University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2018 Mar;30(3):281-289. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_01206. Epub 2017 Nov 13.
Feedback information is one of the most powerful forces that promotes learning, providing guidance for changes to ongoing behavioral patterns. Previous examinations of feedback learning have largely relied on explicit feedback based on task performance. However, learning is not restricted to explicit feedback and likely involves other forms of more subtle feedback cues. One potential form of this kind of learning may involve internally generated feedback in response to error commission. Whether this error-related response prompts neural and behavioral adaptation that overlaps with, or is distinct from, those evoked by external feedback is largely unknown. To explore this gap, 55 adolescents completed a difficult behavioral inhibition task designed to elicit relatively high rates of error commission during an fMRI session. We examined neural adaptation after accumulating errors (i.e., internally generated negative feedback events) at the group level, as well as the impact of individual differences in error tracking on overall task performance. Group effects show that medial PFC (mPFC) activation tracks accumulating errors; however, reduced tracking of errors is associated with greater total false alarms. These findings suggest that increased mPFC integration of error-related feedback is beneficial for task performance and, in concert with previous findings, suggests a domain-general role for mPFC integration of negative feedback.
反馈信息是促进学习的最有力因素之一，为持续的行为模式改变提供指导。先前对反馈学习的研究在很大程度上依赖于基于任务表现的明确反馈。然而，学习不仅限于明确的反馈，可能还涉及其他形式的更微妙的反馈线索。这种学习的一种潜在形式可能涉及对错误的内部产生的反馈。这种与错误相关的反应是否会引发与外部反馈重叠或不同的神经和行为适应，在很大程度上尚不清楚。为了探索这一差距，55 名青少年在 fMRI 会话中完成了一项困难的行为抑制任务，旨在引发相对较高的错误发生率。我们在群体水平上检查了累积错误（即内部产生的负反馈事件）后的神经适应，以及个体差异对整体任务表现的影响。群体效应表明，内侧前额叶皮质（mPFC）的激活与累积错误有关；然而，错误跟踪的减少与总假警报的增加有关。这些发现表明，mPFC 对错误相关反馈的整合增加有利于任务表现，与先前的发现一致，表明 mPFC 对负反馈的整合具有普遍的作用。
