Balconi Michela, Vanutelli Maria Elide
Research Unit in Affective and Social Neuroscience, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy.
Department of Psychology, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Largo Gemelli 1, 20123, Milan, Italy.
BMC Neurosci. 2018 Oct 18;19(1):63. doi: 10.1186/s12868-018-0464-6.
Social behavior and interactions pervasively shape and influence our lives and relationships. Competition, in particular, has become a core topic in social neuroscience since it stresses the relevance and salience of social comparison processes between the inter-agents that are involved in a common task. The majority of studies, however, investigated such kind of social interaction via one-person individual paradigms, thus not taking into account relevant information concerning interdependent participants' behavioral and neural responses. In the present study, dyads of volunteers participated in a hyperscanning paradigm and competed in a computerized attention task while their electrophysiological (EEG) activity and performance were monitored and recorded. Behavioral data and inter-brain coupling measures based on EEG frequency data were then computed and compared across different experimental conditions: a control condition (individual task, t0), a first competitive condition (pre-feedback condition, t1), and a second competitive condition following a positive reinforcing feedback (post-feedback condition, t2).
Results showed that during competitive tasks participants' performance was improved with respect to control condition (reduced response times and error rates), with a further specific improvement after receiving a reinforcing feedback. Concurrently, we observed a reduction of inter-brain functional connectivity (primarily involving bilateral prefrontal areas) for slower EEG frequency bands (delta and theta). Finally, correlation analyses highlighted a significant association between cognitive performance and inter-brain connectivity measures.
The present results may help identifying specific patterns of behavioral and inter-brain coupling measures associated to competition and processing of social reinforcements.
社会行为和互动广泛地塑造和影响着我们的生活与人际关系。尤其是竞争，已成为社会神经科学的核心话题，因为它强调了参与共同任务的主体间社会比较过程的相关性和显著性。然而，大多数研究通过单人个体范式来调查此类社会互动，因此没有考虑到相互依赖的参与者的行为和神经反应的相关信息。在本研究中，志愿者双人组参与了超扫描范式，并在一项计算机化注意力任务中进行竞争，同时监测和记录他们的电生理（脑电图）活动及表现。然后计算基于脑电图频率数据的行为数据和脑间耦合测量值，并在不同实验条件下进行比较：对照条件（个体任务，t0）、第一个竞争条件（反馈前条件，t1）以及在积极强化反馈后的第二个竞争条件（反馈后条件，t2）。
结果表明，在竞争任务期间，与对照条件相比参与者的表现有所改善（反应时间和错误率降低），在收到强化反馈后有进一步的特定改善。同时，我们观察到较慢脑电图频段（δ波和θ波）的脑间功能连接性降低（主要涉及双侧前额叶区域）。最后，相关性分析突出了认知表现与脑间连接性测量值之间的显著关联。
本研究结果可能有助于识别与竞争及社会强化处理相关的行为和脑间耦合测量的特定模式。
