Attribution bias and event-related potential using a real-time based attribution experiment (the colour test)

Abstract

Attribution is a notable social cognition that underlies major psychopathologies such as depression and persecutory delusion. The purpose of present study was to investigate neural correlates of self, other, and situation attribution respectively, and to find out the neural base of self-serving bias through comparisons of extracted neural correlates of each attribution. The colour test was developed as a real-time based attribution experiment that could realize three types of attribution. Twenty healthy subjects informed that they would enter a color matching game with other two players who were connected online. Participants were asked to attribute the cause of win or loss to self, others or situation during event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. As a result, the fronto-central late positive complex (LPC) was extracted as a neural correlate of attribution. LPC amplitudes for the other-attribution were higher than LPCs for the self-attribution, and it suggested that other-attribution might demand more cognitive loads than self-attribution. LPC amplitudes of self-attribution for negative events were higher than those for positive events, and it suggested that the self-attribution might play a pivotal role in the self-serving bias. Applying this real-time based paradigm (colour test) to clinical population such as depression or paranoia patients would provide further insights for role of attribution in human psychopathologies.