Department of Psychology, Saarland University, D-66041 Saarbrücken, Germany.
J Neurosci. 2012 Aug 29;32(35):12087-92. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1410-12.2012.
The human mediofrontal cortex, especially the anterior cingulate cortex, is commonly assumed to contribute to higher cognitive functions like performance monitoring. How exactly this is achieved is currently the subject of lively debate but there is evidence that an event's valence and its expectancy play important roles. One prominent theory, the reinforcement learning theory by Holroyd and colleagues (2002, 2008), assigns a special role to feedback valence, while the prediction of response-outcome (PRO) model by Alexander and Brown (2010, 2011) claims that the mediofrontal cortex is sensitive to unexpected events regardless of their valence. However, paradigms examining this issue have included confounds that fail to separate valence and expectancy. In the present study, we tested the two competing theories of performance monitoring by using an experimental task that separates valence and unexpectedness of performance feedback. The feedback-related negativity of the event-related potential, which is commonly assumed to be a reflection of mediofrontal cortex activity, was elicited not only by unexpected negative feedback, but also by unexpected positive feedback. This implies that the mediofrontal cortex is sensitive to the unexpectedness of events in general rather than their valence and by this supports the PRO model.
人类额眶部皮质，特别是前扣带皮质，通常被认为有助于更高阶的认知功能，如表现监控。目前这个功能确切是如何达成的仍有许多争论，但有证据显示事件的效价和预期扮演重要的角色。一个突出的理论是由霍尔罗伊德等人（2002 年，2008 年）提出的强化学习理论，它赋予反馈效价特殊的角色，而亚历山大和布朗（2010 年，2011 年）的预期反应结果模型则声称额眶部皮质对意外事件敏感，而不考虑其效价。然而，检验这个问题的范例包括未能分离效价和预期的混淆因素。在本研究中，我们使用一个实验任务来检验表现监控的两个竞争理论，该任务可以分离表现反馈的效价和意外性。事件相关电位中的反馈相关负波，通常被认为是额眶部皮质活动的反映，不仅由意外的负反馈引起，也由意外的正反馈引起。这意味着额眶部皮质对事件的意外性敏感，而不是效价，因此支持了预期反应结果模型。
