Poster No:
634
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Duo Li1, Yuan Cao2, Bryant Hui1, Ping Li1, Hui Zhang1, David H.K. Shum1
Institutions:
1The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China, 2The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
First Author:
Duo Li
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hong Kong, China
Co-Author(s):
Yuan Cao
The University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong, China
Bryant Hui
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hong Kong, China
Ping Li
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hong Kong, China
Hui Zhang
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hong Kong, China
Introduction:
Prosociality refers to voluntary intentions and behaviors intended to benefit others, which can be subdivided into helping, sharing, and comforting based on the different needs of recipients. According to a recent meta-analysis (Li et al., 2024), as people grow older, they tend to act more prosocially in sharing, but not in helping or comforting. This age difference in prosociality at the behavioral level may be associated with attentional shifts and neural changes. However, few studies have been conducted to investigate the attentional and neural mechanisms underlying the age difference in prosociality. Therefore, the current study aimed to compare eye movement and brain activation patterns of prosociality in older adults and young adults to enhance our understanding of why older adults become more prosocial in certain domains.
Methods:
Thirty-five young (aged 18 to 31) and 35 older adults (aged 60 to 72) completed a modified version of the Picture-based Measure of Prosociality (PB-Prosocial), which comprehensively covers helping, sharing, and comforting (Li et al., 2024). Participants viewed photos showing people in need of helping, sharing, or comforting and rated their likelihood of acting prosocially while their brain activation was recorded via fMRI and visual attention via eye-tracker. The time spent dwelling on the areas of interest in the pictures, the number of fixations within these areas, and the number of saccades were calculated as indicators of visual attention. Whole-brain analysis and psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analysis were conducted to reveal the neural mechanisms of prosociality. Additionally, correlations between self-reported prosociality, visual attention, and brain activations were examined to the explore potential relationships among them.
Results:
At the behavioral level, older adults reported more likelihood of helping, but not sharing or comforting, compared with young adults. Eye-tracking results indicated that older adults spent more time attending to the recipients in helping condition, but not in sharing or comforting conditions, compared to young adults. At the neural level, older adults showed similar brain activation to young adults during helping. However, they showed decreased activation in anterior cingulate cortex and right middle temporal gyrus (MTG) during sharing, and decreased activation in middle frontal gyrus, left postcentral gyrus, and right middle temporal gyrus during comforting. In pairwise comparisons of the three types of prosociality, no significant clusters were found in young adults. In contrast, older adults had greater activation in the right MTG during helping compared to sharing. Regarding PPI, older adults showed decreased connectivity between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and the left middle frontal gyrus during sharing, while exhibiting increased connectivity between the midcingulate cortex and the left middle occipital gyrus during comforting. Brain-behavior correlations indicated that in young adults, activations in the midcingulate cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex were positively correlated with self-reported helping. In older adults, activation in dlPFC was negatively correlated with self-reported comforting.
Conclusions:
Using a picture-based approach, we found that older adults were more likely to help compared to young adults, but similarly likely to share or to comfort. The more helping in older adults could be attributed to the more attention they paid to the recipients during picture viewing. At the neural level, older adults had decreased activation in several brain regions associated with empathy and decision making, this suggested different strategies in using brain resources. The neural representation of prosociality may be more differentiated in older adults compared to young adults. Overall, this study advances understanding of the neural and attentional mechanisms underlying prosociality in older adults.
Emotion, Motivation and Social Neuroscience:
Social Cognition 1
Higher Cognitive Functions:
Decision Making
Lifespan Development:
Aging 2
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Activation (eg. BOLD task-fMRI)
Perception, Attention and Motor Behavior:
Attention: Visual
Keywords:
Aging
Other - Prosociality; Eye-tracking
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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Please indicate below if your study was a "resting state" or "task-activation” study.
Task-activation
Healthy subjects only or patients (note that patient studies may also involve healthy subjects):
Healthy subjects
Was this research conducted in the United States?
No
Were any human subjects research approved by the relevant Institutional Review Board or ethics panel?
NOTE: Any human subjects studies without IRB approval will be automatically rejected.
Yes
Were any animal research approved by the relevant IACUC or other animal research panel?
NOTE: Any animal studies without IACUC approval will be automatically rejected.
Not applicable
Please indicate which methods were used in your research:
Functional MRI
Behavior
Other, Please specify
-
Eye-tracking
For human MRI, what field strength scanner do you use?
3.0T
Which processing packages did you use for your study?
SPM
Provide references using APA citation style.
Li, D., Cao, Y., Hui, B. P. H., Shum, D. H. K. (2024). Development and Validation of a Picture-based Measure of Prosociality. [Manuscript submitted for publication]
Li, D., Cao, Y., Hui, B. P. H., Shum, D. H. K. (2024). Are older adults more prosocial than younger adults? A systematic review and meta-analysis. The Gerontologist, 64(9).
No