Tang Honghong, Lu Xiaping, Su Rui, Liang Zilu, Mai Xiaoqin, Liu Chao
School of Economics and Business Administration.
State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2017 Jul 1;12(7):1149-1158. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsx036.
The association between moral purity and physical cleanliness has been widely discussed recently. Studies found that moral threat initiates the need of physical cleanliness, but actual physical cleaning and priming of cleaning have inconsistent effects on subsequent attitudes and behaviors. Here, we used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to explore the underlying neural mechanism of actual physical cleaning and priming of cleaning. After recalling moral transgression with strong feelings of guilt and shame, participants either actually cleaned their faces with a wipe or were primed with cleanliness through viewing its pictures. Results showed that actual physical cleaning reduced the spontaneous brain activities in the right insula and MPFC, regions that involved in embodied moral emotion processing, while priming of cleaning decreased activities in the right superior frontal gyrus and middle frontal gyrus, regions that participated in executive control processing. Additionally, actual physical cleaning also changed functional connectivity between insula/MPFC and emotion related regions, whereas priming of cleaning modified connectivity within both moral and sensorimotor areas. These findings revealed that actual physical cleaning and priming of cleaning led to changes in different brain regions and networks, providing neural evidence for the inconsistent effects of cleanliness on subsequent attitudes and behaviors.
道德纯洁与身体清洁之间的关联近来已被广泛讨论。研究发现，道德威胁引发了对身体清洁的需求，但实际的身体清洁以及清洁启动对后续态度和行为有着不一致的影响。在此，我们使用静息态功能磁共振成像来探究实际身体清洁和清洁启动的潜在神经机制。在带着强烈的内疚和羞耻感回忆道德违规行为后，参与者要么用湿巾实际清洁面部，要么通过观看清洁图片来启动清洁。结果显示，实际身体清洁降低了右侧脑岛和内侧前额叶皮质（MPFC）的自发脑活动，这两个区域参与具身道德情感加工，而清洁启动则减少了右侧额上回和额中回的活动，这两个区域参与执行控制加工。此外，实际身体清洁还改变了脑岛/MPFC与情感相关区域之间的功能连接，而清洁启动则改变了道德和感觉运动区域内的连接。这些发现表明，实际身体清洁和清洁启动导致不同脑区和网络发生变化，为清洁对后续态度和行为的不一致影响提供了神经学证据。
