Contextual and Perceptual Brain Processes Underlying Moral Cognition: A Quantitative Meta-Analysis of Moral Reasoning and Moral Emotions

Background and ObjectivesHuman morality has been investigated using a variety of tasks ranging from judgments of hypothetical dilemmas to viewing morally salient stimuli. These experiments have provided insight into neural correlates of moral judgments and emotions, yet these approaches reveal important differences in moral cognition. Moral reasoning tasks require active deliberation while moral emotion tasks involve the perception of stimuli with moral implications. We examined convergent and divergent brain activity associated with these experimental paradigms taking a quantitative meta-analytic approach.Data SourceA systematic search of the literature yielded 40 studies. Studies involving explicit decisions in a moral situation were categorized as active (n = 22); studies evoking moral emotions were categorized as passive (n = 18). We conducted a coordinate-based meta-analysis using the Activation Likelihood Estimation to determine reliable patterns of brain activity.Results & ConclusionsResults revealed a convergent pattern of reliable brain activity for both task categories in regions of the default network, consistent with the social and contextual information processes supported by this brain network. Active tasks revealed more reliable activity in the temporoparietal junction, angular gyrus and temporal pole. Active tasks demand deliberative reasoning and may disproportionately involve the retrieval of social knowledge from memory, mental state attribution, and construction of the context through associative processes. In contrast, passive tasks reliably engaged regions associated with visual and emotional information processing, including lingual gyrus and the amygdala. A laterality effect was observed in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, with active tasks engaging the left, and passive tasks engaging the right. While overlapping activity patterns suggest a shared neural network for both tasks, differential activity suggests that processing of moral input is affected by task demands. The results provide novel insight into distinct features of moral cognition, including the generation of moral context through associative processes and the perceptual detection of moral salience.研究背景与研究目的：过往研究已通过多种任务范式探究人类道德认知，涵盖假设性两难情境判断、道德凸显刺激观看等方向。此类实验虽为道德判断与情绪的神经关联提供了重要洞见，但不同实验范式所揭示的道德认知机制存在显著差异：道德推理任务需要个体进行主动审慎思考，而道德情绪任务仅涉及对带有道德内涵的刺激的感知。本研究采用定量元分析方法，探究这两类实验范式对应的大脑活动的收敛与分歧模式。 数据来源：通过对已有文献进行系统检索，最终纳入40项相关研究。其中，涉及道德情境下显性决策的研究被归类为主动任务（n=22）；引发道德情绪的研究被归类为被动任务（n=18）。本研究采用基于坐标的元分析方法，结合激活似然估计（Activation Likelihood Estimation），以确定可靠的大脑活动模式。 结果与结论：结果显示，两类任务均在默认网络（default network）脑区呈现出可靠的大脑活动收敛模式，这与该脑网络支持社会与情境信息加工的功能相符。主动任务在颞顶联合区（temporoparietal junction）、角回（angular gyrus）及颞极（temporal pole）中展现出更强的可靠激活。主动任务需要审慎推理过程，可能更多依赖从记忆中提取社会知识、心理状态归因，以及通过联想过程构建情境。与之相对，被动任务则可靠激活与视觉及情绪信息加工相关的脑区，包括舌回（lingual gyrus）与杏仁核（amygdala）。在背内侧前额叶皮层（dorsomedial prefrontal cortex）中观察到偏侧化效应：主动任务激活左侧脑区，而被动任务激活右侧脑区。尽管两类任务存在重叠的激活模式，提示二者共享一套神经基础，但差异激活模式表明，道德信息的加工过程会受到任务要求的影响。本研究结果为道德认知的差异化特征提供了全新视角，包括通过联想过程构建道德情境，以及对道德凸显性的感知识别。