Shanghai Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Psychological Crisis Intervention, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Psychological Crisis Intervention, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China; Key Laboratory of Philosophy and Social Science of Anhui Province on Adolescent Mental Health and Crisis Intelligence Intervention, Hefei Normal University, Hefei 230601, China.
Neuroscience. 2024 Oct 18;558:37-49. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2024.08.020. Epub 2024 Aug 17.
Deception is a complex social behavior that manifests in various forms, including scams. To successfully deceive victims, liars have to continually devise novel scams. This ability to create novel scams represents one kind of malevolent creativity, referred to as lying. This study aimed to explore different neural substrates involved in the generation of high and low creative scams. A total of 40 participants were required to design several creative scams, and their cortical activity was recorded by functional near-infrared spectroscopy. The results revealed that the right frontopolar cortex (FPC) was significantly active in scam generation. This region associated with theory of mind may be a key region for creating novel and complex scams. Moreover, creativity-related regions were positively involved in creative scams, while morality-related areas showed negative involvement. This suggests that individuals might attempt to use malevolent creativity while simultaneously minimizing the influence of moral considerations. The right FPC exhibited increased coupling with the right precentral gyrus during the design of high-harmfulness scams, suggesting a diminished control over immoral thoughts in the generation of harmful scams. Additionally, the perception of the victim's emotions (related to right pre-motor cortex) might diminish the quality of highly original scams. Furthermore, an efficient and cohesive neural coupling state appears to be a key factor in generating high-creativity scams. These findings suggest that the right FPC was crucial in scam creation, highlighting a neural basis for balancing malevolent creativity against moral considerations in high-creativity deception.
欺骗是一种复杂的社会行为，表现形式多种多样，包括诈骗。为了成功欺骗受害者，骗子必须不断设计新的骗局。这种创造新骗局的能力代表了一种恶意创造力，称为说谎。本研究旨在探讨生成高创造性和低创造性骗局的不同神经基础。总共需要 40 名参与者设计一些创造性的骗局，并通过功能近红外光谱记录他们的皮质活动。结果表明，右额极（FPC）在骗局生成中表现出明显的活跃。与心理理论相关的这个区域可能是创造新颖和复杂骗局的关键区域。此外，与创造力相关的区域与创造性骗局呈正相关，而与道德相关的区域呈负相关。这表明个体可能试图在最小化道德考虑影响的同时，利用恶意创造力。在设计高危害性骗局时，右额 FPC 与右中央前回之间的耦合增加，表明在产生有害骗局时对不道德思想的控制减弱。此外，对受害者情绪的感知（与右前运动皮层有关）可能会降低高度原创性骗局的质量。此外，有效的、协调一致的神经耦合状态似乎是产生高创造性骗局的关键因素。这些发现表明，右额 FPC 在骗局的产生中至关重要，突出了在高创造性欺骗中平衡恶意创造力和道德考虑的神经基础。
