Research Base of Traditional Chinese Medicine Syndrome, Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Fuzhou, China.
Frontier Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2023 Jan 23;13(1):1259. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-28293-w.
People judge the nature of human behaviors based on underlying intentions and possible outcomes. Recent studies have demonstrated a causal role of the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) in modulating both intention and intention-based outcome evaluations during social judgments. However, these studies mainly used hypothetical scenarios with socially undesirable contexts (bad/neutral intentions and bad/neutral outcomes), leaving the role of rTPJ in judging good intentions and good outcomes unclear. In the current study, participants were instructed to make goodness judgments as a third party toward the monetary allocations from one proposer to another responder. Critically, in some cases, the initial allocation by the proposer could be reversed by the computer, yielding combinations of good/bad intentions (of the proposer) with good/bad outcomes (for the responder). Anodal (n = 20), cathodal (n = 21), and sham (n = 21) transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the rTPJ were randomly assigned to 62 subjects to further examine the effects of stimulation over the rTPJ in modulating intention-based outcome evaluation. Compared to the anodal and sham stimulations, cathodal tDCS over the rTPJ reduced the goodness ratings of good/bad outcomes when the intentions were good, whereas it showed no significant effect on outcome ratings under unknown and bad intentions. Our results provide the first evidence that deactivating the rTPJ modulates outcome evaluation in an intention-dependent fashion, mainly by reducing the goodness rating towards both good/bad outcomes when the intentions are good. Our findings argue for a causal role of the rTPJ in modulating intention-based social judgments and point to nuanced effects of rTPJ modulation.
人们根据潜在意图和可能结果来判断人类行为的本质。最近的研究表明，右侧颞顶联合区（rTPJ）在调节社会判断中的意图和基于意图的结果评估中起因果作用。然而，这些研究主要使用具有不良社会背景的假设情景（不良/中性意图和不良/中性结果），因此 rTPJ 在判断良好意图和良好结果方面的作用尚不清楚。在当前的研究中，参与者被指示作为第三方对一个提议者向另一个回应者的金钱分配进行好坏判断。关键的是，在某些情况下，提议者的初始分配可以由计算机反转，从而产生好/坏意图（提议者）与好/坏结果（回应者）的组合。62 名受试者被随机分为经颅直流电刺激（tDCS）阳极组（n=20）、阴极组（n=21）和假刺激组（n=21），进一步研究刺激 rTPJ 对基于意图的结果评估的调节作用。与阳极和假刺激相比，阴极 tDCS 刺激 rTPJ 降低了意图良好时好/坏结果的良好评分，而在意图未知和不良时对结果评分没有显著影响。我们的结果首次提供了证据，表明抑制 rTPJ 以依赖意图的方式调节结果评估，主要是通过降低意图良好时对好/坏结果的良好评分。我们的发现为 rTPJ 在调节基于意图的社会判断中的因果作用提供了证据，并指出 rTPJ 调节的细微影响。
