Mohamadpour Hadi, Farkhondeh Tale Navi Farhad, Heysieattalab Soomaayeh, Irak Metehan, Vahabie Abdol-Hossein, Nikzad Behzad
Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Education and Psychology, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran.
Department of Psychology, Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Heliyon. 2024 Sep 4;10(17):e37389. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e37389. eCollection 2024 Sep 15.
Social hierarchies exist in all societies and impact cognitive functions, brain mechanisms, social interactions, and behaviors. High status individuals often exhibit enhanced working memory (WM) performance compared to lower status individuals. This study examined whether individual differences in social dominance, as a predictor of future status, relate to WM abilities. Five hundred and twenty-five students completed the Personality Research Form dominance subscale questionnaire. From this sample, students with the highest and lowest scores were invited to participate in the study. Sixty-four participants volunteered to take part and were subsequently categorized into high- and low-dominance groups based on their dominance subscale questionnaire (PRF_d) scores. They performed a Sternberg WM task with set sizes of 1, 4, or 7 letters while their EEG was recorded. Event-related potential (ERP) and power spectral analysis revealed significantly reduced P3b amplitude and higher event-related synchronization (ERS) of theta and beta during encoding and retrieval phases in the high-than low-dominance group. Despite these neural processing differences, behavioral performance was equivalent between groups, potentially reflecting comparable cognitive load demands of the task across dominance levels. Further, there were similar P3b patterns for each set-size within groups. These findings provide initial evidence that individual differences in social dominance trait correlate with WM functioning, as indexed by neural processing efficiency during WM performance.
社会等级制度存在于所有社会中，并影响认知功能、大脑机制、社会互动和行为。与地位较低的个体相比，地位较高的个体通常表现出更强的工作记忆（WM）能力。本研究考察了作为未来地位预测指标的社会支配性个体差异是否与WM能力相关。525名学生完成了《人格研究表》支配性子量表问卷。从这个样本中，邀请得分最高和最低的学生参与研究。64名参与者自愿参加，并随后根据他们的支配性子量表问卷（PRF_d）得分被分为高支配组和低支配组。他们在执行斯特恩伯格WM任务时，刺激集大小分别为1、4或7个字母，同时记录他们的脑电图。事件相关电位（ERP）和功率谱分析显示，在编码和检索阶段，高支配组比低支配组的P3b波幅显著降低，θ波和β波的事件相关同步化（ERS）更高。尽管存在这些神经加工差异，但两组之间的行为表现相当，这可能反映了不同支配水平下任务的认知负荷需求相当。此外，两组内每个刺激集大小的P3b模式相似。这些发现提供了初步证据，表明社会支配性特质的个体差异与WM功能相关，这在WM表现期间的神经加工效率中得到体现。
