Impact of Short Social Training on Prosocial Behaviors: An fMRI Study

Abstract

Efficient brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) are in need of knowledge about the human brain and how it interacts, plays games, and socializes with other brains. A breakthrough can be achieved by revealing the microfoundations of sociality, an additional component of the utility function reflecting the value of contributing to group success derived from social identity. Building upon our previous behavioral work, we conduct a series of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments (N = 10 in the Pilot Study and N = 15 in the Main Study) to measure whether and how sociality alters the functional activation of and connectivity between specific systems in the brain. The overarching hypothesis of this study is that sociality, even in a minimal form, serves as a natural mechanism of sustainable cooperation by fostering interaction between brain regions associated with social cognition and those related to value calculation. We use group-based manipulations to induce varying levels of sociality and compare behavior in two social dilemmas: Prisoner’s Dilemma and variations of Ultimatum Game. We find that activation of the right inferior frontal gyrus, a region previously associated with cognitive control and modulation of the valuation system, is correlated with activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) to a greater degree when participants make economic decisions in a game with an acquaintance, high sociality condition, compared to a game with a random individual, low sociality condition. These initial results suggest a specific biological mechanism through which sociality facilitates cooperation, fairness and provision of public goods at the cost of individual gain. Future research should examine neural dynamics in the brain during the computation of utility in the context of strategic games that involve social interaction for a larger sample of subjects.

Interpersonal Neural Synchronization During Cooperative Behavior of Basketball Players: A fNIRS-Based Hyperscanning Study

“…The fNIRS results showed that the basketball athletes had stronger INS in the dorsolateral prefrontal area in the cooperative task. Previous studies have shown that the dorsolateral prefrontal lobe is involved in cognitive control ( Sanfey et al, 2003 ; Gabay et al, 2014 ; Feng et al, 2015 ), and plays an important role in cooperation-related decision-making ( Fermin et al, 2016 ; Lukinova and Myagkov, 2016 ; Macoveanu et al, 2016 ). When dyads choose to cooperate, the dorsolateral prefrontal area is more sensitive.…”

Functional EEG connectivity during competition

“…Moving in that direction, in previous investigations of competition (or cooperation) dynamics, the presence of an external feedback informing participants on their performance—in particular when it is positive—proved to be able to modulate their behavioral responses [ 17 , 26 – 28 ]. While it has been suggested that even such modulation may be mediated by dorsolateral prefrontal structures [ 29 ], potential effects of processing information conveyed by performance feedbacks on inter-brain neural synchronicity and inter-agents synergies are yet to be explored.…”

Neuroeconomía: una revisión basada en técnicas de mapeo científico

“…En el tronco se identifican investigaciones teóricas, en las que se analiza: la racionalidad, la confianza, las interacciones sociales y los componentes hormonales que intervienen en la toma de decisiones, al igual que investigaciones que estudian el cerebro, identificando la brecha entre la depresión y la recompensa social (Mellick et al, 2015;Scheele et al, 2013). Lo anterior, sin dejar de lado el estudio de cómo las relaciones sociales afectan la actividad funcional y la conexión con otras áreas del cerebro, resaltando que la socialidad facilita la cooperación, la equidad y la provisión (Lee & Harris, 2013;Lukinova & Myagkov, 2016).…”