Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2019 Jun 15;40(9):2571-2580. doi: 10.1002/hbm.24545. Epub 2019 Feb 17.
Persuasive messages can change people's thoughts, feelings, and actions, but these effects depend on how people think about and appraise the meaning of these messages. Drawing from research on the cognitive control of emotion, we used neuroimaging to investigate neural mechanisms underlying cognitive regulation of the affective and persuasive impact of advertisements communicating the risks of binge drinking, a significant public health problem. Using cognitive control to up-regulate (vs. down-regulate) responses to the ads increased: negative affect related to consequences of excessive drinking, perceived ad effectiveness, and ratings of ad self-relevance made after a one-hour delay. Neurally, these effects of cognitive control were mediated by goal-congruent modulation of ventromedial prefrontal cortex and distributed brain patterns associated with negative emotion and subjective valuation. These findings suggest that people can leverage cognitive control resources to deliberately shape responses to persuasive appeals, and identify mechanisms of emotional reactivity and integrative valuation that underlie this ability. Specifically, brain valuation pattern expression mediated the effect of cognitive goals on perceived message self-relevance, suggesting a role for the brain's valuation system in shaping responses to persuasive appeals in a manner that persists over time.
说服性信息可以改变人们的想法、感受和行为，但这些效果取决于人们如何看待和评价这些信息的意义。本研究借鉴情绪认知控制的研究成果，利用神经影像学技术，探究了在广告传达狂饮风险（一个重大的公共卫生问题）时，对广告的情感和说服效果进行认知调节的神经机制。使用认知控制来增强（而非减弱）对广告的反应，会增加与过度饮酒后果相关的负性情绪、对广告效果的感知以及在一个小时后延迟做出的广告自我相关性的评价。从神经学的角度来看，这种认知控制的效果是通过腹内侧前额叶皮层的目标一致调节以及与负性情绪和主观评价相关的分布式大脑模式来介导的。这些发现表明，人们可以利用认知控制资源来有意地塑造对说服性诉求的反应，并确定了情感反应和综合评价的机制，这些机制是实现这种能力的基础。具体来说，大脑评估模式的表达介导了认知目标对感知信息自我相关性的影响，这表明大脑的评估系统在以一种随着时间推移而持续的方式塑造对说服性诉求的反应方面发挥了作用。
