Persons have different value preferences. Neuroimaging studies where value-based decisions in actual conflict situations were investigated suggest an important role of prefrontal and cingulate brain regions. General preferences, however, reflect a superordinate moral concept independent of actual situations as proposed in psychological and socioeconomic research. Here, the specific brain response would be influenced by abstract value systems and moral concepts. The neurobiological mechanisms underlying such responses are largely unknown. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with a forced-choice paradigm on word pairs representing abstract values, we show that the brain handles such decisions depending on the person's superordinate moral concept. Persons with a predominant collectivistic (altruistic) value system applied a “balancing and weighing” strategy, recruiting brain regions of rostral inferior and intraparietal, and midcingulate and frontal cortex. Conversely, subjects with mainly individualistic (egocentric) value preferences applied a “fight-and-flight” strategy by recruiting the left amygdala. Finally, if subjects experience a value conflict when rejecting an alternative congruent to their own predominant value preference, comparable brain regions are activated as found in actual moral dilemma situations, i.e., midcingulate and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Our results demonstrate that superordinate moral concepts influence the strategy and the neural mechanisms in decision processes, independent of actual situations, showing that decisions are based on general neural principles. These findings provide a novel perspective to future sociological and economic research as well as to the analysis of social relations by focusing on abstract value systems as triggers of specific brain responses.
The latest research on developmental stage, according to the Model of Hierarchical Complexity (MHC), shows that there is only 1 domain, that stage develops as log 2 (age) and that the number of neurons of a species can predict the mean stage attained by that species. This can be interpreted as saying that biology controls stage. However, humans attain different stages and the biological mechanism that limits stage is still unknown. Based on these findings, we argue that cognitive neuroscience studies of human intelligence should shift from the general laws that govern development and brain maturation to focusing on interindividual differences across development, so as to complete the picture of human cognition beyond statistical norms. We here propose a study that looks for differences in patterns of the brain activation between subjects performing below and above formal stages. What differentiates this study from others that have been conducted in the field of developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience is that this will explain for the first time not how, but why, some individuals are hardwired to perform at higher stages than others. We intend to analyze the data across different hierarchical complexity tasks and extract a saturation index (SI) that informs about the processing load of problem solving. Second, we compare the SI across subjects who attained different stages. This knowledge will provide for understanding the biological basis of cognition, for improving the behavioral predictive MHC, and for developing a connectionist model of cognition that emulates development throughout life.
Functional neuroimaging studies of decision-making so far mainly focused on decisions under uncertainty or negotiation with other persons. Dual process theory assumes that, in such situations, decision making relies on either a rapid intuitive, automated or a slower rational processing system. However, it still remains elusive how personality factors or professional requirements might modulate the decision process and the underlying neural mechanisms. Since decision making is a key task of managers, we hypothesized that managers, facing higher pressure for frequent and rapid decisions than non-managers, prefer the heuristic, automated decision strategy in contrast to non-managers. Such different strategies may, in turn, rely on different neural systems. We tested managers and non-managers in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study using a forced-choice paradigm on word-pairs. Managers showed subcortical activation in the head of the caudate nucleus, and reduced hemodynamic response within the cortex. In contrast, non-managers revealed the opposite pattern. With the head of the caudate nucleus being an initiating component for process automation, these results supported the initial hypothesis, hinting at automation during decisions in managers. More generally, the findings reveal how different professional requirements might modulate cognitive decision processing.
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