The ERPs Study On The Processing Of Moral Metaphor After Disgust Priming

BackgroundWith the emergence of modern theories including social intuition theory and dual-process theory of moral judgment,an increasing amount of researches start to focus on the role of emotion and intuition factors in moral judgment.Disgust,as an important basic emotion closely related to normal life,originates from an individual’s behavioral immune to the input of harmful stimulus from the outside.From an evolutionary perspective,moral judgment has similar functions.Thus,disgusting emotions are closely related to the relevant areas of moral judgment.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to explore the cognitive processing characteristics and electrophysiological mechanisms of disgust words in the moral metaphors of black and white and vertical orientation.MethodsRandomly choose 41 students of healthy undergraduate and graduate students at the ages between 19 and 28 from a college in Henan Applying priming paradigm of two-word nouns,the experiments demonstrated priming words(moral disgust words,non-moral disgust words)first,then target words(Experiment One: target words are black color neutral words and white color neutral words;Experiment Two: target words are neutral words on upper part of the screen and those on the lower part),and subjects were asked to make judgment to word structures of target words.The experiment procedure was compiled with E-prime2.0 program,while electroencephalography(EEG)data were recorded and processed with Neuroscan work station.With SPSS16.0 software used for variance analysis of repeated measure data,the correction was finished through Greenhouse-Geisser method.ResultsIn Experiment One,results of behavioral data indicated that: the accuracy of non-moral disgust-white color neutral words was significantly lower than that of moral disgust-while color neutral words[F(1,18)=5.37,P<0.05,η~2=0.23].ERPs results showed that: compared to the stimulus of non-moral disgust,black color neutral words triggered greater amplitudes of N1[F(1,18)=4.69,P<0.05,η~2=0.21] and N350[F(1,18)=6.53,P<0.05,η~2=0.27] after moral disgust was primed.In Experiment Two,results of behavioral data indicated that: upon the appearance of moral disgust words,the accuracy of neutral words on the upper part of screen was significantly higher than that on the lower part[F(1,21)=4.07,P=0.06,η~2=0.16].Upon the appearance of non-moral disgust words,the accuracy of neutral words on the upper part of screen was significantly lower than that on the lower part[F(1,21)=12.18,P<0.01,η~2=0.37].ERPs results showed that: compared to the stimulus of non-moral disgust,neutral words on the lower part of the screen triggered smaller amplitude of P2[F(2,42)=3.96,P<0.05,η~2=0.16] and greater amplitude of N400[F(2,42)=3.17,P=0.06,η~2=0.13] in related brain areas after moral disgust was primed.Conclusion1.After moral disgust is primed,black color neutral words implying non-moral concepts receive more cognitive resources and finer processing.After moral disgust is primed,individuals are inclined to white color that imply moral purity,to release disgust feeling and maintain better self moral image.2.After moral disgust is primed,“upper”,which implies moral,demonstrates higher semantic connection thread,while “lower”,which implies immoral,demonstrates lower semantic connection.Individuals are inclined to the moral meaning implied in “upper”,to release disgust feeling and maintain better self moral image.