Abstract:
Moral judgements about people based on their actions is a key component that guides social decision making. It is currently unknown how positive or negative moral judgments associated with a person\'s face are processed and stored in the brain for a long time. Here, we investigate the long-term memory of moral values associated with human faces using simultaneous EEG-fMRI data acquisition. Results show that only a few exposures to morally charged stories of people are enough to form long-term memories a day later for a relatively large number of new faces. Event related potentials (ERPs) showed a significant differentiation of remembered good vs bad faces over centerofrontal electrode sites (value ERP). EEG-informed fMRI analysis revealed a subcortical cluster centered on the left caudate tail (CDt) as a correlate of the face value ERP. Importantly neither this analysis nor a conventional whole-brain analysis revealed any significant coding of face values in cortical areas, in particular the fusiform face area (FFA). Conversely an fMRI-informed EEG source localization using accurate subject-specific EEG head models also revealed activation in the left caudate tail. Nevertheless, the detected caudate tail region was found to be functionally connected to the FFA, suggesting FFA to be the source of face-specific information to CDt. A further psycho-physiological interaction analysis also revealed task-dependent coupling between CDt and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), a region previously identified as retaining emotional working memories. These results identify CDt as a main site for encoding the long-term value memories of faces in humans suggesting that moral value of faces activates the same subcortical basal ganglia circuitry involved in processing reward value memory for objects in primates.
摘要:
基于人们行为的道德判断是指导社会决策的关键组成部分。目前尚不清楚与一个人的面部相关的积极或消极的道德判断是如何被处理并长期存储在大脑中的。这里,我们使用同时的EEG-fMRI数据采集来研究与人脸相关的道德价值观的长期记忆。结果表明,只有少数人接触道德故事就足以在一天后形成相对大量的新面孔的长期记忆。事件相关电位(ERP)在中心额电极位置(值ERP)上显示出记住的好面孔与坏面孔的显着区别。EEG信息的fMRI分析显示,以左尾状尾(CDt)为中心的皮质下簇与面值ERP相关。重要的是,这种分析和传统的全脑分析都没有揭示出皮质区域的任何重要的面值编码,特别是梭形面部区域(FFA)。相反,使用准确的特定于受试者的EEG头部模型进行fMRI告知的EEG源定位也显示了左尾状尾的激活。然而,发现检测到的尾状尾区域与FFA功能连接,建议FFA是CDt的面部特定信息的来源。进一步的心理生理相互作用分析还揭示了CDt和背内侧前额叶皮层(dmPFC)之间的任务依赖性耦合,以前被确定为保留情感工作记忆的区域。这些结果将CDt确定为编码人类面部长期价值记忆的主要位点,这表明面部的道德价值激活了处理灵长类物体的奖励价值记忆所涉及的相同的皮质下基底神经节电路。