The present study investigates the neural pathways underlying individual susceptibility to affective or cognitive information in persuasive communication, also known as the structural matching effect. Expanding on the presumed involvement of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC) in persuasion, we hypothesized that the vMPFC contributes to the evaluation of persuasive information depending on its match with the recipient’s affective or cognitive predominance. During functional magnetic resonance imaging, 30 participants evaluated 10 consumable products presented with both affective and cognitive persuasive messages. All participants were characterized on a continuum regarding their personal orientation in terms of individual differences in need for affect (NFA) and need for cognition (NFC). The results showed that the vMPFC, posterior cingulate cortex, and cerebellum are more strongly activated when the persuasive message content, either affective or cognitive, matched the recipient’s individual affective or cognitive orientation. Interestingly, this effect in the vMPFC was found specifically when participants evaluated the products presented by the persuasive messages, whereas the correlation in the posterior cingulate cortex and cerebellum activity was detected when reading the messages. These results confirm the hypothesis that the vMPFC plays a role in subjectively weighting persuasive message content depending on individual differences in affective and cognitive orientation. Such a structural matching effect might involve the vMPFC particularly during explicit expressions of subjective valuations. These novel findings also further develop the conceptualization of the role of the vMPFC in self-related processing.

本研究调查了说服性沟通中个体对情感或认知信息易感性的神经通路，也称为结构匹配效应。扩大腹内侧前额叶皮层 (vMPFC) 在说服中的假定参与，我们假设 vMPFC 有助于评估说服信息，这取决于其与接受者的情感或认知优势的匹配。在功能性磁共振成像期间，30 名参与者评估了 10 种具有情感和认知说服力信息的消费品。所有参与者在他们的个人取向方面都有连续统一的特征，即情感需求 (NFA) 和认知需求 (NFC) 的个体差异。结果表明，vMPFC，当有说服力的信息内容（无论是情感的还是认知的）与接收者的个人情感或认知取向相匹配时，后扣带皮层和小脑的激活程度更高。有趣的是，当参与者评估有说服力的信息所呈现的产品时，特别发现了 vMPFC 中的这种影响，而在阅读信息时检测到后扣带皮层和小脑活动的相关性。这些结果证实了这样一个假设，即 vMPFC 在根据情感和认知方向的个体差异对说服性消息内容进行主观加权方面发挥作用。这种结构匹配效应可能涉及 vMPFC，尤其是在主观评价的明确表达期间。