Neuropsychologia
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Previous studies have shown that generosity is driven by empathy and that both generosity in economic sharing behavior and monetary loss empathy decay as the social distance increases. However, it is still unclear whether this decay in economic sharing generosity can be influenced by the decay in monetary loss empathy. In the current study, we carried out two experiments to investigate this issue to deepen our understanding of the relationship between monetary loss empathy and generosity in economic sharing behavior. ⋯ However, in the execution group (executors play a gambling game themselves and watch a stranger play the same gambling game), there was no significant correlation between ln(k) and the distinction of d-FRN between self and strangers. Current results indicate that the decayed generosity across different social distances in economic sharing behavior can be modulated by the decayed monetary loss empathy. The study adds weight to the relationship between decayed monetary loss empathy and decayed generosity in sharing economic behavior at the level of social distance and provides electrophysiological evidence.
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Analogical reasoning involves mapping the relation between two concepts within a specific field into a new domain to selectively retrieve a possible solution. Neuroimaging studies have shown that both selective retrieval and reasoning by analogy are related to activity in prefrontal regions such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). In the present study, we investigate the role of the right DLPFC in modulating memory accessibility and its impact on analogical reasoning by using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). ⋯ The results reveal that whereas the sham group showed the expected cost in performance that is associated with selective retrieval, the cathodal group did not exhibit such an impairment in reasoning. No general effects of tDCS on analogical performance were observed. Altogether, our results support the involvement of the right DLPFC as a core component of a control network that selectively contributes to the retrieval component of analogical reasoning, but with little role in mapping relations between different domains.