华南师范大学封春亮等研究人员合作揭示对自己和他人不公平决策的神经计算机制。相关论文于2024年6月20日在线发表在《神经科学通报》杂志上。

研究人员表示，公平是人类社会的基本价值观，个人既关注对自己的不公平，也关注对他人的不公平。然而，关于自我不公平和他人不公平是否会引起共同或不同的神经心理过程的争论一直没有停止过。

为了解决这个问题，研究人员将三人最后通牒游戏与计算建模和先进的神经影像分析技术相结合，揭示了自我不公平和他人不公平背后的行为、认知和神经模式。行为和计算结果表明，参与者对自我不公平的关注程度高于对他人不公平的关注程度。

此外，自我不公平会持续激活前脑岛、背侧前扣带回皮层和背外侧前额叶皮层等大脑区域，这些区域跨越不同的空间尺度，包括单变量激活、局部多变量模式和全脑多变量模式。这些区域与基于公平的决策相关的情感和认知过程的联系已得到证实。相反，他人不公平则主要涉及枕中回。总之，这些研究结果有力地支持了自我不公平和他人不公平之间不同的神经计算特征。

附：英文原文

Title: The Neurocomputational Mechanism Underlying Decision-Making on Unfairness to Self and Others

Author: Luo, Lanxin, Xu, Han, Tian, Xia, Zhao, Yue, Xiong, Ruoling, Dong, Huafeng, Li, Xiaoqing, Wang, Yuhe, Luo, YueJia, Feng, Chunliang

Issue&Volume: 2024-06-20

Abstract: Fairness is a fundamental value in human societies, with individuals concerned about unfairness both to themselves and to others. Nevertheless, an enduring debate focuses on whether self-unfairness and other-unfairness elicit shared or distinct neuropsychological processes. To address this, we combined a three-person ultimatum game with computational modeling and advanced neuroimaging analysis techniques to unravel the behavioral, cognitive, and neural patterns underlying unfairness to self and others. Our behavioral and computational results reveal a heightened concern among participants for self-unfairness over other-unfairness. Moreover, self-unfairness consistently activates brain regions such as the anterior insula, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, spanning various spatial scales that encompass univariate activation, local multivariate patterns, and whole-brain multivariate patterns. These regions are well-established in their association with emotional and cognitive processes relevant to fairness-based decision-making. Conversely, other-unfairness primarily engages the middle occipital gyrus. Collectively, our findings robustly support distinct neurocomputational signatures between self-unfairness and other-unfairness.

DOI: 10.1007/s12264-024-01245-8

Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12264-024-01245-8