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Attentional control and interpretation of facial expression after oxytocin administration to typically developed male adults
- Source :
- PLoS ONE, Vol 10, Iss 2, p e0116918 (2015), PLoS ONE
- Publication Year :
- 2015
- Publisher :
- Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2015.
-
Abstract
- Deficits in attentional-inhibitory control have been reported to correlate to anger, hostility, and aggressive behavior; therefore, inhibitory control appears to play an important role in prosocial behavior. Moreover, recent studies have demonstrated that oxytocin (OT) exerts a prosocial effect (e.g., decreasing negative behaviors, such as aggression) on humans. However, it is unknown whether the positively valenced effect of OT on sociality is associated with enhanced attentional-inhibitory control. In the present study, we hypothesized that OT enhances attentional-inhibitory control and that the positively valenced effect of OT on social cognition is associated with enhanced attentional-inhibitory control. In a single-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial, we tested this hypothesis using 20 healthy male volunteers. We considered a decrease in the hostility detection ratio, which reflects the positively valenced interpretation of other individuals' facial expressions, to be an index of the positively valenced effects of OT (we reused the results of our previously published study). As a measure of attentional-inhibitory control, we employed a modified version of the flanker task (i.e., a shorter conflict duration indicated higher inhibitory control). These results failed to demonstrate any significant behavioral effects of OT (i.e., neither a positively valenced effect on facial cognition nor an effect on attentional-inhibitory control). However, the enhancement of attentional-inhibitory control after OT administration significantly correlated to the positively valenced effects on the interpretation of uncertain facial cognition (i.e., neutral and ambiguous facial expressions).
- Subjects :
- Adult
Male
media_common.quotation_subject
Poison control
lcsh:Medicine
Hostility
Anger
Oxytocin
Social cognition
medicine
Humans
Attention
lcsh:Science
media_common
Facial expression
Multidisciplinary
Aggression
lcsh:R
Attentional control
Cognition
Middle Aged
Expressed Emotion
Face
Visual Perception
lcsh:Q
medicine.symptom
Psychology
Research Article
Clinical psychology
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 19326203
- Volume :
- 10
- Issue :
- 2
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- PLoS ONE
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....039e300d6d8511f6c455eb458a36a72c