Two social minds in one brain? error-related negativity provides evidence for parallel processing pathways during...

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Evaluative Conditioning (EC) is often assumed to rely solely on propositional thinking.
• Dual-process theories propose both associative and propositional pathways contribute to EC.
• Attitudinal ambiguity, arising from conflicting evaluations, suggests the involvement of automatic and controlled processes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate associative-propositional ambiguity in social attitude formation.
• To utilize self-reported evaluation, categorization performance, and neural correlates of performance monitoring.
• To explore the neural underpinnings of attitudinal ambiguity in EC.

Main Methods:

• Utilized self-reported evaluations and categorization performance.
• Measured neural correlates of performance monitoring, specifically error-related negativity (ERN) and error-positivity (EP).
• Compared conditions of associative-propositional harmony versus ambiguity during social attitude formation.

Main Results:

• Attitudinal ambiguity correlated with more neutral subjective evaluations.
• Increased response times and higher error commission were observed during attitudinal ambiguity.
• Diminished error-related negativity amplitudes were associated with attitudinal ambiguity, indicating altered performance monitoring.

Conclusions:

• Findings align with dual-process models of EC, supporting the interplay of associative and propositional pathways.
• Attitudinal ambiguity is associated with specific behavioral and neural markers.
• The study offers a propositional interpretation and discusses the role of associative processes within a broader evolutionary context.