The neural basis of social order formation: Promoting co-operative behaviour through vertical punishment

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K16477
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 51020:Cognitive and brain science-related
• Research Institution: Tamagawa University
• Principal Investigator: IIJIMA Kazuki 玉川大学, 脳科学研究所, 研究員 (60743680)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 自由意志 / 創造性 / BCI / ECoG / fMRI / 随伴発射 / 生命倫理 / ELSI

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The original plan was to test the vertical punishment hypothesis using a combination of fMRI measurements and group experiments, but as face-to-face experiments were no longer possible due to COVID-19, alternative research was pursued. First, we conducted research on the neural basis underlying free decision-making, developed a new creativity task to generate novel options, and conducted behavioural and fMRI experiments. The results confirmed the validity of the uniqueness measure of option generation and showed that fluency in option generation improves with development. Ethical concerns about BCI technology were also investigated in English-speaking and Japanese-speaking populations. The results showed that concerns about personhood and consequences were common, and that the moral foundation of ingroup was implicated　in consequence-related concerns only in Japanese speakers.

Free Research Field

認知神経科学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

人間のウェルビーイングを構成する重要な機能である自由の神経基盤については，これまで十分な調査がなされてきていなかった．自由な意思決定を計測するための新規の課題開発により，その神経基盤に迫ることが可能となった．また，新規の神経科学技術に関する倫理的懸念について，専門家による検討のみならず，一般の人々に対して大規模な経験的調査を行うことが重要であることを示した．これらの成果は当初の研究目標であった神経法学についても大きな示唆を与えるものである．