Decoding moral judgments from neural representations of intentions
Intentional harms are typically judged to be morally worse than accidental harms. Distinguishing between intentional harms and accidents depends on the capacity for mental state reasoning (i.e., reasoning about beliefs and intentions), which is supported by a group of brain regions including the rig...
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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National Academy of Sciences (U.S.)
2013
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81292 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2377-1791 |
| _version_ | 1826213580057346048 |
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| author | Koster-Hale, Jorie Saxe, Rebecca R. Dungan, James Young, Liane L. |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Koster-Hale, Jorie Saxe, Rebecca R. Dungan, James Young, Liane L. |
| author_sort | Koster-Hale, Jorie |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Intentional harms are typically judged to be morally worse than accidental harms. Distinguishing between intentional harms and accidents depends on the capacity for mental state reasoning (i.e., reasoning about beliefs and intentions), which is supported by a group of brain regions including the right temporo-parietal junction (RTPJ). Prior research has found that interfering with activity in RTPJ can impair mental state reasoning for moral judgment and that high-functioning individuals with autism spectrum disorders make moral judgments based less on intent information than neurotypical participants. Three experiments, using multivoxel pattern analysis, find that (i) in neurotypical adults, the RTPJ shows reliable and distinct spatial patterns of responses across voxels for intentional vs. accidental harms, and (ii) individual differences in this neural pattern predict differences in participants’ moral judgments. These effects are specific to RTPJ. By contrast, (iii) this distinction was absent in adults with autism spectrum disorders. We conclude that multivoxel pattern analysis can detect features of mental state representations (e.g., intent), and that the corresponding neural patterns are behaviorally and clinically relevant. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:51:30Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/81292 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:51:30Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publisher | National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/812922022-10-02T04:36:43Z Decoding moral judgments from neural representations of intentions Koster-Hale, Jorie Saxe, Rebecca R. Dungan, James Young, Liane L. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT Koster-Hale, Jorie Saxe, Rebecca R. Intentional harms are typically judged to be morally worse than accidental harms. Distinguishing between intentional harms and accidents depends on the capacity for mental state reasoning (i.e., reasoning about beliefs and intentions), which is supported by a group of brain regions including the right temporo-parietal junction (RTPJ). Prior research has found that interfering with activity in RTPJ can impair mental state reasoning for moral judgment and that high-functioning individuals with autism spectrum disorders make moral judgments based less on intent information than neurotypical participants. Three experiments, using multivoxel pattern analysis, find that (i) in neurotypical adults, the RTPJ shows reliable and distinct spatial patterns of responses across voxels for intentional vs. accidental harms, and (ii) individual differences in this neural pattern predict differences in participants’ moral judgments. These effects are specific to RTPJ. By contrast, (iii) this distinction was absent in adults with autism spectrum disorders. We conclude that multivoxel pattern analysis can detect features of mental state representations (e.g., intent), and that the corresponding neural patterns are behaviorally and clinically relevant. National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant 1R01 MH096914-01A1) Simons Foundation National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant 095518) John Merck Scholars Program (Grant) Charles A. Dana Foundation National Science Foundation (U.S.). Graduate Research Fellowship Program (Grant 0645960) 2013-10-03T16:54:25Z 2013-10-03T16:54:25Z 2013-03 2012-05 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0027-8424 1091-6490 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81292 Koster-Hale, J., R. Saxe, J. Dungan, and L. L. Young. “Decoding moral judgments from neural representations of intentions.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110, no. 14 (April 2, 2013): 5648-5653. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2377-1791 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1207992110 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) PNAS |
| spellingShingle | Koster-Hale, Jorie Saxe, Rebecca R. Dungan, James Young, Liane L. Decoding moral judgments from neural representations of intentions |
| title | Decoding moral judgments from neural representations of intentions |
| title_full | Decoding moral judgments from neural representations of intentions |
| title_fullStr | Decoding moral judgments from neural representations of intentions |
| title_full_unstemmed | Decoding moral judgments from neural representations of intentions |
| title_short | Decoding moral judgments from neural representations of intentions |
| title_sort | decoding moral judgments from neural representations of intentions |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81292 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2377-1791 |
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