Chen Jie, Chang Bijia, Li Wenjie, Shi Yupeng, Shen Haizhou, Wang Rong, Liu Lei
School of Educational Science, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China.
Cognition and Human Behavior Key Laboratory of Hunan Province, Changsha, China.
Front Psychol. 2020 Oct 6;11:508141. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.508141. eCollection 2020.
Previous studies have shown that temporal self-construal priming can modulate the empathic neural responses to others' pain. However, little is known about the influences of the dispositional self-construal on empathic neural responses to others' pain. The present study aimed to investigate neural correlates that underlie the modulation effect of dispositional self-construal on perception of others' pain. Event-related potentials were recorded for pictures depicting the hands of strangers in painful or no-painful situations while subjects performed a pain judgment task. The regression analysis on behavioral data showed that the level of interdependent self-construal could positively predict behavioral ratings of perceived pain, but not the self-unpleasantness. The ERP results showed painful stimuli elicited decreased N2 amplitudes and larger P3 amplitudes than those by no-painful stimuli. Moreover, the level of interdependent self-construal (interdependence minus independence scores) could predict the amplitude differences on the P3 component (painful minus neutral stimulus conditions), but not the N2 component: the higher the level of the interdependent self-construal, the larger amplitude differences of P3 to painful stimuli (vs. no-painful stimuli). These findings extended previous studies by showing a clear modulation effect of the dispositional self-construal on empathic neural responses to others' pain, and that this modulation effect occurred at the late cognitive evaluation stage indexed by the P3 component.
先前的研究表明，时间自我建构启动能够调节对他人疼痛的共情神经反应。然而，关于特质性自我建构对他人疼痛共情神经反应的影响却知之甚少。本研究旨在探究特质性自我建构对他人疼痛感知调节作用背后的神经关联。在受试者执行疼痛判断任务时，记录其对描绘陌生人处于疼痛或无疼痛情境下的手部图片的事件相关电位。对行为数据的回归分析表明，相互依存型自我建构水平能够正向预测对感知疼痛的行为评分，但不能预测自我不愉快感。ERP结果显示，与无疼痛刺激相比，疼痛刺激引发的N2波幅降低，P3波幅增大。此外，相互依存型自我建构水平（相互依存得分减去独立得分）能够预测P3成分上的波幅差异（疼痛刺激减去中性刺激条件），但不能预测N2成分：相互依存型自我建构水平越高，P3对疼痛刺激（与无疼痛刺激相比）的波幅差异越大。这些发现扩展了先前的研究，表明特质性自我建构对他人疼痛的共情神经反应具有明显的调节作用，且这种调节作用发生在以P3成分为指标的晚期认知评估阶段。
