In the process of comprehension, linguistic negation induces
inhibition of negated scenarios. Numerous studies have highlighted the role of
the right Inferior Frontal Gyrus (rIFG) - a key component of the inhibitory network
- in negation processing. Social avoidance can be linguistically portrayed using
attitudinal verbs such as “exclude” vs. “include”, which inherently carry negative
connotations. Consequently, we hypothesize that the interplay between explicit
negation and the implicit negativity of avoidance verbs can be modulated via
transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) targeting the rIFG.
