Brain responses in evaluating feedback stimuli with a social dimension

Yuan Zhang,Xiaolin Zhou,Xiang Li,Xing Qian

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2012.00029

Abstract

Previous studies on outcome evaluation and performance monitoring using gambling or simple cognitive tasks have identified two event-related potential (ERP) components that are particularly relevant to the neural responses to decision outcome. The feedback-related negativity (FRN), typically occurring 200–300 ms post-onset of feedback stimuli, encodes mainly the valence of outcome while the P300, which is the most positive peak between 200–600 ms, is related to various aspects of outcome evaluation. This study investigated the extent to which neural correlates of outcome evaluation involving perceptually complex feedback stimuli (i.e., female faces) are similar to those elicited by simple feedback. We asked participants to judge the attractiveness of blurred faces and then showed them unblurred faces as implicit feedback. The FRN effect can be identified in the ERP waveforms, albeit in a delayed 300–380 ms time window, with faces inconsistent with the initial judgment eliciting more negative-going responses than faces consistent with the judgment. However, the ERP waveforms did not show the typical pattern of P300 responses. With the principal component analysis (PCA), a clear pattern of P300 effects were revealed, with the P300 being more positive to faces consistent with the initial judgment than to faces inconsistent with the judgment, and more positive to attractive faces than to unattractive ones. The effect of feedback consistency did not interact with the effect of attractiveness in either the FRN or P300 component. These findings suggest that brain responses involved in processing complex feedback stimuli with a social dimension are generally similar to those involved in processing simple feedback stimuli in gambling or cognitive tasks, although appropriate means of data analysis are needed to reveal the typical ERP effects that may have been masked by sophisticated cognitive (and emotional) processes for complex stimuli.

Highlights

Over the past decade, there has been increased interest in the neural basis of performance monitoring and outcome evaluation, which plays an important role in decision-making and learning from the environment
event-related potential (ERP) waveforms time-locked to the onset of feedback faces and topographic distributions of the differences between conditions (e.g., ERP effects) in three time windows are illustrated in Figures 2 and 3, respectively
The main purpose of this study was to investigate to what extent brain responses to complex feedback stimuli with a social dimension in outcome evaluation and performance monitoring are similar to those revealed for simple stimuli used in monetary gambling or simple cognitive tasks

Summary

Introduction

There has been increased interest in the neural basis of performance monitoring and outcome evaluation, which plays an important role in decision-making and learning from the environment. It is sensitive to the outcome valence, being more negative-going for negative feedback associated with unfavorable outcomes, such as incorrect responses (Miltner et al, 1997), monetary losses (Gehring and Willoughby, 2002), or violations of expectancy (Heldmann et al, 2008; Wu and Zhou, 2009), than for positive feedback Another ERP component, the P300, is the most positive peak in the 200–600 ms period post-onset of feedback stimulus and typically increases in magnitude from frontal to parietal sites. The P300 is traditionally believed to reflect processes demanding attentional resources (Polich and Kok, 1995; Polich, 2007) and it has been found to be related to various aspects of outcome evaluation, including the magnitude of reward (Yeung and Sanfey, 2004; Sato et al, 2005), expectancy toward the outcome (Hajcak et al, 2005, 2007; Wu and Zhou, 2009), and the valence of the outcome (Hajcak et al, 2005, 2007; Wu and Zhou, 2009; Leng and Zhou, 2010)

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