Brain and Creativity Institute and Department of Psychology, University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA.
Project Reason Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Sci Rep. 2016 Dec 23;6:39589. doi: 10.1038/srep39589.
People often discount evidence that contradicts their firmly held beliefs. However, little is known about the neural mechanisms that govern this behavior. We used neuroimaging to investigate the neural systems involved in maintaining belief in the face of counterevidence, presenting 40 liberals with arguments that contradicted their strongly held political and non-political views. Challenges to political beliefs produced increased activity in the default mode network-a set of interconnected structures associated with self-representation and disengagement from the external world. Trials with greater belief resistance showed increased response in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and decreased activity in the orbitofrontal cortex. We also found that participants who changed their minds more showed less BOLD signal in the insula and the amygdala when evaluating counterevidence. These results highlight the role of emotion in belief-change resistance and offer insight into the neural systems involved in belief maintenance, motivated reasoning, and related phenomena.
人们常常忽视与他们坚定信念相矛盾的证据。然而，对于控制这种行为的神经机制却知之甚少。我们使用神经影像学技术研究了在面对反证时维持信念的神经系统，向 40 名自由主义者展示了与他们强烈的政治和非政治观点相矛盾的论点。对政治信仰的挑战会增加默认模式网络的活动——一组与自我表现和与外部世界脱离相关的相互关联的结构。具有更大信念阻力的试验显示出背内侧前额叶皮层的反应增加，而眶额皮层的活动减少。我们还发现，当评估反证时，那些改变主意更多的参与者在评估反证时，岛叶和杏仁核的大脑血氧水平依赖信号减少。这些结果突出了情绪在信念抵抗变化中的作用，并为参与信念维持、动机推理和相关现象的神经系统提供了深入了解。
