前言：道德感在人類行為決策上是一個非常重要的標竿，在兒童早期就可以看到對不同的道德行為作出評價和回應。為了發現人類如何習得道德規範，我們首先需要了解我們如何看待道德行為，尤其是在兒童早期時候。3-5歲兒童的大腦事件相關電位（ERP）研究顯示，早期神經生理反應（EPN和N200）在感知反社會行為與利社會行為時存在顯著差異。然而，在整個童年時期，道德評價發展的神經生理學相關機制尚未得到很好的理解。
目標與假說：本研究進行了行為探討以及電生理記錄，以研究兒童時期道德評價的發展變化。據推測（1）兒童隨著年齡的增長其欺騙行為會減少； (2）兒童會對不同的道德刺激產生不同程度的反應；（3）兒童對道德評價的反應在不同年齡層會有所不同；（4）兒童的欺騙行為會跟ERP的幅度有相關。
方法：本研究收錄了五十九名四至九歲的兒童參加了(1)欺騙遊戲及(2)腦波實驗:利用觀看不同道德行為(反社會及利社會行為場景)時紀錄腦波。
結果：結果顯示，兒童的欺騙行為並未隨年齡增長而下降。事件相關電位結果表明，在觀察具有不同道德效價的情景時， N2的幅度沒有差異，而在看到好的行為時EPN的幅度會較大，但這個情況，只在年紀小的時候有顯著差異，長大則沒有差別。另外，EPN顯示中央左側優勢，而隨著兒童年齡越來越大，LPP在腦殼後側區域更為突出。年輕的誠實兒童組以及中間年紀欺騙兒童組中發現，當他們觀看反社會情景時，LPP明顯較大。
結論：本研究探討了年紀對於道德判斷的影響，也揭露了觀看道德判斷時的腦電位是否跟小孩的行為決策有關，這些結果雖然不是如此直覺，但這項研究為我們提供了兒童時期道德神經生理學發展的見解。

Objectives: Morality is a very important guiding to human’s behavior, moral evaluation and responding can be seen in very early age of life, in order to discover how human beings acquire morality discipline, we need to first understand how we value moral act in early childhood. The brain event-related potential (ERP) study in 3-5 year old children revealed that the neurophysiological response at early period of time〔early posterior negativity(EPN) and N200(N2)〕had significant differences when perceiving antisocial vs. prosocial behaviors. Nevertheless, the neurophysiological correlates of moral evaluation development are not well understood during the entire childhood.
Hypothesis: This study performed the behavioral tasks along with the electrophysiological recordings to investigate the developmental change of moral evaluation during childhood. It was hypothesized that (1) children would become less deceptive with age; (2) children would show different response toward different moral stimuli; (3) children’s response toward moral evaluation would be different in different age; (4) children’s deceptive behavior can be correlated with ERP amplitude.
Method: 59 children aged 4 to 9 years old were enrolled to play the deception game and received ERP recordings while viewing the antisocial and prosocial behavior scenarios.
Result: Results showed that the deceptive behavior in children was not decreased with age. The ERP result indicated EPN is lager when seeing prosocial scenarios, but the phenomenon is decreasing as getting older. In addition, EPN showed central left dominance, while late positive potential (LPP) is prominent at posterior recording side as children growing up. LPP seems to be larger when viewing antisocial scenarios in younger children who is decent, and in middle-aged children who is deceptive.
Conclusion: Although this study is not very consistent with the previous study, but with discussing age factor and behavior factors, this study provides us insights to neurophysiological development of morality in childhood.

中文摘要 i
Abstract iii
Acknowledgements v
Contents vi
Figure Contents viii
Table Contents ix
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
Chapter 2 Background 2
2.1 Definition of Morality 2
2.2 Development of Morality 2
2.2.1 Morality in Infants 3
2.2.2 Morality in children 3
2.2.3 Morality in adolescents and adult 4
2.3 Moral circuits in the brain 4
2.3.1 fMRI finding in morality 4
2.3.1.1 Adults 4
2.3.1.2 Children 5
2.3.2 ERP evidence in morality 5
2.3.2.1 EPN (early posterior negativity) 6
2.3.2.2 N2 6
2.3.2.3 LPP 7
2.4 Age effect in EEG 8
Chapter 3 Hypotheses 9
Chapter 4 Experiments 11
4.1 Participants 11
4.2 Procedure 12
4.3 Stimulus Material 12
4.3.1 The behavior task 12
4.3.2 The ERP experiment 13
4.3.3 Apparatus and recordings of the ERP experiments. 14
Chapter 5 Data analysis 15
5.1 Behavioral data analysis 15
5.2 ERP acquisition and analysis 15
5.2.1 ERP acquisition steps 15
5.2.2 ERP analysis 16
Chapter 6 Results 17
6.1 Behavioral data 17
6.2 Eletrophysiological data 17
6.2.1 EPN 18
6.2.2 N2 21
6.2.3 LPP 23
Chapter 7 General Discussion 28
Chapter 8 Conclusion and Suggestions 32
References 33

Figure contents

Figure 1. Specific brain areas that related to social decision making. 5
Figure 2. The population of this experiment showed by age. 11
Figure 3. The population in each group of this study. 12
Figure 4. The procedure of the behavior experiment 13
Figure 5. The description of jitter in trials, adopted from Cowell and Decety (2015). 14
Figure 6. The proportion of the deceiving children in different age group. 17
Figure 7. Grand average waveforms at P3, Pz, P4 for the 2 experimental conditions. 18
Figure 8. The EPN amplitude in different hemisphere (F3, Fz, F4) 20
Figure 9. EPN in different age group showed significant difference. 20
Figure 10. Grand average waveforms at F3, Fz, F4 for the 2 experimental conditions. 21
Figure 11. Grand average waveforms at Fz, Cz, Pz for the 2 experimental conditions. 23
Figure 12. LPP amplitude in Fz, Cz, Pz electrodes. 25
Figure 13. LPP amplitude in 3 electrodes in different age groups. 26
Figure 14. LPP amplitude in different electrode in older group. 26
Figure 15. The LPP amplitude when seeing antisocial and prosocial stimulus
in different behavior and age groups. 27









Table contents

Table 1. The demographic data of this experiment. 11
Table 2. The behavior data of the experiment. 17
Table 3. Comparisons of Hemisphere, Stimulus, Behavior and Age factors in EPN. 19
Table 4. Comparisons of Hemisphere, Stimulus, Behavior and Age factors in N2. 22
Table 5. Comparisons of Electrode, Stimulus, Behavior and Age factors in LPP. 24

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