Year: 2024
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Moral decision-making is one of the most fundamental and ubiquitous forms of decision-making in human society.The current thesis aims to investigate the role of expectation and speed in the cognitive mechanisms underlying moral decision-making.Previous research has indicated that predictive cues enhance preference and reduce response time for congruent targets during bivalent food evaluation, suggesting a confirmation bias.However, the influence of prior processing on subjective moral evaluation remains less explored.To explore the expectation effects, we used three different types of predictive cues to elicit directional versus non-predictive prior processing and then asked the participants to perform moral evaluations on a continuous scale from -10 ("very immoral") to +10("very moral") with a diverse set of real-world images.Our experimental image database balanced the morality of image content and the volatility of the ratings based on the means and standard deviations in a preliminary study.Ratings, response times, and gaze positions were measured to examine the effects of predictive cues on the moral evaluation of real-world images.We found that the moral ratings were in line with the expectations induced by the cues.Compared to the non-predictive condition, the moral evaluation in the directional conditions was more polarized.For neutral images, the predictive cues tilted the evaluations to positive versus negative, indicating a decisive liminal influence.Highvolatility images were impacted more than low-volatility images in ratings as well as response times.Furthermore, the gaze positions during the interval between the predictive contributed to my research journey.First of all, I want to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Pro.Johan Lauwereyns, for the confidence he has placed in me, his unwavering support, guidance, and invaluable insights throughout every stage of my study journey.Through his belief,
Author: 馬, 春宇
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7044755412