Individual Submission Summary
Share...

Direct link:

Political Attack Advertisements and Political Affiliation Modulate Cortical Intersubject Correlations Across the Moral Brain

Fri, May 25, 8:00 to 9:15, Hilton Old Town, Floor: M, Mozart II

Abstract

A broad framework for understanding communication as interbrain coupling has emerged in recent years, most notably in the work of Hasson and colleagues. According to this view, communication aligns brain states across individuals. This naturally raises the question whether the degree of synchronization across individuals is uniform, or more plausibly, whether it is affected by traits of the individual or the message. In the present study, which is grounded in a theoretical framework based on moral foundation theory, we scanned participants with varied political affiliations using fMRI while they watched and rated political advertisements from the 2016 US Presidential campaign. Focusing on a set of regions previously implicated in moral judgment, we found that indeed, cross-individual synchronization was modulated by both the political affiliation of the individuals and the political lean of the ads. Moreover, this modulation varied across brain regions in a complex pattern that suggests future research directions.

Authors