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      The Effect of Distance on Moral Engagement: Event Related Potentials and Alpha Power are Sensitive to Perspective in a Virtual Shooting Task

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          Abstract

          In a shooting video game we investigated whether increased distance reduces moral conflict. We measured and analyzed the event related potential (ERP), including the N2 component, which has previously been linked to cognitive conflict from competing decision tendencies. In a modified Go/No-go task designed to trigger moral conflict participants had to shoot suddenly appearing human like avatars in a virtual reality scene. The scene was seen either from an ego perspective with targets appearing directly in front of the participant or from a bird's view, where targets were seen from above and more distant. To control for low level visual features, we added a visually identical control condition, where the instruction to “shoot” was replaced by an instruction to “detect.” ERP waveforms showed differences between the two tasks as early as in the N1 time-range, with higher N1 amplitudes for the close perspective in the “shoot” task. Additionally, we found that pre-stimulus alpha power was significantly decreased in the ego, compared to the bird's view only for the “shoot” but not for the “detect” task. In the N2 time window, we observed main amplitude effects for response (No-go > Go) and distance (ego > bird perspective) but no interaction with task type (shoot vs. detect). We argue that the pre-stimulus and N1 effects can be explained by reduced attention and arousal in the distance condition when people are instructed to “shoot.” These results indicate a reduced moral engagement for increased distance. The lack of interaction in the N2 across tasks suggests that at that time point response execution dominates. We discuss potential implications for real life shooting situations, especially considering recent developments in drone shootings which are per definition of a distant view.

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          Speed of processing in the human visual system.

          How long does it take for the human visual system to process a complex natural image? Subjectively, recognition of familiar objects and scenes appears to be virtually instantaneous, but measuring this processing time experimentally has proved difficult. Behavioural measures such as reaction times can be used, but these include not only visual processing but also the time required for response execution. However, event-related potentials (ERPs) can sometimes reveal signs of neural processing well before the motor output. Here we use a go/no-go categorization task in which subjects have to decide whether a previously unseen photograph, flashed on for just 20 ms, contains an animal. ERP analysis revealed a frontal negativity specific to no-go trials that develops roughly 150 ms after stimulus onset. We conclude that the visual processing needed to perform this highly demanding task can be achieved in under 150 ms.
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            Emotion, cognition, and behavior.

            R J Dolan (2002)
            Emotion is central to the quality and range of everyday human experience. The neurobiological substrates of human emotion are now attracting increasing interest within the neurosciences motivated, to a considerable extent, by advances in functional neuroimaging techniques. An emerging theme is the question of how emotion interacts with and influences other domains of cognition, in particular attention, memory, and reasoning. The psychological consequences and mechanisms underlying the emotional modulation of cognition provide the focus of this article.
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              Different contributions of the human amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex to decision-making.

              The somatic marker hypothesis proposes that decision-making is a process that depends on emotion. Studies have shown that damage of the ventromedial prefrontal (VMF) cortex precludes the ability to use somatic (emotional) signals that are necessary for guiding decisions in the advantageous direction. However, given the role of the amygdala in emotional processing, we asked whether amygdala damage also would interfere with decision-making. Furthermore, we asked whether there might be a difference between the roles that the amygdala and VMF cortex play in decision-making. To address these two questions, we studied a group of patients with bilateral amygdala, but not VMF, damage and a group of patients with bilateral VMF, but not amygdala, damage. We used the "gambling task" to measure decision-making performance and electrodermal activity (skin conductance responses, SCR) as an index of somatic state activation. All patients, those with amygdala damage as well as those with VMF damage, were (1) impaired on the gambling task and (2) unable to develop anticipatory SCRs while they pondered risky choices. However, VMF patients were able to generate SCRs when they received a reward or a punishment (play money), whereas amygdala patients failed to do so. In a Pavlovian conditioning experiment the VMF patients acquired a conditioned SCR to visual stimuli paired with an aversive loud sound, whereas amygdala patients failed to do so. The results suggest that amygdala damage is associated with impairment in decision-making and that the roles played by the amygdala and VMF in decision-making are different.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Front Psychol
                Front Psychol
                Front. Psychol.
                Frontiers in Psychology
                Frontiers Media S.A.
                1664-1078
                07 January 2016
                2015
                : 6
                : 2008
                Affiliations
                [1] 1Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University Maastricht, Netherlands
                [2] 2Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Institute of Neuroscience, Research Institute for Psychological Science, Université Catholique de Louvain Louvain la Neuve, Belgium
                Author notes

                Edited by: Jeremy A. Frimer, University of Winnipeg, Canada

                Reviewed by: Paul Conway, Florida State University, USA; Chris Loersch, University of Colorado, USA

                *Correspondence: Kirsten Petras kirsten.petras@ 123456web.de

                This article was submitted to Personality and Social Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology

                Article
                10.3389/fpsyg.2015.02008
                4703753
                07187a5d-33c5-4963-b983-2d17e034c489
                Copyright © 2016 Petras, ten Oever and Jansma.

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

                History
                : 14 October 2015
                : 16 December 2015
                Page count
                Figures: 5, Tables: 0, Equations: 0, References: 66, Pages: 9, Words: 7573
                Funding
                Funded by: Universiteit Maastricht 10.13039/501100001835
                Categories
                Psychology
                Original Research

                Clinical Psychology & Psychiatry
                erps,moral decision making,virtual reality,avatar,eeg/erp,eeg alpha power

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