Julia F. Christensen

Moral dilemmas in cognitive neuroscience of moral decision-making: A principled review

Moral dilemma tasks have been a much appreciated experimental paradigm in empirical studies on moral cognition for decades and have, more recently, also become a preferred paradigm in the field of cognitive neuroscience of moral decision-making. Yet, studies using moral dilemmas suffer from two main shortcomings: they lack methodological homogeneity which impedes reliable comparisons of results across studies, thus making a metaanalysis manifestly impossible; and second, they overlook control of relevant design parameters. In this paper, we review from a principled standpoint the studies that use moral dilemmas to approach the psychology of moral judgment and its neural underpinnings. We present a systematic review of 19 experimental design parameters that can be identified in moral dilemmas. Accordingly, our analysis establishes a methodological basis for the required homogeneity between studies and suggests the consideration of experimental aspects that have not yet received much attention despite their relevance.

Coercion Changes the Sense of Agency in the Human Brain

Summary People may deny responsibility for negative consequences of their actions by claiming that they were “only obeying orders.” The “Nuremberg defense” offers one extreme example, though it is often dismissed as merely an attempt to avoid responsibility. Milgram’s classic laboratory studies reported widespread obedience to an instruction to harm, suggesting that social coercion may alter mechanisms of voluntary agency, and hence abolish the normal experience of being in control of one’s own actions. However, Milgram’s and other studies relied on dissembling and on explicit measures of agency, which are known to be biased by social norms. Here, we combined coercive instructions to administer harm to a co-participant, with implicit measures of sense of agency, based on perceived compression of time intervals between voluntary actions and their outcomes, and with electrophysiological recordings. In two experiments, an experimenter ordered a volunteer to make a key-press action that caused either financial penalty or demonstrably painful electric shock to their co-participant, thereby increasing their own financial gain. Coercion increased the perceived interval between action and outcome, relative to a situation where participants freely chose to inflict the same harms. Interestingly, coercion also reduced the neural processing of the outcomes of one’s own action. Thus, people who obey orders may subjectively experience their actions as closer to passive movements than fully voluntary actions. Our results highlight the complex relation between the brain mechanisms that generate the subjective experience of voluntary actions and social constructs, such as responsibility.

Moral judgment reloaded: a moral dilemma validation study

We propose a revised set of moral dilemmas for studies on moral judgment. We selected a total of 46 moral dilemmas available in the literature and fine-tuned them in terms of four conceptual factors (Personal Force, Benefit Recipient, Evitability, and Intention) and methodological aspects of the dilemma formulation (word count, expression style, question formats) that have been shown to influence moral judgment. Second, we obtained normative codings of arousal and valence for each dilemma showing that emotional arousal in response to moral dilemmas depends crucially on the factors Personal Force, Benefit Recipient, and Intentionality. Third, we validated the dilemma set confirming that peoples moral judgment is sensitive to all four conceptual factors, and to their interactions. Results are discussed in the context of this field of research, outlining also the relevance of our RT effects for the Dual Process account of moral judgment. Finally, we suggest tentative theoretical avenues for future testing, particularly stressing the importance of the factor Intentionality in moral judgment. Additionally, due to the importance of cross-cultural studies in the quest for universals in human moral cognition, we provide the new set dilemmas in six languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Catalan, and Danish). The norming values provided here refer to the Spanish dilemma set.

Enhancing emotional experiences to dance through music: the role of valence and arousal in the cross-modal bias.

It is well established that emotional responses to stimuli presented to one perceptive modality (e.g., visual) are modulated by the concurrent presentation of affective information to another modality (e.g., auditory)—an effect known as the cross-modal bias. However, the affective mechanisms mediating this effect are still not fully understood. It remains unclear what role different dimensions of stimulus valence and arousal play in mediating the effect, and to what extent cross-modal influences impact not only our perception and conscious affective experiences, but also our psychophysiological emotional response. We addressed these issues by measuring participants’ subjective emotion ratings and their Galvanic Skin Responses (GSR) in a cross-modal affect perception paradigm employing videos of ballet dance movements and instrumental classical music as the stimuli. We chose these stimuli to explore the cross-modal bias in a context of stimuli (ballet dance movements) that most participants would have relatively little prior experience with. Results showed (i) that the cross-modal bias was more pronounced for sad than for happy movements, whereas it was equivalent when contrasting high vs. low arousal movements; and (ii) that movement valence did not modulate participants’ GSR, while movement arousal did, such that GSR was potentiated in the case of low arousal movements with sad music and when high arousal movements were paired with happy music. Results are discussed in the context of the affective dimension of neuroentrainment and with regards to implications for the art community.

Affective Priming Using Facial Expressions Modulates Liking for Abstract Art

We examined the influence of affective priming on the appreciation of abstract artworks using an evaluative priming task. Facial primes (showing happiness, disgust or no emotion) were presented under brief (Stimulus Onset Asynchrony, SOA = 20ms) and extended (SOA = 300ms) conditions. Differences in aesthetic liking for abstract paintings depending on the emotion expressed in the preceding primes provided a measure of the priming effect. The results showed that, for the extended SOA, artworks were liked more when preceded by happiness primes and less when preceded by disgust primes. Facial expressions of happiness, though not of disgust, exerted similar effects in the brief SOA condition. Subjective measures and a forced-choice task revealed no evidence of prime awareness in the suboptimal condition. Our results are congruent with findings showing that the affective transfer elicited by priming biases evaluative judgments, extending previous research to the domain of aesthetic appreciation.

Emotional valence, sense of agency and responsibility: A study using intentional binding

We investigated how the emotional valence of an action outcome influences the experience of control, in an intentional binding experiment. Voluntary actions were followed by emotionally positive or negative human vocalisations, or by neutral tones. We used mental chronometry to measure a retrospective component of sense of agency (SoA), triggered by the occurrence of the action outcome, and a prospective component, driven by the expectation that the outcome will occur. Positive outcomes enhanced the retrospective component of SoA, but only when both occurrence and the valence of the outcome were unexpected. When the valence of outcomes was blocked - and therefore predictable - we found a prospective component of SoA when neutral tones were expected but did not actually occur. This prospective binding was absent, and reversed, for positive and negative expected outcomes. Emotional expectation counteracts the prospective component of SoA, suggesting a distancing effect.

Roman Catholic beliefs produce characteristic neural responses to moral dilemmas

This study provides exploratory evidence about how behavioral and neural responses to standard moral dilemmas are influenced by religious belief. Eleven Catholics and 13 Atheists (all female) judged 48 moral dilemmas. Differential neural activity between the two groups was found in precuneus and in prefrontal, frontal and temporal regions. Furthermore, a double dissociation showed that Catholics recruited different areas for deontological (precuneus; temporoparietal junction) and utilitarian moral judgments [dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC); temporal poles], whereas Atheists did not (superior parietal gyrus for both types of judgment). Finally, we tested how both groups responded to personal and impersonal moral dilemmas: Catholics showed enhanced activity in DLPFC and posterior cingulate cortex during utilitarian moral judgments to impersonal moral dilemmas and enhanced responses in anterior cingulate cortex and superior temporal sulcus during deontological moral judgments to personal moral dilemmas. Our results indicate that moral judgment can be influenced by an acquired set of norms and conventions transmitted through religious indoctrination and practice. Catholic individuals may hold enhanced awareness of the incommensurability between two unequivocal doctrines of the Catholic belief set, triggered explicitly in a moral dilemma: help and care in all circumstances-but thou shalt not kill.

A norming study and library of 203 dance movements

Dance stimuli have been used in experimental studies of (i) how movement is processed in the brain; (ii) how affect is perceived from bodily movement; and (iii) how dance can be a source of aesthetic experience. However, stimulus materials across—and even within—these three domains of research have varied considerably. Thus, integrative conclusions remain elusive. Moreover, concerns have been raised that the movements selected for such stimuli are qualitatively too different from the actual art form dance, potentially introducing noise in the data. We propose a library of dance stimuli which responds to the stimuli requirements and design criteria of these three areas of research, while at the same time respecting a dance art–historical perspective, offering greater ecological validity as compared with previous dance stimulus sets. The stimuli are 5–6 s long video clips, selected from genuine ballet performances. Following a number of coding experiments, the resulting stimulus library comprises 203 ballet dance stimuli coded in (i) 25 qualitative and quantitative movement variables; (ii) affective valence and arousal; and (iii) the aesthetic qualities beauty, liking, and interest. An Excel spreadsheet with these data points accompanies this manuscript, and the stimuli can be obtained from the authors upon request.

Not all about sex: neural and biobehavioral functions of human dance

This paper provides an integrative review of neuroscientific and biobehavioral evidence about the effects of dance on the individual across cultural differences. Dance moves us, and many derive aesthetic pleasure from it. However, in addition—and beyond aesthetics—we propose that dance has noteworthy, deeper neurobiological effects. We first summarize evidence that illustrates the centrality of dance to human life indirectly from archaeology, comparative psychology, developmental psychology, and cross‐cultural psychology. Second, we review empirical evidence for six neural and biobehavioral functions of dance: (1) attentional focus/flow, (2) basic emotional experiences, (3) imagery, (4) communication, (5) self‐intimation, and (6) social cohesion. We discuss the reviewed evidence in relation to current debates in the field of empirical enquiry into the functions of human dance, questioning the positions that dance is (1) just for pleasure, (2) all about sex, (3) just for mood management and well‐being, and (4) for experts only.

Moved by stills: Kinesthetic sensory experiences in viewing dance photographs

Fine art can be visually pleasing or displeasing; moreover, it can touch us, move us, make us shiver or think. Thus, when looking at a piece of art, different sensory experiences may occur altogether in a multisensory cocktail. Still little is known about what evokes such particular multisensory experience in the art spectator. For instance, Calvo-Merino et al. (2008) found enhanced activity in visual and motor brain areas for dance movements that were liked more; however, these movements mostly consisted of vertical displacements of the dancers’ body. Therefore, we conducted a behavioural experiment to study the effect of apparent movement direction on the kinesthetic experience to visual stimuli. We further enquired where in the body participants felt their reactions. Participants rated their responses to a piloted collection of dance photographs which showed snapshots of either vertical or horizontal dance movements. Ratings were made on Likert-scales from 0–10, referring to the participants’ subjective experience (visual, kinesthetic, arousal, liking) and perception (difficulty, motion). We expected vertical displacements to enhance the kinesthetic experience in the passive viewer. Further, we compared dancers with non-dancers and Spanish with UK students. Our results confirmed that looking at stills of vertical movements increases kinesthetic sensation. We also found predicted cultural enhancement of the levels of subjective arousal responses in the Spanish sample. The differences between dancers and non-dancers were, however, smaller than expected. We will discuss these findings in view of the existing neuro-aesthetics (Calvo-Merino et al., 2010; Cross et al., 2011) and neuroscientific studies (Sedvalis and Keller, 2011) using dance to probe the mirror mechanism in action observation.