Disrupting the right prefrontal cortex alters moral judgement

Sebastien Tassy; Olivier Oullier; Yann Duclos; Olivier Coulon; Julien Mancini; Christine Deruelle; Shahram Attarian; Olivier Felician; Bruno Wicker

Disrupting the right prefrontal cortex alters moral judgement

Sebastien Tassy Olivier Oullier ¹ Yann Duclos ² Olivier Coulon ^{3, 4} Julien Mancini ^{5, 6, 7} Christine Deruelle ⁸ Shahram Attarian ⁹ Olivier Felician ¹⁰ Bruno Wicker ¹¹

1 LPC - Laboratoire de psychologie cognitive

2 PPPMP - Plasticité et physio-pathologie de la motricité (P3M)

3 INT - Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone

4 LSIS - Laboratoire des Sciences de l'Information et des Systèmes

5 SESSTIM - U912 INSERM - Aix Marseille Univ - IRD - Sciences Economiques et Sociales de la Santé & Traitement de l'Information Médicale

6 LERTIM - Laboratoire d'Enseignement et de Recherche sur le Traitement de l'Information Médicale

7 SSPIM - Service de Santé Publique et d'Information Médicale

8 INPC - Institut de Neurosciences Physiologiques et Cognitives

9 Service des maladies neuromusculaires

10 Service de neurologie et de neuropsychologie

11 INCM

INCM - Institut de neurosciences cognitives de la méditerranée - UMR 6193

Abstract : Humans daily face social situations involving conflicts between competing moral decision. Despite a substantial amount of studies published over the past 10 years, the respective role of emotions and reason, their possible interaction, and their behavioural expression during moral evaluation remains an unresolved issue. A dualistic approach to moral evaluation proposes that the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFc) controls emotional impulses. However, recent findings raise the possibility that the right DLPFc processes emotional information during moral decision making. We used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to transiently disrupt rDLPFc activity before measuring decision making in the context of moral dilemmas. Results reveal an increase of the probability of utilitarian responses during objective evaluation of moral dilemmas in the rTMS group (compared to a SHAM one). This suggests that the right DLPFc function not only participates to a rational cognitive control process, but also integrates emotions generated by contextual information appraisal, which are decisive for response selection in moral judgements.

Document type :

Journal articles

Domain :

Cognitive science / Psychology

Complete list of metadatas

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01439708
Contributor : Jean-Baptiste Melmi <>
Submitted on : Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - 5:07:16 PM
Last modification on : Tuesday, February 12, 2019 - 11:30:03 AM

Disrupting the right prefrontal cortex alters moral judgement

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Disrupting the right prefrontal cortex alters moral judgement

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