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Cone of gaze refers to the range of gaze directions that are perceived as self-directed. Some people have a heightened tendency to interpret ambiguous gaze directions as self-directed, and self-referential thinking has been suggested to explain this widening of the cone of gaze. This proposal, however, has not been previously investigated. In a preregistered online experiment, we will investigate whether requiring participants to think about one’s self (self-referential group) in comparison to thinking about other people (control group) widens the cone of gaze. Cone of gaze is measured by presenting participants with faces with direct gaze or variations of averted gazes. As a control measure of the success of the self-referential thinking manipulation, we will assess whether thinking about one’s self increases self-referential interpretation of linguistic information in comparison to thinking about others.

Significance Considering the immense economic costs associated with dishonest behavior, such as tax evasion or music piracy, reducing dishonesty is of great relevance to policy-makers. However, targeting dishonesty with interventions requires a thorough understanding of the underlying (neuro)cognitive processes. We combine neuroimaging with a task that pioneers in measuring the neural mechanisms underlying (dis)honesty. While replicating previous findings that greed drives dishonesty, we reveal that self-referential thinking processes promoted honest behavior. Moreover, we found that cognitive control does not serve the same purpose across individuals but facilitates honest decisions for cheaters, whereas it enables cheating for honest participants. We thus observe that different processes prevent dishonesty for different individuals, which can prove instrumental in the development of more effective interventions., Every day, we are faced with the conflict between the temptation to cheat for financial gains and maintaining a positive image of ourselves as being a “good person.” While it has been proposed that cognitive control is needed to mediate this conflict between reward and our moral self-image, the exact role of cognitive control in (dis)honesty remains elusive. Here we identify this role, by investigating the neural mechanism underlying cheating. We developed a task which allows for inconspicuously measuring spontaneous cheating on a trial-by-trial basis in the MRI scanner. We found that activity in the nucleus accumbens promotes cheating, particularly for individuals who cheat a lot, while a network consisting of posterior cingulate cortex, temporoparietal junction, and medial prefrontal cortex promotes honesty, particularly in individuals who are generally honest. Finally, activity in areas associated with cognitive control (anterior cingulate cortex and inferior frontal gyrus) helped dishonest participants to be honest, whereas it enabled cheating for honest participants. Thus, our results suggest that cognitive control is not needed to be honest or dishonest per se but that it depends on an individual’s moral default.

Brooding rumination is considered a central aspect of depression in midlife. As older people tend to review their past, rumination tendency might be particularly crucial in late life since it might hinder older adults to adequately evaluate previous events. We scanned 22 non-depressed older adults with varying degrees of brooding tendency with functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) while they performed the construction and elaboration of autobiographical memories. Behavioral findings demonstrate that brooders reported lower mood states, needed more time for memory construction and rated their memories as less detailed and less positive. On the neural level, brooding tendency was related to increased amygdala activation during the search for specific memories and reduced engagement of cortical networks during elaboration. Moreover, coupling patterns of the subgenual cingulate cortex with the hippocampus (HC) and the amygdala predicted details and less positive valence of memories in brooders. Our findings support the hypothesis that ruminative thinking interferes with the search for specific memories while facilitating the uncontrolled retrieval of negatively biased self-schemes. The observed neurobehavioral dysfunctions might put older people with brooding tendency at high risk for becoming depressed when reviewing their past. Training of autobiographical memory ability might therefore be a promising approach to increase resilience against depression in late-life.

More than a decade of neuroimaging research has established that anterior and posterior cortical midline regions are consistently recruited during self-referential thinking. These regions are engaged under conditions of directed cognition, such as during explicit self-reference tasks, as well as during spontaneous cognition, such as under conditions of rest. One of the many issues that remain to be clarified regarding the relationship between self-referential thinking and cortical midline activity is the functional specificity of these regions with regard to the nature of self-representation and processing. The functional profile associated with the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is the focus of the current article. What is specifically explored is the idea that personal relevance or personal significance is a central factor that impacts how brain activity is modulated within this cortical midline region. The proactive, imaginative, and predictive nature of function in the mPFC is examined by evaluating studies of spontaneously directed cognition, which is triggered by stimulus-associated personal relevance.