Contreras-Huerta Luis Sebastian, Baker Katharine S, Reynolds Katherine J, Batalha Luisa, Cunnington Ross
The University of Queensland, Queensland Brain Institute, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia ; Laboratory of Cognitive and Social Neuroscience (LaNCyS), UDP-INECO Foundation Core on Neuroscience (UIFCoN), Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile ; Centre for the Study of Argumentation and Reasoning, Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile.
The University of Queensland, Queensland Brain Institute, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia ; The University of Queensland, School of Psychology, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia ; Department of Anesthesiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2013 Dec 23;8(12):e84001. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0084001. eCollection 2013.
Recent studies have shown that perceiving the pain of others activates brain regions in the observer associated with both somatosensory and affective-motivational aspects of pain, principally involving regions of the anterior cingulate and anterior insula cortex. The degree of these empathic neural responses is modulated by racial bias, such that stronger neural activation is elicited by observing pain in people of the same racial group compared with people of another racial group. The aim of the present study was to examine whether a more general social group category, other than race, could similarly modulate neural empathic responses and perhaps account for the apparent racial bias reported in previous studies. Using a minimal group paradigm, we assigned participants to one of two mixed-race teams. We use the term race to refer to the Chinese or Caucasian appearance of faces and whether the ethnic group represented was the same or different from the appearance of the participant' own face. Using fMRI, we measured neural empathic responses as participants observed members of their own group or other group, and members of their own race or other race, receiving either painful or non-painful touch. Participants showed clear group biases, with no significant effect of race, on behavioral measures of implicit (affective priming) and explicit group identification. Neural responses to observed pain in the anterior cingulate cortex, insula cortex, and somatosensory areas showed significantly greater activation when observing pain in own-race compared with other-race individuals, with no significant effect of minimal groups. These results suggest that racial bias in neural empathic responses is not influenced by minimal forms of group categorization, despite the clear association participants showed with in-group more than out-group members. We suggest that race may be an automatic and unconscious mechanism that drives the initial neural responses to observed pain in others.
最近的研究表明，感知他人的疼痛会激活观察者大脑中与疼痛的体感和情感动机方面相关的区域，主要涉及前扣带回和前脑岛皮质区域。这些共情神经反应的程度受种族偏见的调节，与观察其他种族的人相比，观察同一种族的人的疼痛时会引发更强的神经激活。本研究的目的是检验除种族外，更一般的社会群体类别是否能类似地调节神经共情反应，并可能解释先前研究中报道的明显种族偏见。使用最小群体范式，我们将参与者分配到两个混合种族团队中的一个。我们使用“种族”一词来指代面孔的中国人或高加索人外貌，以及所代表的族群与参与者自己面孔的外貌是否相同或不同。使用功能磁共振成像，我们测量了参与者观察自己组或其他组以及自己种族或其他种族的成员接受疼痛或非疼痛触摸时的神经共情反应。在隐性（情感启动）和显性群体认同的行为测量上，参与者表现出明显的群体偏见，而种族没有显著影响。与观察其他种族个体相比，观察同种族个体的疼痛时，前扣带回皮质、脑岛皮质和体感区域对观察到的疼痛的神经反应显示出显著更大的激活，最小群体没有显著影响。这些结果表明，尽管参与者与内群体成员的关联明显多于外群体成员，但神经共情反应中的种族偏见不受最小形式的群体分类影响。我们认为，种族可能是一种自动且无意识的机制，驱动着对他人观察到的疼痛的初始神经反应。
