Modulation of the brain activity in outcome evaluation by interpersonal relationship: An ERP study

Previous event-related potential (ERP) studies employing monetary gambling tasks have demonstrated that the brain responds differentially not only to one's own gain and loss but also to the others' gambling outcomes. Empathy and motivational significance are implicated in the processes of outcome evaluation. This study is to explore to what extent the brain activity is modulated by the interpersonal relationship between the individual and the other agent, who can be a friend or a stranger. Brain potentials were recorded while the participant observed reward feedback to his/her own, his/her friend's, or a stranger's performance in a gambling task. The magnitude and latency of the effect on an early ERP component, the FRN, did not differ between the friend- and the stranger-observation conditions, whereas a late component, the P300, was modulated not only by reward valence but also by the interpersonal relationship between the observer and the other agent. These findings suggest that brain responses in outcome evaluation may be divided into an earlier semi-automatic process and a later cognitive appraisal process and that the interpersonal relationship comes into play mostly in the late attention-sensitive stage.

[1]  D. Tucker,et al.  Electrophysiological Responses to Errors and Feedback in the Process of Action Regulation , 2003, Psychological science.

[2]  J. Hohnsbein,et al.  ERP components on reaction errors and their functional significance: a tutorial , 2000, Biological Psychology.

[3]  H. Semlitsch,et al.  A solution for reliable and valid reduction of ocular artifacts, applied to the P300 ERP. , 1986, Psychophysiology.

[4]  Guillén Fernández,et al.  Why are friends special? Implementing a social interaction simulation task to probe the neural correlates of friendship , 2008, NeuroImage.

[5]  M. Delgado,et al.  Dorsal striatum responses to reward and punishment: Effects of valence and magnitude manipulations , 2003, Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience.

[6]  William A. Cunningham,et al.  Implicit and Explicit Evaluation: fMRI Correlates of Valence, Emotional Intensity, and Control in the Processing of Attitudes , 2004, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[7]  Clay B. Holroyd,et al.  The neural basis of human error processing: reinforcement learning, dopamine, and the error-related negativity. , 2002, Psychological review.

[8]  R. Fazio.  On the automatic activation of associated evaluations: An overview , 2001 .

[9]  Jonathan D. Cohen,et al.  The neural basis of error detection: conflict monitoring and the error-related negativity. , 2004, Psychological review.

[10]  Sander Nieuwenhuis,et al.  Mediofrontal negativities in the absence of responding. , 2005, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[11]  Shiwei Jia,et al.  Detecting perceptual conflict by the feedback-related negativity in brain potentials , 2007, Neuroreport.

[12]  Michael X. Cohen,et al.  Behavioral / Systems / Cognitive Reinforcement Learning Signals Predict Future Decisions , 2007 .

[13]  Clay B. Holroyd,et al.  ERP correlates of feedback and reward processing in the presence and absence of response choice. , 2005, Cerebral cortex.

[14]  Clay B. Holroyd,et al.  It's worse than you thought: the feedback negativity and violations of reward prediction in gambling tasks. , 2007, Psychophysiology.

[15]  Hiroaki Masaki,et al.  Affective-motivational influences on feedback-related ERPs in a gambling task , 2006, Brain Research.

[16]  William A. Cunningham,et al.  Neural components of social evaluation. , 2003, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[17]  Kazuo Hiraki,et al.  Perceiving an opponent's loss: gender-related differences in the medial-frontal negativity. , 2006, Social cognitive and affective neuroscience.

[18]  Johannes Hewig,et al.  An electrophysiological analysis of coaching in Blackjack , 2008, Cortex.

[19]  M. Banaji,et al.  Implicit social cognition: attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes. , 1995, Psychological review.

[20]  Rongjun Yu,et al.  Brain responses to outcomes of one's own and other's performance in a gambling task , 2006, Neuroreport.

[21]  Thomas F Münte,et al.  Internal and external information in error processing , 2008, BMC Neuroscience.

[22]  H. Gray,et al.  P300 as an index of attention to self-relevant stimuli , 2004 .

[23]  J. O'Doherty,et al.  Automatic and intentional brain responses during evaluation of trustworthiness of faces , 2002, Nature Neuroscience.

[24]  A. Sanfey,et al.  Independent Coding of Reward Magnitude and Valence in the Human Brain , 2004, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[25]  Adrian R. Willoughby,et al.  The Medial Frontal Cortex and the Rapid Processing of Monetary Gains and Losses , 2002, Science.

[26]  C. Braun,et al.  Event-Related Brain Potentials Following Incorrect Feedback in a Time-Estimation Task: Evidence for a Generic Neural System for Error Detection , 1997, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[27]  Clay B. Holroyd,et al.  The feedback-related negativity reflects the binary evaluation of good versus bad outcomes , 2006, Biological Psychology.

[28]  Samuel M. McClure,et al.  The Neural Substrates of Reward Processing in Humans: The Modern Role of fMRI , 2004, The Neuroscientist : a review journal bringing neurobiology, neurology and psychiatry.

[29]  William A. Cunningham,et al.  Opinion TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Vol.11 No.3 Attitudes and evaluations: a social cognitive neuroscience perspective , 2022 .

[30]  P. Devine.  Stereotypes and prejudice: Their automatic and controlled components. , 1989 .

[31]  Jonathan D. Cohen,et al.  Decision making, the P3, and the locus coeruleus-norepinephrine system. , 2005, Psychological bulletin.

[32]  Brian Knutson,et al.  FMRI Visualization of Brain Activity during a Monetary Incentive Delay Task , 2000, NeuroImage.

[33]  Jun'ichi Katayama,et al.  Self-relevant criteria determine the evaluation of outcomes induced by others , 2008, Neuroreport.

[34]  L. Nystrom,et al.  Tracking the hemodynamic responses to reward and punishment in the striatum. , 2000, Journal of neurophysiology.

[35]  Xiaolin Zhou,et al.  The P300 and reward valence, magnitude, and expectancy in outcome evaluation , 2009, Brain Research.

[36]  Brian A. Nosek,et al.  A unified theory of implicit attitudes, stereotypes, self-esteem, and self-concept. , 2002, Psychological review.

[37]  Rongjun Yu,et al.  Brain potentials associated with outcome expectation and outcome evaluation , 2006, Neuroreport.

[38]  Shihui Han,et al.  Temporal dynamic of neural mechanisms involved in empathy for pain: An event-related brain potential study , 2008, Neuropsychologia.

[39]  K. Craig,et al.  Facing others in pain: the effects of empathy , 2005, Pain.

[40]  D. Linden.  The P300: Where in the Brain Is It Produced and What Does It Tell Us? , 2005, The Neuroscientist : a review journal bringing neurobiology, neurology and psychiatry.

[41]  Clay B. Holroyd,et al.  Reinforcement-related brain potentials from medial frontal cortex: origins and functional significance , 2004, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.

[42]  Atsushi Sato,et al.  Effects of value and reward magnitude on feedback negativity and P300 , 2005, Neuroreport.

[43]  Jeff T. Larsen,et al.  The good, the bad and the neutral: Electrophysiological responses to feedback stimuli , 2006, Brain Research.

[44]  Clay B. Holroyd,et al.  Brain potentials associated with expected and unexpected good and bad outcomes. , 2005, Psychophysiology.

[45]  H. Bekkering,et al.  Modulation of activity in medial frontal and motor cortices during error observation , 2004, Nature Neuroscience.

[46]  Jeff T. Larsen,et al.  Context dependence of the event-related brain potential associated with reward and punishment. , 2004, Psychophysiology.

[47]  Timothy D. Wilson,et al.  A model of dual attitudes. , 2000, Psychological review.

[48]  Clay B. Holroyd,et al.  Errors in reward prediction are re£ected in the event-related brain potential , 2003 .