ERP correlates of social conformity in a line judgment task

Abstract

BackgroundPrevious research showed that individuals have a natural tendency to conform to others. This study investigated the temporal characteristics of neural processing involved in social conformity by recording participants’ brain potentials in performing a line judgment task. After making his initial choice, a participant was presented with the choices of four same-sex group members, which could be congruent or highly or moderately incongruent with the participant’s own choice. The participant was then immediately given a second opportunity to respond to the same stimulus.ResultsParticipants were more likely to conform to the group members by changing their initial choices when these choices were in conflict with the group’s choices, and this behavioral adjustment occurred more often as the level of incongruence increased. Electrophysiologically, group choices that were incongruent with the participant’s choice elicited more negative-going medial frontal negativity (MFN), a component associated with processing expectancy violation, than those that were congruent with the participant’s choice, and the size of this effect increased as the level of incongruence increased. Moreover, at both levels of incongruence, the MFN responses were more negative-going for incongruent trials in which participants subsequently performed behavioral adjustment than for trials in which they stuck to their initial choices. Furthermore, over individual participants, participants who were more likely to conform to others (i.e., changing their initial choices) exhibited stronger MFN effect than individuals who were more independent.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that incongruence with group choices or opinions can elicit brain responses that are similar to those elicited by violation of non-social expectancy in outcome evaluation and performance monitoring, and these brain signals are utilized in the following behavioral adjustment. The present research complements recent brain imaging studies by showing the temporal characteristics of neural processing involved in social conformity and by suggesting common mechanisms for reinforcement learning in social and non-social situations.

Dynamics of Vocalization-Induced Modulation of Auditory Cortical Activity at Mid-utterance

“…However, it is very unlikely that the vocalization-listening difference of ERPs would be specific to participants’ language experience. Several recent neurophysiological studies have demonstrated that cortical responses to mid-utterance PSS during active vocalization are enhanced relative to passive listening in either English or Mandarin participants [28], [29], [39], [40]. Therefore, the confounding factor of language experience would have not influenced on validity of our conclusions.…”

“…This confound leaves open a possibility that suppression or enhancement induced by vocalization observed in the present study may be related to the factor of temporal predictability. In a similar study that manipulating the timing of pitch shifts at mid-utterance as predictable or unpredictable [39], vocalization-induced suppression was found when the timing of pitch shifts was predictable, while enhancement effect was observed if subjects failed to predict their timing. This finding provides supportive evidence that suppression or enhancement of vocalization-induced responses to pitch shifts at mid-utterance is partly caused by the temporal predictability of feedback changes.…”

Outcome evaluations in group decision making using the majority rule: An electrophysiological study

“…Upon the display of the group choice, the participants also found out whether their opinions were in conflict with the group members' opinion. We hypothesized that if a conflict of opinions in a group signals motivationally significant outcomes for future action, then FRN would be observed in the majority and the minority conditions, as shown in previous studies (Chen et al., ). In addition, if the majority rule influenced the evaluation of the conflict, then FRN or P300 components would be modulated in the minority condition.…”

“…Chen et al. () demonstrated that conflicts with other members in a line judgment task triggered FRN and that the amplitude of FRN reflected the level of the conflict, which was manipulated by the number of group members making different decisions from the participant's decision. Previous studies have investigated social conformity and normative group opinions with the decisions of confederates in a separate room that were used to elicit the conflict.…”

Neural Correlates of Feedback Processing in Toddlers

“…So far, only few studies in adults report a link between the FRN and subsequent behavior (Chen, Wu, Tong, Guan, & Zhou, 2012;Hämmerer et al, 2010;Mathewson, Dywan, Snyder, Tays, & Segalowitz, 2008;Cohen & Ranganath, 2007). To our knowledge, Cohen and Ranganath (2007) were the first to report empirical evidence for the hypothesis that neural feedback processing, as indicated by the FRN, is related to feedbackguided behavior.…”