A lack of self-control has long been theorized to predict an individual’s likelihood to engage in antisocial behaviors. However, existing definitions of self-control encompass multiple psychological ...constructs and lab-based measures of aggression have not allowed for the examination of aggression upon provocation where self-control is needed most. We introduce two versions of a novel paradigm, the Retaliate or Carry-on: Reactive AGgression Experiment (RC-RAGE) to fill this methodological gap. Using large online samples of US adults (
N
= 354 and
N
= 366), we evaluate to what extent dispositional impulsivity, self-control, aggression, and state anger contribute to aggression upon provocation when there is a financial cost involved. Results showed that costly retaliation on this task was related to trait aggression and being in an angry emotional state, but not related to social desirability. Importantly, we show that the tendency to act impulsively is a better predictor of costly retaliation than other forms of self-control, such as the ability to delay gratification, resist temptation, or plan ahead. As a browser-based task, the RC-RAGE provides a tool for the future investigation of reactive aggression in a variety of experimental settings.
This developmental neuroscience study examined the electrophysiological responses (EEG and ERPs) associated with perspective taking and empathic concern in preschool children, as well as their ...relation to parental empathy dispositions and children's own prosocial behavior. Consistent with a body of previous studies using stimuli depicting somatic pain in both children and adults, larger early (~200 ms) ERPs were identified when perceiving painful versus neutral stimuli. In the slow wave window (~800 ms), a significant interaction of empathy condition and stimulus type was driven by a greater difference between painful and neutral images in the empathic concern condition. Across early development, children exhibited enhanced N2 to pain when engaging in empathic concern. Greater pain‐elicited N2 responses in the cognitive empathy condition also related to parent dispositional empathy. Children's own prosocial behavior was predicted by several individual differences in neural function, including larger early LPP responses during cognitive empathy and greater differentiation in late LPP and slow wave responses to empathic concern versus affective perspective taking. Left frontal activation (greater alpha suppression) while engaging in affective perspective taking was also related to higher levels of parent cognitive empathy. Together, this multilevel analysis demonstrates the important distinction between facets of empathy in children; the value of examining neurobehavioral processes in development. It provides provoking links between children's neural functioning and parental dispositions in early development.
Differences in children’s frontal alpha asymmetry when perceiving others in distress is predicted both by chldren’s empathy and their parents cognitive empathetic dispositions. Children electrophysiological measures show early and late distinctions in response to the suffering of others. Their prosocial behavior is predicted by neural marker of cognitive empathy. Their parents dispositional empathic concern positively predicts children’s prosocial behavior.
Neuroimaging research frequently demonstrates load-dependent activation in prefrontal and parietal cortex during working memory tasks such as the N-back. Most of this work has been conducted in fMRI, ...but functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is gaining traction as a less invasive and more flexible alternative to measuring cortical hemodynamics. Few fNIRS studies, however, have examined how working memory load-dependent changes in brain hemodynamics relate to performance. The current study employs a newly developed and robust statistical analysis of task-based fNIRS data in a large sample, and demonstrates the utility of data-driven, multivariate analyses to link brain activation and behavior in this modality. Seventy participants completed a standard N-back task with three N-back levels (N = 1, 2, 3) while fNIRS data were collected from frontal and parietal cortex. Overall, participants showed reliably greater fronto-parietal activation for the 2-back versus the 1-back task, suggesting fronto-parietal fNIRS measurements are sensitive to differences in cognitive load. The results for 3-back were much less consistent, potentially due to poor behavioral performance in the 3-back task. To address this, a multivariate analysis (behavioral partial least squares, PLS) was conducted to examine the interaction between fNIRS activation and performance at each N-back level. Results of the PLS analysis demonstrated differences in the relationship between accuracy and change in the deoxyhemoglobin fNIRS signal as a function of N-back level in eight mid-frontal channels. Specifically, greater reductions in deoxyhemoglobin (i.e., more activation) were positively related to performance on the 3-back task, unrelated to accuracy in the 2-back task, and negatively associated with accuracy in the 1-back task. This pattern of results suggests that the metabolic demands correlated with neural activity required for high levels of accuracy vary as a consequence of task difficulty/cognitive load, whereby more automaticity during the 1-back task (less mid-frontal activity) predicted superior performance on this relatively easy task, and successful engagement of this mid-frontal region was required for high accuracy on a more difficult and cognitively demanding 3-back task. In summary, we show that fNIRS activity can track working memory load and can uncover significant associations between brain activity and performance, thus opening the door for this modality to be used in more wide-spread applications.
Distinguishing between equity and equality is essential when making social and moral decisions, yet the related neurodevelopmental processes are unknown. Evaluations of contextually based third-party ...distributions incorporating recipient need and resource importance were examined in children and adolescents (N = 82; 8-16 years). Spatiotemporal neurodynamic responses show distinct developmental profiles to viewing such distributions. Event-related potentials (ERPs) differentially predicted real-life behaviors based on age, where older children's (8-10 years) evaluations were related to a fairly rapid, automatic ERP component (early posterior negativity), whereas adolescent and preadolescent (11-16 years) evaluations, first-person allocations, and prosocial behaviors were predicted by later, cognitively controlled ERP components (P3 and late positive potential). Together, these results reveal age-related changes regarding the neural responses that correspond to distributive justice decisions.
Nature interactions have been demonstrated to produce reliable affective benefits. While adults demonstrate strong preferences for natural environments over urban ones, it is not clear whether these ...affective benefits result from exposure to nature stimuli per se, or result from viewing a highly preferred stimulus. In one set of studies (Study 1 and 2), state affect before and after image viewing was examined as a function of both preference level (high, low, very high, or very low aesthetic value) and environment type (nature or urban). When aesthetic value was matched, no differences in affect change were found between environments. However, affect change was predicted by individual participants' ratings for the images. The largest affective benefits occurred after viewing very high aesthetic nature images, but Study 2 lacked an equivalently preferred urban image set. In a second set of studies (Study 3 and 4), new sets of very highly preferred images in categories other than nature scenes (urban scenes and animals) were employed. As before, individual differences in preference for the images (but not image category) was predictive of changes in affect. In Study 5, the nature and urban images from Study 1 were rated on beauty to assess whether the stimuli's preference ratings were capturing anything other than simple aesthetics. Results showed that beauty/aesthetics and preference (‘liking’) were nearly identical. Lastly, a replication of Study 2 (Study 6) was conducted to test whether priming preference accounted for these benefits, but this was not the case. Together, these results suggest that nature improves affective state because it is such a highly preferred environment.
•Environment and preference level were manipulated and affect change was measured.•Preference predicted affect change, but environment type did not.•Individuals' own preference ratings were highly predictive of change in affect.•Ratings of the scenes' beauty were identical to ratings of affinity/liking.
Hostile attribution bias refers to the tendency to interpret social situations as intentionally hostile. While previous research has focused on its developmental origins and behavioral consequences, ...the underlying neural mechanisms remain underexplored. Here, we employed functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to investigate the neural correlates of hostile attribution bias. While undergoing fNIRS, male and female participants listened to and provided attribution ratings for 21 hypothetical scenarios where a character's actions resulted in a negative outcome for the listener. Ratings of hostile intentions were averaged to measure hostile attribution bias. Using intersubject representational similarity analysis, we found that participants with similar levels of hostile attribution bias exhibited higher levels of neural synchrony during narrative listening, suggesting shared interpretations of the scenarios. This effect was localized to the left ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) and was particularly prominent in scenarios where the character's intentions were highly ambiguous. We then grouped participants into high and low bias groups based on a median split of their hostile attribution bias scores. A similarity-based classifier trained on the neural data classified participants as having high or low bias with 75% accuracy, indicating that the neural time courses during narrative listening was systematically different between the two groups. Furthermore, hostile attribution bias correlated negatively with attributional complexity, a measure of one's tendency to consider multifaceted causes when explaining behavior. Our study sheds light on the neural mechanisms underlying hostile attribution bias and highlights the potential of using fNIRS to develop nonintrusive and cost-effective neural markers of this sociocognitive bias.
Objective
In this rapidly digitizing world, it is becoming ever more important to understand people's online behaviors in both scientific and consumer research settings. The current work tests the ...feasibility of inferring personality traits from mouse movement patterns as a cost‐effective means of measuring individual characteristics.
Method
Mouse movement features (i.e., pauses, fixations, speed, and clicks) were collected while participants (N = 791) completed an online image choice task. We compare the results of standard univariate and three forms of multivariate partial least squares (PLS) analyses predicting Big Five traits from mouse movements. We also examine whether mouse movements can predict a proposed measure of task attentiveness (atypical responding), and how these might be related to personality traits.
Results
Each of the PLS analyses showed significant associations between a linear combination of personality traits (high Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Openness, and low Neuroticism) and several mouse movements associated with slower, more deliberate responding (less unnecessary clicks and more fixations). Additionally, several click‐related mouse features were associated with atypical responding on the task.
Conclusions
As the image choice task itself is not intended to assess personality in any way, our results validate the feasibility of using mouse movements to infer internal traits across experimental contexts.
Survival is dependent on sociality within groups which ensure sustenance and protection. From an early age, children show a natural tendency to sort people into groups and discriminate among them. ...The computations guiding evaluation of third‐party behaviors are complex, requiring integration of intent, consequences, and knowledge of group affiliation. This study examined how perceiving third‐party morally laden behavior influences children's likelihood to exhibit or reduce group bias. Following a minimal group paradigm assignment, young children (4–7 years) performed a moral evaluation task where group affiliations and moral actions were systematically juxtaposed, so that they were exposed to disproportionately antisocial in‐group and prosocial out‐group scenarios. Electroencephalography was recorded, and group preference was assessed with a resource allocation game before and after the EEG session. Across all children, evaluations of others' moral actions arose from early and automatic processing (~150 ms), followed by later interactive processing of affiliation and moral valence (~500 ms). Importantly, individual differences in bias manifestation and attitude change were predicted by children's neural responses. Children with high baseline bias selectively exhibited a rapid detection (~200 ms) of scenarios inconsistent with their bias (in‐group harm and out‐group help). Changes in bias corresponded to distinct patterns in longer latency neural processing. These new developmental neuroscience findings elucidate the multifaceted processing involved in moral evaluation of others' actions, their group affiliations, the nature of the integration of both into full judgments, and the relation of individual differences in neural responses to social decision‐making in childhood.
Perceiving third‐party morallyladen behavior influences children's likelihood to exhibit or reduce group bias. Both electroenphalographic and behavioral results demonstrate that children are capable of prioritizing kindness and helpfulness over similarity.
Scale invariant neural dynamics are a relatively new but effective means of measuring changes in brain states as a result of varied cognitive load and task difficulty. This study tests whether scale ...invariance (as measured by the Hurst exponent, H) can be used with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to quantify cognitive load, paving the way for scale-invariance to be measured in a variety of real-world settings. We analyzed H extracted from the fNIRS time series while participants completed an N-back working memory task. Consistent with what has been demonstrated in fMRI, the current results showed that scale-invariance analysis significantly differentiated between task and rest periods as calculated from both oxy- (HbO) and deoxy-hemoglobin (HbR) concentration changes. Results from both channel-averaged H and a multivariate partial least squares approach (Task PLS) demonstrated higher H during the 1-back task than the 2-back task. These results were stronger for H derived from HbR than from HbO. This suggests that scale-free brain states are a robust signature of cognitive load and not limited by the specific neuroimaging modality employed. Further, as fNIRS is relatively portable and robust to motion-related artifacts, these preliminary results shed light on the promising future of measuring cognitive load in real life settings.
Individuals with KCNJ11 or ABCC8 mutations express over-activated KATP channels both in pancreatic beta cells as well as in the brain, and consequently exhibit a spectrum of neurodevelopmental ...difficulties. Even those with milder mutations exhibit more difficulty than sibling controls on a wide range of measures including executive functioning and IQ measures; but how this relates to channel dysfunction is unknown. fNIRS is a non-invasive technique increasingly used to assess brain activity as reflected by hemoglobin concentrations. fNIRS can be used to quantify fractal scaling of brain hemodynamics to estimate cognitive effort, which we hypothesized would be increased at rest or during tasks in KATP-NDM. Participants completed fNIRS assessment during a 7 minute resting state; executive function was assessed by Stroop task. Scaling phenomena may be fully described by a single Hurst exponent (H), with higher H indicating greater scale-free signal. Sixteen participants completed the resting state and Stroop task (6 affected, 10 controls, 50% female, age 7-40 years). All participants performed worse (lower accuracy and increased reaction time) on incongruent versus congruent trials of the Stroop task (accuracy: p=0.005, reaction time: p=0.02). KATP-NDM participants performed worse than controls (lower accuracy, slower reaction time), with mutation severity correlating significantly with overall accuracy (p=0.009). During resting state, affected participants had lower H than controls, possibly related to increased cognitive effort. Overall, higher H at rest corresponded to better performance on the Stroop task. Our data suggest that those with KATP-NDM experience increased cognitive effort even at rest, which may contribute to greater difficulty with task engagement and learning potential. fNIRS assessment of fractalness or other measures will help to clarify the role of KATP channel dysfunction in a range of cognitive processes.
Disclosure
L.R. Letourneau-Freiberg: None. K.L. Meidenbauer: None. A.M. Denson: None. P. Tian: None. K. Choe: None. M.G. Berman: None. S.W. Greeley: None.
Funding
National Institutes of Health (R01DK104942)
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