Hu Xiaoqing, Pornpattananangkul Narun, Nusslock Robin
Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, 2029 Sheridan Rd., Evanston, IL, 60208, USA,
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2015 Jun;15(2):475-91. doi: 10.3758/s13415-015-0336-9.
Research has begun to examine the neurocognitive processes underlying voluntary moral decision making, which involves engaging in honest or dishonest behavior in a setting in which the individual is free to make his or her own moral decisions. Employing event-related potentials, we measured executive control-related and reward-related neural processes during an incentivized coin-guessing task in which participants had the opportunity to voluntarily engage in dishonest behavior, by overreporting their wins to maximize earnings. We report four primary findings: First, the opportunity to deceive recruited executive control processes involving conflict monitoring and conflict resolution, as evidenced by a higher N2 and a smaller P3. Second, processing the outcome of the coin flips engaged reward-related processes, as evidenced by a larger medial feedback negativity (MFN) for incorrect (loss) than for correct (win) guesses, reflecting a reward prediction error signal. Third, elevated executive control-related neural activity reflecting conflict resolution (i.e., an attenuated executive control P3) predicted a greater likelihood of engaging in overall deceptive behavior. Finally, whereas elevated reward-related neural activity (the reward P3) was associated with a greater likelihood of engaging in overall deceptive behavior, an elevated reward prediction error signal (MFN difference score) predicted increased trial-by-trial moral behavioral adjustment (i.e., a greater likelihood to overreport wins following a previous honest loss than following a previous honest win trial). Collectively, these findings suggest that both executive control- and reward-related neural processes are implicated in moral decision making.
研究已开始探究自愿道德决策背后的神经认知过程，这涉及到在个体能够自由做出自身道德决策的情境中，做出诚实或不诚实行为。我们运用事件相关电位，在一项有激励的猜硬币任务中测量了与执行控制和奖励相关的神经过程。在该任务中，参与者有机会通过多报赢局以最大化收益，从而自愿做出不诚实行为。我们报告了四项主要发现：第一，欺骗的机会激活了涉及冲突监测和冲突解决的执行控制过程，表现为更高的N2波幅和更小的P3波幅。第二，处理抛硬币结果激活了与奖励相关的过程，表现为猜错（输）时的内侧反馈负波（MFN）比猜对（赢）时更大，反映出奖励预测误差信号。第三，反映冲突解决的与执行控制相关的神经活动增强（即执行控制P3波幅减弱）预示着更有可能做出整体欺骗行为。最后，虽然与奖励相关的神经活动增强（奖励P3波）与更有可能做出整体欺骗行为有关，但奖励预测误差信号增强（MFN差异分数）预示着逐次试验的道德行为调整增加（即与前一次诚实赢局试验相比，前一次诚实输局后更有可能多报赢局）。总体而言，这些发现表明与执行控制和奖励相关的神经过程均与道德决策有关。
