ArticleScientific reports2018
A dual-fMRI investigation of the iterated Ultimatum Game reveals that reciprocal behaviour is associated with neural alignment.
Article in Scientific reports, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Together we sync: a systematic qualitative and quantitative review of fMRI hyperscanning studies.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- A feature-based network analysis and fMRI meta-analysis reveal three distinct types of prosocial decisions.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2021Pooled it
- Finding agreement: Functional magnetic resonance imaging hyperscanning reveals that mental state space exploration facilitates opinion alignment.Journal of personality and social psychology · 2026Article
- Differences in other-directed emotion regulation tracks connectivity between amygdala and prefrontal regions during fairness decisions.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- EEG hyperscanning reveals dynamic interbrain network patterns during interactive social decision-making.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Altered Patterns of Dynamic Functional Connectivity Underpin Reduced Expressions of Social-Emotional Reciprocity in Autistic Adults.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2025Article
- Substantial Heritability Underlies Fairness Norm Adaptation Capability and its Neural Basis.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Article
- Stage 1 registered report examining agency and outcome valence on inter-brain synchrony during dyadic moral judgments.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Neural alignment during outgroup intervention predicts future change of affect towards outgroup.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2024Article
- Towards a neurocomputational account of social controllability: From models to mental health.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
- The promises and pitfalls of functional magnetic resonance imaging hyperscanning for social interaction research.Social and personality psychology compass · 2022Review
- Simultaneous functional MRI of two awake marmosets.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Lesion Evidence for a Causal Role of the Insula in Aversion to Social Inequity.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2021Article
- Beyond synchrony: the capacity of fMRI hyperscanning for the study of human social interaction.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2021Article
- The Human Dynamic Clamp Reveals the Fronto-Parietal Network Linking Real-Time Social Coordination and Cognition.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2020Article
- Getting into sync: Data-driven analyses reveal patterns of neural coupling that distinguish among different social exchanges.Human brain mapping · 2020Article
- Article
- Cognitive Processing Impacts High Frequency Intracranial EEG Activity of Human Hippocampus in Patients With Pharmacoresistant Focal Epilepsy.Frontiers in neurology · 2020Article
- Dissecting social interaction: dual-fMRI reveals patterns of interpersonal brain-behavior relationships that dissociate among dimensions of social exchange.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Dyadic interactions often involve a dynamic process of mutual reciprocity; to steer a series of exchanges towards a desired outcome, both interactants must adapt their own behaviour according to that of their interaction partner. Understanding the brain processes behind such bidirectional reciprocity is therefore central to social neuroscience, but this requires measurement of both individuals' brains during real-world exchanges. We achieved this by performing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on pairs of male individuals simultaneously while they interacted in a modified iterated Ultimatum Game (iUG). In this modification, both players could express their intent and maximise their own monetary gain by reciprocating their partner's behaviour - they could promote generosity through cooperation and/or discourage unfair play with retaliation. By developing a novel model of reciprocity adapted from behavioural economics, we then show that each player's choices can be predicted accurately by estimating expected utility (EU) not only in terms of immediate payoff, but also as a reaction to their opponent's prior behaviour. Finally, for the first time we reveal that brain signals implicated in social decision making are modulated by these estimates of EU, and become correlated more strongly between interacting players who reciprocate one another.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.