The psychological nature of the association between MPFC modulation and social evaluation remains poorly understood. Despite confounds, small samples, and mixed results in existing research, MPFC activation is often interpreted as a reflection of socioemotional association and/or perceived similarity between the self and an evaluation target. The present research addressed issues from the existing literature by examining whether MPFC is modulated by (a) socioemotional associations unconfounded by previous knowledge (memory effects (Study 1, N = 48), repetition suppression (Study 2, N = 43), multi-voxel pattern analysis (Study 1 & 2)) and (b) perceived similarity to self (Study 2). MPFC was modulated by self-reference and trait-relevance, but there was not significant empirical support for the interpretation that MPFC modulation reflects socioemotional association or perceived similarity. These findings highlight the weak basis for prevailing assumptions about the psychological significance of MPFC in social evaluation and the need for studies which test multiple mechanisms.

中文翻译：

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重新考虑关于内侧前额叶皮层 (MPFC) 在社会评价中的作用的长期假设

MPFC 调制与社会评价之间关联的心理性质仍然知之甚少。尽管在现有研究中存在混淆、小样本和混合结果，但 MPFC 激活通常被解释为社会情感关联和/或自我与评估目标之间感知相似性的反映。本研究通过检查 MPFC 是否受 (a) 不受先前知识（记忆效应（研究 1，N = 48）、重复抑制（研究 2，N = 43）、多体素模式分析（研究 1 和 2））和（b）感知到的自我相似性（研究 2）。MPFC 受自我参照和特征相关性调节，但是对于 MPFC 调制反映社会情感关联或感知相似性的解释没有显着的实证支持。这些发现强调了关于 MPFC 在社会评估中的心理意义的普遍假设的薄弱基础，以及测试多种机制的研究的必要性。