些句子中可以推断出强烈的道德特质。每个句子的最后一个单词决定了与介绍段落中诱导的特质的一致性。与与暗示特质一致的行为相比，当行为与该特质不相符时，会产生 P300 波。这种对行为一致性的依赖表明，特质推断是在阅读前面的行为时做出的，而不管参与者的自发性或意向性目标如何。总的来说，P300 在自发性和意向性推断之间表现出相当大的相似性，表明不一致过程的类型和时间非常相似。相比之下，事件相关电位的源定位（LORETA）表明，与不一致后进行的意向性推断相比，自发性推断在颞顶联合区显示出更大的激活。刺激材料呈现后进行的记忆测量包括句子完成和特质提示回忆，并支持与演员相关的特质推断的发生。它们还与神经成分（即 P300 及其颞顶联合区的电流密度）呈显著相关，主要是在自发性指令之后，表明这些成分是自发性推断的有效神经指标。
