来源: 生物谷, 时间: 2010-11-02, 关注 945 ℃
大脑活动的差异可能把一场策略性游戏中虚张声势的人和诚实行动的人区分开来。策略性欺骗——诸如在纸牌游戏中虚张声势——需要一个人对自己在他人心目中的形象有一个复杂的理解和操纵。为了确定用操纵他人从而获利的意愿和能力的个体差异是否能够在人类大脑中显现出来，Read Montague及其同事使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）观测了76人玩60轮讨价还价博弈的时候的大脑。
这组科学家发现，有意识地去欺骗他们的对手的参与者在与做出复杂决定、维持目标以及理解他人信仰有关的大脑区域显示出了独特的大脑活动。这组作者说，对其中30位参与者的智力测试表明智商本身并不能说明行为的差异。
这些发现提示，独特的神经特征可能把诚实的人与那些有能力和意愿操纵自己在他人心目中形象的人区分开来。这组作者报告说，这种特征可能有助于诊断和治疗精神疾病的患者。
英文摘要：
PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1009625107
Neural signatures of strategic types in a two-person bargaining game
Meghana A. Bhatta, Terry Lohrenza, Colin F. Camererb, and P. Read Montaguea,c,1
The management and manipulation of our own social image in the minds of others requires difficult and poorly understood computations. One computation useful in social image management is strategic deception: our ability and willingness to manipulate other people's beliefs about ourselves for gain. We used an interpersonal bargaining game to probe the capacity of players to manage their partner's beliefs about them. This probe parsed the group of subjects into three behavioral types according to their revealed level of strategic deception; these types were also distinguished by neural data measured during the game. The most deceptive subjects emitted behavioral signals that mimicked a more benign behavioral type, and their brains showed differential activation in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and left Brodmann area 10 at the time of this deception. In addition, strategic types showed a significant correlation between activation in the right temporoparietal junction and expected payoff that was absent in the other groups. The neurobehavioral types identified by the game raise the possibility of identifying quantitative biomarkers for the capacity to manipulate and maintain a social image in another person's mind.