Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2B4, Canada
Department of Neurobiology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 6997801, Israel.
J Neurosci. 2021 Jun 9;41(23):5056-5068. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0241-21.2021. Epub 2021 Apr 27.
Everyday decision-making commonly involves assigning values to complex objects with multiple value-relevant attributes. Drawing on object recognition theories, we hypothesized two routes to multiattribute evaluation: assessing the value of the whole object based on holistic attribute configuration or summing individual attribute values. In two samples of healthy human male and female participants undergoing eye tracking and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while evaluating novel pseudo objects, we found evidence for both forms of evaluation. Fixations to and transitions between attributes differed systematically when the value of pseudo objects was associated with individual attributes or attribute configurations. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and perirhinal cortex were engaged when configural processing was required. These results converge with our recent findings that individuals with vmPFC lesions were impaired in decisions requiring configural evaluation but not when evaluating the sum of the parts. This suggests that multiattribute decision-making engages distinct evaluation mechanisms relying on partially dissociable neural substrates, depending on the relationship between attributes and value. Decision neuroscience has only recently begun to address how multiple choice-relevant attributes are brought together during evaluation and choice among complex options. Object recognition research makes a crucial distinction between individual attribute and holistic/configural object processing, but how the brain evaluates attributes and whole objects remains unclear. Using fMRI and eye tracking, we found that the vmPFC and the perirhinal cortex contribute to value estimation specifically when value was related to whole objects, that is, predicted by the unique configuration of attributes and not when value was predicted by the sum of individual attribute values. This perspective on the interactions between subjective value and object processing mechanisms provides a novel bridge between the study of object recognition and reward-guided decision-making.
日常决策通常涉及对具有多个与价值相关属性的复杂对象进行赋值。我们借鉴物体识别理论，假设了两种多属性评估途径：基于整体属性配置评估整个物体的价值，或者对单个属性值进行求和。在两个样本中，健康的男性和女性参与者在进行眼动追踪和功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）的同时评估新的伪物体，我们发现了这两种评估形式的证据。当伪物体的价值与单个属性或属性配置相关联时，对属性的注视和转换会系统地发生变化。腹内侧前额叶皮层（vmPFC）和旁嗅皮层在需要进行配置处理时被激活。这些结果与我们最近的发现一致，即 vmPFC 损伤的个体在需要配置评估的决策中受损，但在评估部分总和时不受影响。这表明，多属性决策涉及到不同的评估机制，这些机制依赖于属性和价值之间的关系，使用部分可分离的神经基质。决策神经科学最近才开始解决在评估和选择复杂选项时，多个与选择相关的属性是如何结合在一起的问题。物体识别研究对单个属性和整体/配置物体处理之间做出了至关重要的区分，但大脑如何评估属性和整体物体仍然不清楚。使用 fMRI 和眼动追踪，我们发现 vmPFC 和旁嗅皮层特别在价值与整体物体相关时（即由属性的独特配置预测，而不是由单个属性值的总和预测）对价值估计有贡献。这种关于主观价值和物体处理机制之间相互作用的观点为物体识别研究和奖励引导决策之间提供了一个新的桥梁。
