Right or wrong? The brain's fast response to morally objectionable statements.
How does the brain respond to statements that clash with a person's value system? We recorded event-related brain potentials while respondents from contrasting political-ethical backgrounds completed an attitude survey on drugs, medical ethics, social conduct, and other issues. Our results show that value-based disagreement is unlocked by language extremely rapidly, within 200 to 250 ms after the first word that indicates a clash with the reader's value system (e.g., "I think euthanasia is an acceptable/unacceptable..."). Furthermore, strong disagreement rapidly influences the ongoing analysis of meaning, which indicates that even very early processes in language comprehension are sensitive to a person's value system. Our results testify to rapid reciprocal links between neural systems for language and for valuation.
Van Berkum
Jos J A
JJ
Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. jos.vanberkum@mpi.nl
Holleman
Bregje
B
Nieuwland
Mante
M
Otten
Marte
M
Murre
Jaap
J
D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001290:Attitude; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D002835:Christianity; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009014:Morals; D011057:Politics; D011932:Reading; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D012660:Semantics; D012945:Social Values