Abstract
The Ultimatum Game (UG) is a typical paradigm to investigate social decision-making. Although the behavior of humans in this task is already well established, the underlying brain processes remain poorly understood. Previous investigations using event-related potentials (ERPs) revealed three major components related to cognitive processes in participants engaged in the responder condition, the early ERP component P2, the feedback-related negativity (FRN) and a late positive wave (late positive component, LPC). However, the comparison of the ERP waveforms between the responder and proposer conditions has never been studied. Therefore, to investigate condition-related electrophysiological changes, we applied the UG paradigm and compared parameters of the P2, LPC and FRN components in twenty healthy participants. For the responder condition, we found a significantly decreased amplitude and delayed latency for the P2 component, whereas the mean amplitudes of the LPC and FRN increased compared to the proposer condition. Additionally, the proposer condition elicited an early component consisting of a negative deflection around 190 ms, in the upward slope of the P2, probably as a result of early conflict-related processing. Using independent component analysis (ICA), we extracted one functional component time-locked to this deflection, and with source reconstruction (LAURA) we found the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) as one of the underlying sources. Overall, our findings indicate that intensity and time-course of neuronal systems engaged in the decision-making processes diverge between both UG conditions, suggesting differential cognitive processes. Understanding the electrophysiological bases of decision-making and social interactions in controls could be useful to further detect which steps are impaired in psychiatric patients in their ability to attribute mental states (such as beliefs, intents, or desires) to oneself and others. This ability is called mentalizing (also known as theory of mind).
Highlights
Social cognition examines processes involved during social interactions, such as understanding oneself and others, inferring somebody else’s thoughts, or identifying emotions and desires (Lieberman, 2007; Green et al, 2015)
Using event-related potentials (ERPs), independent component analysis (ICA) and source reconstruction, we demonstrated that the time-course and the intensity of brain processing events involved in social decision-making are sensitive to the task condition, even when the goal of earning a maximal amount of money is the same for both conditions
Our findings highlight a difference in the intensity of the engagement of neuronal systems, as well as a modified time-course during the social decision-making process, as shown by comparing both conditions of the Ultimatum Game (UG)
Summary
Social cognition examines processes involved during social interactions, such as understanding oneself and others, inferring somebody else’s thoughts, or identifying emotions and desires (Lieberman, 2007; Green et al, 2015) This process is an innate ability in humans known as the theory of mind, which allows normal social interactions. Using experimental economic situations to study social interactions has proven to be relevant as they are close to real-life social interactions In this context, the Ultimatum Game (UG), a standard economic game, has gained importance in research on social cognition in healthy individuals. The UG is a simple tool that can be used to examine physiological correlates of decision-making processes In this game, a ‘‘Proposer’’ owns a certain sum of money and is asked to propose a share of this money to a ‘‘Responder’’. The goal is the same for both players, i.e., to gain the maximal amount of money
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