Cultural influences on neural basis of inhibitory control.
Research on neural basis of inhibitory control has been extensively conducted in various parts of the world. It is often implicitly assumed that neural basis of inhibitory control is universally similar across cultures. Here, we investigated the extent to which culture modulated inhibitory-control brain activity at both cultural-group and cultural-value levels of analysis. During fMRI scanning, participants from different cultural groups (including Caucasian-Americans and Japanese-Americans living in the United States and native Japanese living in Japan) performed a Go/No-Go task. They also completed behavioral surveys assessing cultural values of behavioral consistency, or the extent to which one's behaviors in daily life are consistent across situations. Across participants, the Go/No-Go task elicited stronger neural activity in several inhibitory-control areas, such as the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Importantly, at the cultural-group level, we found variation in left IFG (L-IFG) activity that was explained by a cultural region where participants lived in (as opposed to race). Specifically, L-IFG activity was stronger for native Japanese compared to Caucasian- and Japanese-Americans, while there was no systematic difference in L-IFG activity between Japanese- and Caucasian-Americans. At the cultural-value level, we found that participants who valued being "themselves" across situations (i.e., having high endorsement of behavioral consistency) elicited stronger rostral ACC activity during the Go/No-Go task. Altogether, our findings provide novel insight into how culture modulates the neural basis of inhibitory control.
Department of Psychology and Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States; Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore. Electronic address: psypn@nus.edu.sg.
Narun
N
Pornpattananangkul
Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States.
Ahmad R
AR
Hariri
Department of Psychology and Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States; Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Tokyo, Japan.
Tokiko
T
Harada
Department of Psychology and Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States; Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Tokyo, Japan; Department of Psychology, Kyoto University, Japan.
Yoko
Y
Mano
Department of Psychology and Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States; The Hakubi Center for Advanced Research, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.
Hidetsugu
H
Komeda
Department of Radiology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States.
Todd B
TB
Parrish
National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Japan.
Norihiro
N
Sadato
Department of Psychiatry, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan.
Tetsuya
T
Iidaka
Department of Psychology and Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States; International Cultural Neuroscience Consortium, Highland Park, IL, United States. Electronic address: jchiao@alumni.stanford.edu.
Joan Y
JY
Chiao
D000328:Adult; D001213:Asian; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology*; D009433:Neural Inhibition / Q000502:physiology*; D044465:White People / Q000208:ethnology
Action-monitoring; Anterior cingulate cortex; Behavioral consistency; Cultural neuroscience; Inferior frontal gyrus; Inhibitory control