Cross-cultural Differences in the Neurophysiological Correlations of Processing Positive and Negative Feedbacks: An ERP Study

Yuan-Yuan YOU lin -zhang

Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2020, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (2) : 393-401.

PDF(863 KB)
PDF(863 KB)
Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2020, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (2) : 393-401.

Cross-cultural Differences in the Neurophysiological Correlations of Processing Positive and Negative Feedbacks: An ERP Study

  • 1,Yuan-Yuan YOUlin -zhang3
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Abstract

In the process of human evolution, negative stimuli are often closely related to events that threaten human life. Human beings have special sensitivity to negative stimuli for the purpose of protecting life and adapting to survival. Negative stimuli have a certain priority in cognitive processing and are often of widespread concern to researchers. With the rise of positive psychology, positive stimuli are getting more and more attention. Positive stimuli are of great significance to the development of individuals and their adaptation to social life. They can usually promote cognitive processing in individuals. Therefore, in recent years, positive stimuli and cognition and other related topics have been widely researched by researchers. However, how people from different cultures react to positive stimulus similarly and differently has not been adequately studied. To fill this gap in the field, we examined cross-cultural differences in the neural physiological responses to different reward feedbacks by using the event-related potentials (ERPs) measurement in the present study. In this study, a total of 28 Chinese and 24 White Caucasian participants were recruited. The Door Task was used to examine the positive and negative feedback in different cultural groups. Continuous EEG was recorded after participants received different feedbacks. Feedback-related negativity(FRN) is a negative component occurring at approximately 200-300ms post stimulus presentation. FRN is related to positive and negative feedbacks and may reflects the expectation and evaluation of results. As a later ERP positive component, P3 is related to the valence and intensity of the reward and usually reflects a more exquisite assessment of the outcome, especially when encoding the motivational meaning of the outcome. As the typical biomarkers of reward processing, cross-cultural differences in the early ERP components (e.g., FRN) and later ERP components (e.g., P3) were examined. Results showed that negative feedback elicited more negative average amplitudes of FRN than in positive feedback condition in Chinese cultural group. There were no significant differences in the area amplitudes of FRN in Caucasians groups. The average amplitudes of P3 were larger in positive feedback condition than in negative feedback condition. In positive feedback condition, the amplitudes of P3 were lager in Chinese than in Caucasians. In negative feedback condition, there were no significant differences in the area amplitudes of P3 between two groups. For both cultural groups, the average amplitudes of P3 were lager in positive feedback condition than in negative feedback condition. In the present study, cross-cultural differences in reward feedback processing were mainly reflected in P3 component, while there was no difference in FRN between Caucasians and Chinese. The differences of individual reward processing in different cultural backgrounds are mainly reflected in positive feedback conditions. Activation of FRN component, as an indicator of avoidant response to stimulus, is related to BIS system, while P3 component is related to individual's motivation to approach, reflecting the activation of BAS system. Therefore, cross-cultural differences in reward feedback processing among individuals of different cultures are likely to be reflected in differences in BAS system rather than BIS system. Findings indicated that Chinese might have higher sensitivity to positive feedback stimuli. The significantly different electrical response characteristics show that the processing for positive and negative feedback stimuli are closely related to the culture context.

Key words

cross-cultural differences / positive stimuli processing / reward feedback / ERPs

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Yuan-Yuan YOU lin -zhang. Cross-cultural Differences in the Neurophysiological Correlations of Processing Positive and Negative Feedbacks: An ERP Study[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2020, 43(2): 393-401
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