Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute for Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, 34141, Korea.
KAIST Institute for Health Science and Technology and KI for Artificial Intelligence, KAIST, Daejeon, Korea.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2020 Dec 17;15(11):1260-1270. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsaa145.
In many decision-making situations, sub-optimal choices are increased by uncertainty. However, when wrong choices could lead to social punishment, such as blame, people might try to improve their performance by minimizing sub-optimal choices, which could be achieved by increasing the subjective cost of errors, thereby globally reducing decision noise or reducing an uncertainty-induced component of decision noise. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, 46 participants performed a choice task in which the probability of a correct choice with a given cue and the conditional probability of blame feedback (by making an incorrect choice) changed continuously. By comparing computational models of behaviour, we found that participants optimized their performance by preferentially reducing a component of decision noise associated with uncertainty. Simultaneously, expecting blame significantly deteriorated participants' mood. Model-based fMRI analyses and dynamic causal modelling indicate that the optimization mechanism based on the expectation of being blamed would be controlled by a neural circuit centred on the right medial prefrontal cortex. These results show novel behavioural and neural mechanisms regarding how humans optimize uncertain decisions under the expectation of being blamed.
在许多决策情况下，不确定性会增加次优选择。然而，当错误的选择可能导致社会惩罚，如责备时，人们可能会通过最小化次优选择来提高他们的表现，这可以通过增加错误的主观成本来实现，从而全局降低决策噪声或降低决策噪声的不确定性成分。在这项功能磁共振成像 (fMRI) 研究中，46 名参与者进行了一项选择任务，其中给定线索的正确选择概率和责备反馈（通过做出错误选择）的条件概率连续变化。通过比较行为的计算模型，我们发现参与者通过优先降低与不确定性相关的决策噪声的一个分量来优化他们的表现。同时，期望责备会显著恶化参与者的情绪。基于模型的 fMRI 分析和动态因果建模表明，基于被责备的期望的优化机制将由以右内侧前额叶皮层为中心的神经回路控制。这些结果表明，在被责备的期望下，人类优化不确定决策的行为和神经机制具有新颖性。
