Neuroergonomics Behind Culture: A Dynamic Causal Modeling (DCM) Study on Emotion

Emotion is an important psychological facet of user experience, despite receiving comparatively less attention than cognitive facets such as working memory and attention. However, emotion is also known to vary with individual differences, including cultural background. To further corroborate findings of culture-driven differences in emotion processing, we applied the dynamic causal modeling (DCM) method to electroencephalography (EEG) measurements that were obtained from Chinese (N = 10) and US (N = 10) participants during an emotion rating task involving fear-evoking and neutral images. As part of DCM, Bayesian model averaging (BMA) revealed significant culture differences in connections from frontal regions to the amygdala, with Chinese participants uniquely showing strong negative gain, suggesting inhibition of the amygdala. Furthermore, Bayesian model selection revealed that Chinese participants uniquely favored a model involving greater integration of the dlPFC with other frontal regions. The dlPFC has been previously implicated in cultural differences in emotion regulation [1] and is argued to be involved in emotion conceptualization [2]. Both findings corroborate an account in which culture influences how emotions are processed. Furthermore, these findings give reason to suspect that culture also factors into emotional aspects a task or technology.