Department of Clinical Psychology, Central Institute of Mental Health, Heidelberg University/Medical Faculty Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany.
Department of Psychology, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany.
Psychophysiology. 2024 Jul;61(7):e14561. doi: 10.1111/psyp.14561. Epub 2024 Mar 9.
Belief, defined by William James as the mental state or function of cognizing reality, is a core psychological function with strong influence on emotion and behavior. Furthermore, strong and aberrant beliefs about the world and oneself play important roles in mental disorders. The underlying processes of belief have been the matter of a long debate in philosophy and psychology, and modern neuroimaging techniques can provide insight into the underlying neural processes. Here, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study with N = 30 healthy participants in which we presented statements about facts, politics, religion, conspiracy theories, and superstition. Participants judged whether they considered them as true (belief) or not (disbelief) and reported their certainty in the decision. We found belief-associated activations in bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, left superior parietal cortex, and left lateral frontopolar cortex. Disbelief-associated activations were found in an anterior temporal cluster extending into the amygdala. We found a larger deactivation for disbelief than belief in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex that was most pronounced during decisions, suggesting a role of the vmPFC in belief-related decision-making. As a category-specific effect, we found disbelief-associated activation in retrosplenial cortex and parahippocampal gyrus for conspiracy theory statements. Exploratory analyses identified networks centered at anterior cingulate cortex for certainty, and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex for uncertainty. The uncertainty effect identifies a neural substrate for Alexander Bain's notion from 1859 of uncertainty as the real opposite of belief. Taken together, our results suggest a two-factor neural process model of belief with falsehood/veracity and uncertainty/certainty factors.
信仰，由威廉·詹姆斯定义为认知现实的心理状态或功能，是一种具有强烈情感和行为影响的核心心理功能。此外，对世界和自身的强烈和异常信念在精神障碍中起着重要作用。信仰的潜在过程一直是哲学和心理学长期争论的问题，现代神经影像学技术可以深入了解潜在的神经过程。在这里，我们进行了一项功能磁共振成像研究，共有 30 名健康参与者参与，其中我们呈现了关于事实、政治、宗教、阴谋论和迷信的陈述。参与者判断他们是否认为这些陈述是真实的（信仰）还是不真实的（不信仰），并报告他们对决策的确定性。我们发现信仰相关的激活位于双侧背外侧前额叶皮层、左顶叶上回和左额极外侧皮层。不信仰相关的激活位于延伸到杏仁核的前颞叶簇中。我们发现不信仰的去激活比信仰的去激活更大，在腹内侧前额叶皮层中最为明显，这表明 vmPFC 在与信仰相关的决策中起着作用。作为一种类别特异性效应，我们发现对于阴谋论陈述，在后扣带回和海马旁回中存在不信仰相关的激活。探索性分析确定了以前扣带皮层为中心的网络，用于确定，以背内侧前额叶皮层为中心的网络用于不确定。不确定性效应确定了亚历山大·贝恩（Alexander Bain） 1859 年提出的不确定性作为信仰的真正对立面的神经基质。总的来说，我们的结果表明信仰的双因素神经过程模型，包括虚假/真实性和不确定性/确定性因素。
