The Neural Bases of Cognitive Conflict and Control in Moral Judgment

1
The Neural Bases of Cognitive Conflictand
Control in Moral Judgment

• Joshua D. Greene, Leigh E. Nystrom
• Andrew D. Engell,John M. Darley,
• and Jonathan D. Cohen
• Neuron, Vol. 44, 389400, October 14, 2004

2
What is the distinction between personal and
impersonal moral dilemmas? What governs the
decision in each case? What is utilitarian
decision?
3
Distinction between impersonal and personal E.g.
trolley vs. footbridge Evolution of
morality? Animal has personal because they have
emotions We add impersonal because we have extra
reasoning capacity Looking for evidence that
personal are driven by socio-emotional decisions
and that impersonal more cognitive What is the
evidence already?
4
Previous work 1) Brain areas associated with
socio-emotional increased activity during
personal 2) Brain areas associated with abstract
reasoning and problem solving increased activity
during impersonal 3) Reaction time longer when
judging personal violations as appropriate Compare
d with judgments inappropriate (stroop
argument) Effect not seen for impersonal
judgments
5
Hypotheses
6
(No Transcript)
7
(No Transcript)
8
Translation

• Longer reaction more conflicted decision
• ACC associated with conflict so expect more
  activity for trials with greater RT
• DLPFC involved in abstract reasoning so expect
  more activity for longer RT
• Different patterns of activity reflect
  differences in decision making behavior

9
To test this
10
(No Transcript)
11
Difficult vs. easy Cognitive- emotional conflict
can save the village by killing the baby
vs should teenage mother kill her baby? No
significant cognitive conflict
12
Figure 1. Relationships among Three Analyses The
present results are from three increasingly
focused analyses of a single data set drawn from
41 participants who responded to moral dilemmas
while having their brains scanned using fMRI.
13
Methods

• How much do we assume that people know?
• What are the necessary details?
• What kind of things can we leave out?
• Can we give examples?

14
41 participants (24M 17F) Right handed 3
ditched for technical reasons Stimuli http//www
.neuron.org/cgi/content/full/44/2/389/DC1 Presen
tation 12 blocks 5 trials Dilemma presented as
text on 3 screens 2 for scenario and last for
choice Button press appropriate or not 14 secs
between trials RT normalized to individual
personal time
15
(No Transcript)
16
Figure 2. Difficult versus Easy Personal Moral
Judgment Selected brain regions (see Table 2)
exhibiting significantly increased activity for
difficult (high-RT), as compared to easy
(low-RT), personal moral judgment anterior
cingulate cortex (BA 32), posterior cingulate
cortex (BA 23/31), precuneus (BA 7), right and
left middle frontal gyrus (BA 10/46).
Statistical maps of voxelwise t scores were
thresholded for significance (p 0.0005) and
cluster size (8 voxels). (A) Sagittal slice plane
is x 0 (B) axial slice plane is z9 (Talairach
and Tournoux, 1988). Image is reversed right to
left according to radiologic convention.
17
(No Transcript)
18
Figure 3. Utilitarian versus Nonutilitarian
Difficult Personal Moral Judgment Selected brain
regions (see Tables 34) exhibiting significantly
increased activity for utilitarian, as compared
to nonutilitarian, difficult personal moral
judgment. (A) A spatially restricted analysis (p
0.05, cluster size 8) of activity in the
anterior dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 10/
46) revealed bilateral clusters of voxels
exhibiting increased activity during trials in
which participants made utilitarian judgments.
1988). (B) A whole-brain analysis (p 0.005,
cluster size 8) revealed a contiguous
and slightly anterior region on the right side
exhibiting the same effect. (C) Time course of
activity in this region by participant response
utilitarian/appropriate (green)
versusnonutilitarian/inappropriate (red).
Data are not adjusted for hemodynamic lag.
19
(No Transcript)
20
(No Transcript)
21
Predicted that difficult personal moral dilemmas
would exhibit increased ACC activity What is the
role of the ACC? Conflict monitoring Error
detection Attention to action (regulative) Cardiov
ascular arousal Predicted increase in anterior
DLPFC activity What is the role of the DLPFC?
22
How to describe imaging data and large tables.

• What are the key points?
• How much detail should we skip?

23
Conflict and control ACC and DLPFC both increase
for difficult decisions Does ACC recruit DLPFC
after noticing difficulty? Or does activation of
DLPFC allow greater competition with emotional
input?
24
Cognition and emotion Cognitive process
(Kohlberg) Emotion first and then rationality
follows after the fact in response to social
demands (Haidt) Both emotion and cognition have
roles in moral judgment (Greene and Haidt) Can
be complementary or competitive
25
Relationship between cognition and
emotion Posterior cingulate (emotive area) also
involved in utilitarian decision - ie not purely
cognitive Suggest that ACC acts to motivate to
engage in the necessary reasoning. BA23/31
(posterior cingulate) motivates to respond in
accordance with judgment Is the distinction
between cognition and emotion real?
26
Finally a resolution to John Stuart Mill and
Immanual Kant
27
Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases
utilitarianmoral judgements

• Michael Koenigs, Liane Young, Ralph Adolphs,
  Daniel Tranel, Fiery Cushman, Marc Hauser
  Antonio Damasio
• Nature 446 2007 908-911

28
6 patients with bilateral damage to VMPC
ventromedial prefrontal cortex A region
associated with normal generation of emotions esp
social emotions 12 brain damaged (not emotional
areas ie VMPC, amygdala, insula..) 12 normals
no brain damage Stimuli presented as text on 3
screens answered yes I would or no I would not
by button Scenarios non moral , personal (low
or hi conflict) , impersonal
29
Figure 1 Lesion overlap of VMPC patients.
Lesions of the six VMPC patients displayed in
mesial views and coronal slices. The colour bar
indicates the number of overlapping lesions at
each voxel.
30
Figure 2 Moral judgements for each scenario
type. Proportions of yes judgements are shown
for each subject group. Error bars indicate
95 confidence intervals. We used three classes
of stimuli non-moral scenarios (n518),
impersonal moral scenarios (n511), and personal
moral scenarios (n521). On personal moral
scenarios, the frequency of endorsing yes
responses was significantly greater in the VMPC
group than in either comparison group (P
values,0.05, corrected).
31
Figure 3 Moral judgements on individual
personal moral scenarios. Proportions of yes
judgements given by each subject group for each
of the 21 personal moral scenarios. Individual
scenarios (numbered 121 on the x axis) are
ordered by increasing proportion of yes
responses given by the normal comparison group.
Responses did not differ between subject
groups for the low-conflict scenarios (left of
the vertical line). The VMPC group made a greater
proportion of yes judgements than either
comparison group for every one of the
high-conflict scenarios (right of the vertical
line).
32

• Ventromedial Pre-frontal cortex involved in
  utilitarian judgments
• Suggest VMPF necessary for normal judgment, ie
  need to include emotion in decision
• So emotion not just a consequence of the decision
• Knowledge of social and moral norms same for both
  
• ( acquired pre-damage)
• No longer have access to social emotions

33
How to resolve discrepancies between papers.

• The two papers mostly agree but not completely
• Do we gloss over this and keep moving?
• Do we focus on it and try to explain it?
• Any other strategy?