Abstract
To maintain our well-ordered social life, we should detect whether a behavior is immoral. In this study, we tried to reveal the plural cognitive processes involved in the moral judgment, using EEG with high temporal resolution. As stimuli, one sentence consisted of three phrases (in Japanese) was used per trial. The predicate was modified to create behavior variations for four conditions: Moral⁄Violation (e.g., He pockets a coin picked up.), Moral⁄Match (He hands over a coin picked up.), Semantic⁄Violation (He empathizes a coin picked up.), Semantic⁄Match (He looks a coin picked up.). We compared ERP responses between violation and match sentences, and demonstrated that N400 component in Semantic⁄Violation was larger than in Semantic⁄Match. For moral sentences, N400 was not significantly different between violation and match, while LPC in Moral⁄Violation was larger than in Moral⁄Match. This suggested that the cognition of moral violation is more complex cognitive process compared with semantic violation.
