5:15 PM - 6:45 PM
[HDS10-P08] How emotional control traits neurologically facilitate tsunami evacuation decision making; an fMRI study
Keywords:disaster prevention, tsunami, evacuation behavior, decision making, fMRI, emotion regulation
Understanding the psychological processes of human adaptive responses to disaster information, such as prompt and proactive evacuation, is expected to contribute to effective and efficient disaster communication strategies for improving disaster literacy, including disaster education. Because unconscious cognitive bias processes play an important role in disaster evacuation, as symbolized by concepts such as "normalization bias," research methods based on conscious and verbal responses such as questionnaires have limitations. In this respect, brain measurement experiments that visualize psychological processes as activities of brain networks have the potential to overcome this limitation.
To study the tsunami evacuation decision-making process during an earthquake using functional MRI, which is one of the most popular brain measurement systems today, we developed an evacuation decision-making task using a fictitious disaster scenario (Takubo et al., 2024). In this task, experimental participants made experimental evacuation decisions (to evacuate/not to evacuate) for 40 fictitious earthquake encounter scenarios with different degrees of subjective tsunami occurrence risk. In a web experiment to validate the task, four major factors were extracted in the individual difference patterns of this decision-making. The first factor, "risk sensitivity," corresponded to the tendency to evacuate regardless of the scenario's subjective tsunami occurrence risk. This risk sensitivity was positively correlated with "emotional control," which was related to rapid tsunami evacuation in the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake (one of the eight factors of the disaster-adaptive psychobehavioral trait "ability to live through disasters" (Sugiura et al., 2015)), suggesting that the psychological process of evacuation decision-making in this task is common to actual tsunami evacuation decision-making The results suggest that the psychological process of evacuation decision-making in this task is similar to that of actual tsunami evacuation decision-making.
To understand the psychological processes of adaptive responses to disaster information, we explored brain networks in which brain activity during tsunami evacuation decision making correlated with "emotional control" characteristics.
METHODS: We conducted an fMRI experiment with 58 adults in their 20s (31 males and 27 females; 21.51 ± 1.30 (SD) years old). Participants completed a 60-trial tsunami evacuation decision-making task (20 numerical scenarios, 20 sensory scenarios, and 20 control scenarios; 1Evacuate or 2Do not evacuate), and brain activity during responses was measured using fMRI. Each subject also answered the "Powwe to Live" questionnaire. Specifically, the subjects answered two questions on emotional control characteristics on a 6-point scale (0=not applicable at all/5=very applicable): "When I am going through a difficult time, I try not to dwell on it" and "When I am going through a difficult time, I try not to dwell on it. SPM analysis was used for the analysis, and the estimated brain activity (blood flow change) per pixel was employed as the dependent variable. The independent variable was the score of the 8 Power to live factors.
RESULTS: Significant regions positively correlated with emotion regulation trait scores were found in insular (INS) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) (Figure 2).
DISCUSSION: Emotion response regions, particularly the insular cortex (INS), are known to be involved in defense regulation in phobias (Wendt et al., 2007), and in the present study this response appeared negatively correlated with emotion regulation traits that act in an escape-promoting manner. ACC has also been suggested to be involved in the preparatory process of the fear response (Grupe et al., 2012). Thus, the response of this brain region may reflect the process by which psychological defense regulation interferes with evacuation decision making.
To study the tsunami evacuation decision-making process during an earthquake using functional MRI, which is one of the most popular brain measurement systems today, we developed an evacuation decision-making task using a fictitious disaster scenario (Takubo et al., 2024). In this task, experimental participants made experimental evacuation decisions (to evacuate/not to evacuate) for 40 fictitious earthquake encounter scenarios with different degrees of subjective tsunami occurrence risk. In a web experiment to validate the task, four major factors were extracted in the individual difference patterns of this decision-making. The first factor, "risk sensitivity," corresponded to the tendency to evacuate regardless of the scenario's subjective tsunami occurrence risk. This risk sensitivity was positively correlated with "emotional control," which was related to rapid tsunami evacuation in the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake (one of the eight factors of the disaster-adaptive psychobehavioral trait "ability to live through disasters" (Sugiura et al., 2015)), suggesting that the psychological process of evacuation decision-making in this task is common to actual tsunami evacuation decision-making The results suggest that the psychological process of evacuation decision-making in this task is similar to that of actual tsunami evacuation decision-making.
To understand the psychological processes of adaptive responses to disaster information, we explored brain networks in which brain activity during tsunami evacuation decision making correlated with "emotional control" characteristics.
METHODS: We conducted an fMRI experiment with 58 adults in their 20s (31 males and 27 females; 21.51 ± 1.30 (SD) years old). Participants completed a 60-trial tsunami evacuation decision-making task (20 numerical scenarios, 20 sensory scenarios, and 20 control scenarios; 1Evacuate or 2Do not evacuate), and brain activity during responses was measured using fMRI. Each subject also answered the "Powwe to Live" questionnaire. Specifically, the subjects answered two questions on emotional control characteristics on a 6-point scale (0=not applicable at all/5=very applicable): "When I am going through a difficult time, I try not to dwell on it" and "When I am going through a difficult time, I try not to dwell on it. SPM analysis was used for the analysis, and the estimated brain activity (blood flow change) per pixel was employed as the dependent variable. The independent variable was the score of the 8 Power to live factors.
RESULTS: Significant regions positively correlated with emotion regulation trait scores were found in insular (INS) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) (Figure 2).
DISCUSSION: Emotion response regions, particularly the insular cortex (INS), are known to be involved in defense regulation in phobias (Wendt et al., 2007), and in the present study this response appeared negatively correlated with emotion regulation traits that act in an escape-promoting manner. ACC has also been suggested to be involved in the preparatory process of the fear response (Grupe et al., 2012). Thus, the response of this brain region may reflect the process by which psychological defense regulation interferes with evacuation decision making.