School of Psychology and Mental Health, North China University of Science and Technology, 21 Bohai avenue, Caofeidian district, Tangshan, Hebei province, China.
Key Laboratory of Modern Teaching Technology, Ministry of Education, Shaanxi Normal University, No.199 South Chang' an Road, Xi'an, Shaanxi province 710062, China.
Neuroimage. 2024 Oct 1;299:120848. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2024.120848. Epub 2024 Sep 10.
Third-party punishment (TPP) plays an irreplaceable role in maintaining social fairness. Punishment power is a significant area of study within economic games. However, the impact of whether or not the second-party possesses punishment power on TPP remains unexplored. The present study utilizes the high temporal resolution of EEG and time-frequency analysis, intra-barin functional connectivity analysis, inter-brain synchronization (IBS) analysis, and granger causality analysis(GCA) to comprehensively explore the neural mechanism of TPP from the perspective of third-party individual's decision-making and IBS in the real-time social interaction. Time-frequency results found that, the absence of the punishment power activated more theta-band and alpha-band power compare to when second-party has punishment power. When second-party has no punishment power, functional connection results observed stronger functional connectivity in theta band for medium unfair offers between rTPJ and PFC. Dual-brain analysis revealed that when the second-party has no punishment power, there is a significantly higher IBS in the alpha band between the frontal and frontal-central lobes of the second-party and the parietal and parietal occipital lobes of the third-party. GCA results further showed that the direction of IBS from third-party to second-party was significantly stronger than from second-party to third-party. This study demonstrates that the absence of the second-party's punishment power promote TPP, and similar cognitive process of thinking on how to maintain social fairness enhances IBS. The current study emphasizes the influence of punishment power on TPP, broadens the research perspective and contributes crucial insights into maintain social fairness.
第三方惩罚（TPP）在维护社会公平中起着不可替代的作用。惩罚力是经济博弈中一个重要的研究领域。然而，第二方是否拥有惩罚力对 TPP 的影响尚未得到探索。本研究利用 EEG 的高时间分辨率和时频分析、内眶功能连接分析、脑间同步（IBS）分析和格兰杰因果分析（GCA），从第三方个体决策和实时社会互动中的 IBS 角度，全面探讨 TPP 的神经机制。时频结果发现，与第二方拥有惩罚力相比，当第二方没有惩罚力时，会激活更多的θ波段和α波段功率。当第二方没有惩罚力时，功能连接结果观察到 rTPJ 和 PFC 之间的中等不公平提议中θ波段的功能连接更强。双脑分析表明，当第二方没有惩罚力时，第二方的额-额中央叶和第三方的顶-枕叶之间的α波段的 IBS 显著升高。GCA 结果进一步表明，IBS 从第三方到第二方的方向明显强于从第二方到第三方的方向。本研究表明，第二方惩罚力的缺失会促进 TPP，并且类似的思考如何维护社会公平的认知过程会增强 IBS。本研究强调了惩罚力对 TPP 的影响，拓宽了研究视角，为维护社会公平提供了重要的见解。
