International Laboratory of Social Neurobiology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.
Centre for Bioelectric Interfaces, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.
Sci Rep. 2021 Feb 8;11(1):3297. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-82670-x.
People often change their beliefs by succumbing to an opinion of others. Such changes are often referred to as effects of social influence. While some previous studies have focused on the reinforcement learning mechanisms of social influence or on its internalization, others have reported evidence of changes in sensory processing evoked by social influence of peer groups. In this study, we used magnetoencephalographic (MEG) source imaging to further investigate the long-term effects of agreement and disagreement with the peer group. The study was composed of two sessions. During the first session, participants rated the trustworthiness of faces and subsequently learned group rating of each face. In the first session, a neural marker of an immediate mismatch between individual and group opinions was found in the posterior cingulate cortex, an area involved in conflict-monitoring and reinforcement learning. To identify the neural correlates of the long-lasting effect of the group opinion, we analysed MEG activity while participants rated faces during the second session. We found MEG traces of past disagreement or agreement with the peers at the parietal cortices 230 ms after the face onset. The neural activity of the superior parietal lobule, intraparietal sulcus, and precuneus was significantly stronger when the participant's rating had previously differed from the ratings of the peers. The early MEG correlates of disagreement with the majority were followed by activity in the orbitofrontal cortex 320 ms after the face onset. Altogether, the results reveal the temporal dynamics of the neural mechanism of long-term effects of disagreement with the peer group: early signatures of modified face processing were followed by later markers of long-term social influence on the valuation process at the ventromedial prefrontal cortex.
人们常常通过屈从于他人的意见来改变自己的信仰。这种变化通常被称为社会影响的影响。虽然之前的一些研究侧重于社会影响的强化学习机制或其内化，而另一些研究则报告了同伴群体社会影响引起的感觉处理变化的证据。在这项研究中，我们使用脑磁图（MEG）源成像进一步研究了与同伴群体一致和不一致的长期影响。该研究由两个阶段组成。在第一阶段，参与者对面孔的可信度进行评分，然后学习每个面孔的群体评分。在第一阶段，在后扣带回皮层中发现了个体意见与群体意见之间即时不匹配的神经标记，该区域参与冲突监测和强化学习。为了确定群体意见的长期影响的神经相关性，我们在第二阶段参与者对面孔进行评分时分析了 MEG 活动。我们在顶叶皮层中发现了与过去与同伴的分歧或一致的 MEG 痕迹，在面孔出现后 230 毫秒。当参与者的评分先前与同伴的评分不同时，顶叶上回、内顶叶沟和楔前叶的神经活动明显更强。与大多数人不一致的早期 MEG 相关性之后，眶额皮层在面孔出现后 320 毫秒出现活动。总的来说，结果揭示了与同伴群体不一致的长期影响的神经机制的时间动态：对面部处理的修饰早期特征之后是腹内侧前额叶皮层对估值过程的长期社会影响的后期标记。
