Moral Reasoning: two competing processes for intention and outcome identified

In a recent study, by Young, Hauser et al at the Harvard University, the authors tried to experimentally determine whether there is an interaction between intention or belief regarding an action vis-a-vis the actual outcome of the action. For this they used fMRI scans in a 2x2 study involving (negative and neutral) beliefs versus (negative and neutral) outcomes wherein their could be four combination : (competent criminal) intent to harm plus actual harm; (incompetent criminal) intent to harm but no actual harm; (accidental harm) no intent to harm but actual harm and lastly (harmless act) neither intention to harm nor any actual harm. The figure below clarifies this in further detail using an example scenario that was presented to the participants and the participants asked to judge whether the conduct was proper or not and to judge the protagonist's action on a scale of 1..5 regarding whether it was morally permissible or not.




Before I proceed further I'll like to quote from the introduction :

In the common law tradition, criminal conviction depends on both a harmful consequence (actus reus) and the intent to harm (mens rea) . In violation of this foundational legal principle, however, are crimes of attempt. The incompetent criminal, for instance, who believes he has poisoned his victim but has instead administered only a harmless substance, can be convicted in a court of law. This poses a challenge to the philosophy of law: is the basis of criminality an act that causes harm, or an act undertaken with the belief that one will cause harm? We pursue a novel approach to this question based on the burgeoning research into the neurocognitive mechanisms of moral judgment, much of which has emphasized the role of multiple interacting systems . Specifically, we suggest that the apparent philosophical conflict between actus reus and crimes of attempt reflects the operation and integration of distinct mechanisms responsible for the processing of information about consequences and beliefs in the service of moral judgment.

To sum up the papers' findings:

1. They referred to earlier developmental results in children and adults that suggest that children form moral judgments on the basis of outcomes (they will condemn a negative act even if the intention was neutral or even positive) while in adults intention along with outcomes is taken into consideration to form moral judgments.

From a developmental perspective, integrating information about mental states and outcomes presents a particular challenge for young children. When moral scenarios present conflicting information about the outcome of an action and the intention of the actor, young children's moral judgments and justifications are determined by the action's outcome rather than the actor's intention . For example, a person who intends to direct a traveler to the right location but accidentally misdirects him is judged by young children to be "naughtier" than a person who intends to misdirect a passerby but accidentally directs him to the right place . As children mature, they become progressively more likely to make the opposite judgment . Although subsequent research has revealed that young children can use information about intentions to make moral distinctions when consequences are held constant between scenarios , older children have consistently shown greater sensitivity to information about intentions. What develops then is not just "theory of mind," or the ability to represent the mental states of others, but the ability to integrate this information with information about consequences in the context of moral judgment . Developmental evidence thus suggests that mature moral judgments depend crucially on the cognitive processes responsible for representing and integrating information about beliefs and outcomes.

2. They found using fMRI scans that the Right temporo-parietal Junction (RTPJ) was differentially engaged during the above four cases or combinations of intent and outcome. In particular RTPJ showed maximum activation in cases of attempted harm wherein intention to harm was present but the outcome was still positive. The participants condemned the action despite there be no actual harm and this was reflected in higher activations of RTPJ. It is instructive to note the RTPJ is responsible for belief attributions. Thus, this suggests that there are independent moral judgment functions- one dependent on actions and the other on outcomes.

At the broadest level, the results of the current study suggest that moral judgments depend on the cognitive processes mediated by the RTPJ, previously associated with belief attribution, and, to a lesser extent, the PC, LTPJ, and MPFC, which compose a network of brain regions implicated in theory of mind. Specifically, the results reveal significantly above-baseline activation of the RTPJ for all four conditions (intentional harm, attempted harm, unknowing harm, and all-neutral), highlighting the role of belief attribution during moral judgment. Importantly, however, brain regions involved in belief attribution were not recruited indiscriminately across conditions. In particular, we found a selective increase in the response for the case of attempted harm, in which the protagonist believed that he would harm someone but in fact did not. The differential neural response between experimental conditions suggests an unequal contribution of belief attribution to moral judgment depending not only on what the protagonist believes, as might be expected, but also on the consequences of the protagonist's behavior. This result offers a new perspective on the integration of information about beliefs and consequences in moral judgment, the focus of our discussion.

3. They found that accidental harm (unlucky innocents) did not recruit the same brain areas (RTPJ) to that large an extent as attempted harm (incompetent criminal). This was despite the protagonists being judged harsher in accidental harm condition vis-a-vis the neutral case (no bad intention and no actual harm). This suggests that another independent moral judgment function is active and which relies on outcome assessment.

The behavioral data suggest that, across conditions, moral judgment is determined primarily by belief information, consistent with the robust RTPJ response for all four conditions. An interesting asymmetry emerged, however, for cases in which belief and outcome information were in conflict, as in situations of attempted harm and unknowing harm. We found that subjects' moral judgments were determined solely by belief in the case of attempted harm but not unknowing harm. That is, attempted harm (e.g., putting sugar in a friend's coffee believing it to be poison) was judged fully forbidden, just as though the protagonist had successfully produced the negative outcome of the friend's death. By contrast, moral judgment of unknowing harm appeared to depend on both the outcome of the action and on the belief state of the actor. Unknowing harm (e.g., putting poison in a friend's coffee believing it to be sugar) was not judged fully permissible, as compared with the all-neutral condition, in which the protagonist held a neutral belief and produced a neutral outcome.

I find this exciting because I have blogged about this previously in my posts relating to Universal Moral Grammar. In particular I had speculated on there being an Intention predicate, an Action Predicate and a Outcome or Consequence predicate that form this moral grammar. These predicates would each be evaluated separately and independent of each other and their combination would lead to different moral judgments. It is exciting to see that two independent processes related to Intention and Outcome predicate , along with their neural correlates have already been identified. It would only be some time soon that people would also start finding that the nature of the Action undertaken also affects the Moral Judgment to a great extent. The case I can think is that instead of putting poison in the coffee, let us say that the death method was more violent and gory (cutting the throat very slowly while the person is bound). Although the outcome is same, the nature of action would differentially affect the judgments we have towards the protagonists. I would love to see further studies in this direction.

Tags: moral sense

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Mouse Trap's First Blogiversary

Due to some unavoidable business (I have to keep my day job to be able to blog to my heart's pleasure) I have not been regular in writing posts and I apologize to the regular readers of the blog for the same.

This small post is just to commemorate the first blogiversay of The Mouse Trap. I hope yopu have enjoyed the journey so far and would continue patronising this blog.

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The contextual effects on eating

As per a new study, by Cornell researchers Brian Wansink et al, people can be induced to eat less, if leftovers are left unbused at their tables and in their full view. It is hypothesized that the leftovers serve as reminders of how much a person has already eaten and thus lead to less consumption. The consumption difference varied by as much as 27% between those whose tables had been bused and those whose hadn't.

This is an interesting study with practical implication for those keen on limiting their eating/ drinking . Prof Brian proposes that each drink be served in a new disposable glass and the used glass stacked inf front of the drinker, to limit consumption.

I recall that the same group had done some clever experiments earlier, involving 'bottomless soup bowls', that demonstrated that people consumed significantly greater amount of soup, when their soup bowls were filled without their knowledge. All these experiments demonstrate the power of situation/ context to determine our eating and drinking behavior. Being aware of this may help us overcome our natural biases and tendencies, although on the other hand these may be used by the restaurant owners to induce us to eat more than warranted. From now on , if you are on a dieting schedule, go to a restaurant whose service is poor and who leave tables unbused with leftovers visible!

Tags: eating

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Encephalon #20 is online now!

Catch your latest edition of Encephalon at the Nurontic blog. Orli does a good job of presenting posts as varied as reporting on an inverse relation between neurogenesis and working memory to speculation on how one may replicate one's consciousness in a machine.

Tags: blogs, carnival

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Yellow - Off, Blue - On: A new neural code that could help epileptics

While there has been some work on a light therapy for Bipolar disorder, and specifically limiting exposure to blue light to keep the circadian clock in check; this time the effects of blue and yellow pulses of light , deep inside the brain, as investigated by an MIT team, have resulted in a promising treatment for epilepsy.

Epilepsy, as we all know , is caused by excitation of neurons at a focal point and the subsequent spreading of that activation, so that all or a majority of neurons get excited at the same time. The normal treatment , in case the epileptic fits become life threatening, is neurosurgery, or removing the brain area around the focal point.

This research has focused on the effects of yellow pulses of light, inside the brain , on neurons engineered to express the halorhodopsin gene, a gene that responds to yellow light by opening the chloride ion channels. This results in a hyperpolarisation of the cell and thus ensures that the neuron doesn't fire easily. I believe they have performed the experiments in laboratory cultures (in vitro) and plan to replicate on transgenic mice containing this gene, so it is a long haul from here to some actual treatment options for epileptics. Still the possible applications are fascinating:

Many epilepsy patients have implanted electrodes that periodically give their brains an electric jolt, acting as a defibrillator to shut down overactive neurons. This new research opens up the possibility of an optical implant that could do the same thing, using light instead of electricity. The Media Lab neuroengineering group plans to start studying such devices in transgenic mice this year.

Thus we have a radically new treatment option for epilepsy. It is also pertinent to note that the same group had earlier identified a mechanism whereby blue pulses of light could lead to excitation of the brain. thus, with appropriate implants in the brain, one can , using light, control the excitation and inhibition of neuronal circuits. What advantages these offer over traditional electrode implants needs to be seen.

The group also plans to use the new method to study neural circuits. Last year, Boyden devised a technique to stimulate neurons by shining blue light on them, so with blue and yellow light the researchers can now exert exquisite control over the stimulation and inhibition of individual neurons.

Lets hope they succeed in their efforts, not only to help epileptics with non-surgical treatments, but also to more deeply 'see' the neural circuits and the neural codes.

Tags: epilepsy

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Beware of the mouse who knows when it is in a trap (or den or nest or bed)

We all know that even a mouse is a tiger in its own den. But for that mouse to become a tiger it must have an awareness of when it is in a den and when it is'nt. Till now, knowledge of abstract concepts like a den or a nest or a bed or a mouse-trap were limited to humans and higher primates. Mice, being such lowly creatures, were not supposed to have abstract concepts and though they may remember a particular den or nest as their own, when placed in a new nest they would supposedly be not aware that the enclosure/ furniture can serve as a nest. To put things simply, they were not supposed to identify objects based on their functionality. If one changed the shape or size of the nest, or the construction material, then they were supposed to get confused and would have not able to still identify the object as a nest or a bed.

All that has become history now, with a new study (pdf) that clearly demonstrates that the mice have abstract concepts in their mind and that specific neurons in the hippocampal area fire when the mouse is in a bed or is entering / exploring one. We already know that we have place cells in hippocampus that fire when a mouse is in a particular location in space and that these are tied to episodic memory. Hippocampus has also been involved in learning mechanisms and it is only appropriate that we discover concept cells in hippocampus that fire when different concepts like bed/ nest/ trap are encountered. And of course we also know of Halle Barre neurons in fusiform gyrus that fire when viewing a particular face.

In this study,the authors found that there were three kind of cells in the CA1 region of the hippocampus, that had distinct firing patterns related to the concept of nests. Whenever a mouse encountered a nest , the transient-on class would increase their rate of firing. If the mouse was not facing the nest, then these cells would not fire; only when the mouse was facing and about to enter the nest were these neurons firing. The second group of neurons were the persistent-on ones, which would fire at a very high rate once the mouse was in the nest and would continue to do so till the time the mouse left the nest. The third type were juts the opposite of these - the persistent- off ones that ceased their normal firing rate, once the mouse entered the nest. Perhaps the rat have not only a concept of nest , but also of not-nest. The base firing of the persistent-off neurons may be a signaling mechanism within the mice brains to indicate that the mice is not in a potentially homely place.

You can read more about the study at the Neurophilosopher (and there you'll also find a great video of a mouse in the study exploring the nest, along with firing neurons) , but what I am amazed is that inst it logical then that the mice also have a concept of a trap - a potentially dangerous enclosure. And whatever variations we may make, isn't it evident that just like we can recognize a trap in its various guises, the mice too can. Making them of wood or metal or of different sizes should not matter. Thus, if the mouse has been exposed to a trap once, there is no use trying to lure it in trap of different type? But maybe I'm just being pessimistic; maybe the lesson we can draw from this study is to make the traps similar to their 'nests', so that they are comfortable and eager to enter in the trap. At long last a study that leads to better mouse traps!

Tags: neuroscience

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Depression, Neurogenesis and Spatial navigation

We all know that hippocampus is the seat of both memory as well as spatial abilities (cognitive map theory). We also know that most of the neurogeneisis in adult humans happens in hippocmapus. We also know that depression is caused by stress and both stress and depression lead to or are correlated with reduced neurogeneisis in the hippocmapus (my learning helplessness theory of depression) .

Now a new study has found that depressed people have impaired spatial navigation abilities. Putting 2 and 2 together it is highly plausible that this relationship between depression and impaired spatial navigation is mediated by the reduced neurogeneies or atrophy in hippocampus.

Relatedly, a good article (pdf) regarding how new anti-depressants are targeting neurogenesis in hippocampus as a mechanism to alleviate depression.

Three cheers to the cognitive map theory- the focus with which this blog started!!

Hat Tip: BPS Research Digest

Tags: cognitive map, depression, neurogeneisis

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Simulating the future and remebering the past: Are we prediction machines?

This post is about an article by Schacter et al (pdf) regarding how the constructiveness of memories may crucially be due to the need to simulate future scenarios. But before I go to the main course, I would like to touch upon a starter: Jeff Hawkins Heirarchical Temporla Memory (HTM) hypothesis. I would recommend that you watch this excellent video.

As per Jeff Hawkins, we humans are basically prediction machines, constantly predicting the external causes and our responses to them. Traditionally, the behaviorist account has been that we are nothing but a bundle of associations- either conditioned pavlovian associations between stimuli and stimulus-response or a skinerrian association between our operant actions and environmental rewards. Thus every behavior we indulge in is guided by our memory of past associations and the impending stimulus. Jeff Hawkins refines this by postulating that we are not passive responders to environmental stimuli, but actively predict what future causes (stimuli) are expected and what our response to those stimuli may be. Thus in his HTM model, the memory of past events not only exerts influence via a bottom up process of responding to impending stimulus; but it is also used for a top-down expectation or prediction of incoming stimulus and our responses to it. Thus, we are also prediction machines constantly using our memory to predict future outcomes and our possible responses.

Now lets get back to the original Schacter article. Here is the abstract:

Episodic memory is widely conceived as a fundamentally constructive, rather than reproductive, process that is prone to various kinds of errors and illusions. With a view toward examining the functions served by a constructive episodic memory system, we consider recent neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies indicating that some types of memory distortions reflect the operation of adaptive processes. An important function of a constructive episodic memory is to allow individuals to simulate or imagine future episodes, happenings, and scenarios. Because the future is not an exact repetition of the past, simulation of future episodes requires a system that can draw on the past in a manner that flexibly extracts and re-combines elements of previous experiences. Consistent with this constructive episodic simulation hypothesis, we consider cognitive, neuropsychological, and neuroimaging evidence showing that there is considerable overlap in the psychological and neural processes involved in remembering the past and imagining the future.

As per the paper the same brain areas and mechanisms are involved in both remembering a past event and imagining a future one - and the regions involved include the hippocampus. These findings in itself are not so fascinating, but the argument that Schacter et al give for , as to why, the same regions are involved in both memory retrieval and future imaginings, and how this leads to confabulations and false recognitions is very fascinating. As per them , because we need to simulate the future events, and as the future events are never an exact replica of past events, hence we do not store the past events verbatim, but store a gist of the event, so that we can recombine the nebulous gist to create different possible future scenarios. Due to this fact (the need for simulation of future events), the memory is not perfect, and in normal individuals it is possible that they confabulate (attribute the source of their memory erroneously) or make false recognitions on memory tests like the DRM.

Fisrt a bit of background on DRM paradigm. In this test, a list of related words are presented to a subject: eg yawn, bed, night, pillow, dream, rest etc. All of these relate to the theme of sleep. Later in a recall test, when this thematically related word is presented to normal subjects, they most often say that they had encountered the word sleep earlier. However given an unrelated word like hunger, most are liable to recognize that the word was not encountered previously. What Schachter et al found was , that in those subjects that had damage to hippocampus/ other memory areas and were amnesics, this effect of confabulating the gist word was reduced. In other words, those with brain damage to memory areas were less likely to say that they had encountered the related word sleep during the original trial. this, despite their poor performance in overall remembering of old list items as compared to controls. This clearly indicates that remembering the gist vis-a-vis details is very important memory mechanism.

I believe that we should also take into account the prototype versus exemplar differences in categorization between the males and females into account here. I would be very interested to know whether the data collected showed the expected differences between males and females and hopefully the results are not confounded due to not taking this gender difference into account.

Anyway , returning to the experimental methodology, another sticking point seems to be the extending of results obtained with semantic memory (like that for word lists) to episodic memory.

Keeping that aside, the gist and false recognition data results clearly indicate that the constructive nature of memory is an adaptation (it is present in normal subjects) and is disrupted in amnesics/ people with dementia.

Thus, now that it is established that memory is reconstructive and that this reconstruction is adaptive, the question arises why it is reconstructive and not reproductive. To this Schacter answers that it is because the same brain mechanism used for reconstructing memory from gist are also used for imagining or simulating future scenario. They present ample neuropsychological, neuroimaging and cognitive evidence on this and I find that totally convincing.

The foregoing research not only provides insights into the constructive nature of episodic memory, but also provides some clues regarding the functional basis of constructive memory processes. Although memory errors such as false recognition may at first seem highly dysfunctional, especially given the havoc that memory distortions can wreak in real-world contexts (Loftus 1993; Schacter 2001), we have seen that they sometimes reflect the ability of a normally functioning memory system to store and retrieve general similarity or gist information, and that false recognition errors often recruit some of the same processes that support accurate memory decisions. Indeed, several researchers have argued that the memory errors involving forgetting or distortion serve an adaptive role.

However, future events are rarely, if ever, exact replicas of past events. Thus, a memory system that simply stored rote records of what happened in the past would not be well-suited to simulating future events, which will likely share some similarities with past events while differing in other respects. We think that a system built along the lines of the constructive principles that we and other have attributed to episodic memory is better suited to the job of simulating future happenings. Such a system can draw on elements of the past and retain the general sense or gist of what has happened. Critically, it can flexibly extract, recombine, and reassemble these elements in a way that allows us to simulate, imagine, or ‘pre-experience’ (Atance & O’Neill 2001) events that have never occurred previously in the exact form in which we imagine them. We will refer to this idea as the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis: the constructive nature of episodic memory is attributable, at least in part, to the role of the episodic system in allowing us to mentally simulate our personal futures.

I'll finally like to end with the conclusions the author drew:

In a thoughtful review that elucidates the relation between, and neural basis of, remembering the past and thinking about the future, Buckner and Carroll (2007) point out that neural regions that show common activation for past and future tasks closely resemble those that are activated during “theory of mind” tasks, where individuals simulate the mental states of other people (e.g., Saxe & Kanwisher 2003). Buckner and Carroll note that such findings suggest that the commonly activated regions may be specialized for, and engaged by, mental acts that require the projection of oneself in another time, place, or perspective”, resembling what Tulving (1985) referred to as autonoetic consciousness.

This Seems to be a very promising direction. The 'another time and place' can normally be simulated withing hippocampus that also specializes in cognitive maps. We may use the cognitive maps to not only remember past events, but also simulate new events. In this respect the importance of dreams may be paramount. Dreams (and asleep) may be the mechanism whose primary purpose is not memory consolidation; rather I suspect that the primary function of dreams is to work on the gist of the memory from the previous day, simulate possible future scenarios, and then keep in store those memories that would help and are likely to be encountered in future. Thus, while dreaming we are basically predicting future scenarios and sorting information as per their future relevance. Not a particularly path-breaking hypothesis, but I'm not aware of any thinking is this direction. Do let me know of any other similar hypothesis regarding the function of dream as predictors and not merely as consolidators.

Tags: memory, sleep, cognition

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