The Cognitive Neural Mechanism Of Evaluating To Cooperative And Conflicting Outcomes In Social Game

Interpersonal cooperation and conflict are two primary types of interpersonal interaction, and take an important role in human social development. Applying various social game tasks, researches have investigated the behavioral and neural mechanism of cooperation and conflict. In addition to providing a method for the modeling of important social problems, social game theory has inspired a common paradigm for much experimental research. Though most of the initial research was conducted in social psychology, such work has become increasingly common in economics, and more recently has become the focus of neuroscience research in psychology and economics. Social decision-making games such as the Chicken Game mimic real world situations by allowing us to examine human decision-making in situations where the outcome is not entirely within one’s control. The Chicken Game presents players with a true social dilemma, as two players independently choose to either cooperate with, or aggress against, the other player.Previous fMRI study employing the Chicken Game task has demonstrated that the anterior PCC was more active after risky/aggressive choices than safe/cooperative choices when the participants play the game against a human counterpart. However, it is still unclear how people evaluated the feedback when they played such a complex social game, in which the mutual cooperation or mutual conflict might occur, and how individual difference and social factors affected this outcome evaluation process. Adaptive decision-making requires encoding utilities of the anticipated outcomes of prior action. Outcome evaluation is an important ability for adaptive control of behavior, and evolution may have selected for the development of brain mechanisms for assessing the valence, magnitude and other aspects of outcome, linking feedback information with motivational subjective significance.In order to address these problems, this dissertation paired the Chicken Game tasks with psychophysiological measures (ERPs) to explore the time course of evaluation to complex social interactive outcome feedback, and how individual differences and social distance affected the processing of outcome evaluation in such a situation. This dissertation was composed of1behavioral study and4ERPs studies. Study1explored how social value orientation (SVO) and social distance interactively impacted our social game behavior in social decision-making task. Study2using ERPs technique investigated the time course of evaluation to complex social interactive outcome feedback, and how this outcome evaluation process influenced the subsequent cooperative behavior. Study3explored how social value orientation modulated the evaluation process to cooperative and conflicting outcome. Study4investigated the gender difference of evaluating interpersonal cooperative and conflicting outcome. Study5explored how social distance modulated the evaluation process to cooperative and conflicting outcome. The results were as follows:1. The results of selecting cooperation ratio indicated that the main effect of social distance was significant, that is, participants selected more cooperation to their friends than to the stranger. There was significant interactive effect between SVO and social distance, indicating that Prosocial participants selected more cooperation to friends than to the stranger, however, the cooperative percentage was not different in Proself participants. The mean response time (RT) of selecting cooperation and aggression suggested that there was significant interaction effect between SVO and Selection strategy, indicating that the mean RT of selecting cooperation was longer than the mean RT of selecting aggression in Prosocial participants, but not in Proself participants. In addition, the ratios of selecting cooperation and aggression associated with each kind of outcome indicated that the feedback type affected the subsequent cooperative and aggressive behavior; participant was more likely to select cooperation when the feedback indicating the opponent selected cooperation.2. Behavioral data suggested that participants selected more aggression than cooperation. The ERP results indicated that the amplitudes of FRN and P300were not only influenced by feedback valence but also modulated by the interpersonal cooperation and conflict. The FRN and FRN effect (dFRN) were increased when the participants’anticipant were higher violated. Specifically, the FRN were largest when participants chose the conciliation while the counterpart chose aggression. The differences between gains and losses of P300amplitudes were increased when participants chose cooperation, relative when they chose aggression. In addition, there was a negative relationship between Trialn FRN amplitudes of CA outcome and cooperation on Trialn+1(and overall cooperation), indicating that greater FRN amplitudes of CA outcome were associated with a higher probability of choosing cooperation on the next trial (and overall cooperation).3. Behavioral data indicated that the average decision time for ProSelfs was longer than for ProSocials. The dFRN result indicated that dFRN was greater after the participant chose cooperation than after aggression. The interaction between Participant Choice and SVO was significant, showing that the dFRN for cooperation was significantly stronger than dFRN for aggression in Prosocial participants. However, for ProSelfs this effect was not significant. The main effect of Opponent Choice was significant on P300amplitudes, indicating that P300was larger following Opponent’s cooperation than Opponent’s aggression. The interaction between SVO and Opponent Choice was significant. Simple effects tests showed a significant effect for Opponent choice in ProSocials, with larger positive-going ERP responses following opponent’s cooperation than following opponent’s aggression. However, among ProSelfs this effect was not significant. 4. The main effect of selection strategy was significant, indicating that dFRN was greater under cooperation than under aggression. The interaction between gender and electrode was significant. Test of the simple effect showed that the electrode main effect was significant in female group, indicating that the amplitude of dFRN was greater at F3than at Fz and F4in female group, but this main effect was not significant in male group. The interaction between selection strategy and gender and electrodes was significant. Test of the simple effect showed that in female group the dFRN under cooperation strategy was significantly stronger than dFRN under aggressive strategy at Fz, but not at F3and F4. The P300results showed that the main effect of feedback valence was significant, indicating that P300was greater after gains than after losses. The interaction between selection strategy and feedback valence was significant. Test of the simple effect was conducted for the FRN responses following cooperation and aggression. Following the cooperation trials, the main effect of feedback valence was significant, with ERP responses more positive following the win feedback than following the loss feedback. Following the aggression trials, the main effect of feedback valence was not significant.5. The behavioral data indicated that participants selected more cooperation to friends than to the stranger. The ERPs data showed that social distance affected the later stage of outcome evaluation. P300amplitudes were greater after the partner selecting cooperation than the partner selecting aggression, and were greater when gambling with stranger than with friend.In summary, these behavioral results indicate that the human cooperative and aggressive behavior were not simply influenced by social value orientation, probably were modulated by the interaction of social value orientation and other social situations, such as social distance. The ERPs data suggest that, in social gambling, cooperation increased the anticipation to the gambling outcome, and induced the larger FRN effect, and the double material and social significance of cooperation reciprocal outcome might induce the larger P300amplitudes. The individual difference of social value orientation and gender modulate the earlier semi-automatic outcome evaluation process, reflected on FRN amplitudes. The social distance comes into play mostly in the late attention-sensitive cognitive appraisal process stage. The studies of this dissertation first provide preliminary behavioral and psychophysiological evidences that the time course of evaluating process to cooperative and conflicting outcomes, and how the individual difference and social distance modulated the outcome evaluation process.