Abstract
Activity in the ventral striatum has frequently been associated with retrieval success, i.e., it is higher for hits than correct rejections. Based on the prominent role of the ventral striatum in the reward circuit, its activity has been interpreted to reflect the higher subjective value of hits compared to correct rejections in standard recognition tests. This hypothesis was supported by a recent study showing that ventral striatal activity is higher for correct rejections than hits when the value of rejections is increased by external incentives. These findings imply that the striatal response during recognition is context-sensitive and modulated by the adaptive significance of “oldness” or “newness” to the current goals. The present study is based on the idea that not only external incentives, but also other deviations from standard recognition tests which affect the subjective value of specific response types should modulate striatal activity. Therefore, we explored ventral striatal activity in an unusually difficult recognition test that was characterized by low levels of confidence and accuracy. Based on the human uncertainty aversion, in such a recognition context, the subjective value of all high confident decisions is expected to be higher than usual, i.e., also rejecting items with high certainty is deemed rewarding. In an accompanying behavioural experiment, participants rated the pleasantness of each recognition response. As hypothesized, ventral striatal activity correlated in the current unusually difficult recognition test not only with retrieval success, but also with confidence. Moreover, participants indicated that they were more satisfied by higher confidence in addition to perceived oldness of an item. Taken together, the results are in line with the hypothesis that ventral striatal activity during recognition codes the subjective value of different response types that is modulated by the context of the recognition test.
Highlights
Successful recognition is supported by a large network of brain regions including medial temporal, prefrontal and parietal areas
The second complementary analysis revealed that this enhanced activity for perceived oldness was independent of the factual status of an item, i.e. ventral striatum (VS) activity was greater for hits than correct rejections and for false alarms than misses
Consistent with the well described uncertainty aversion [10,11], participants indicted in the behavioural experiment that they were more satisfied by higher confidence in addition to perceived oldness, which parallels the VS activity pattern
Summary
Successful recognition is supported by a large network of brain regions including medial temporal, prefrontal and parietal areas. The functional significance of ventral striatal activity during recognition has so far received little scientific attention This area has usually been studied as a central part of the reward circuit, which is involved in reinforcement learning and motivational behaviour [5]. Subjects were cued whether hits or correct rejections were rewarded in the subsequent recognition test-phase in order to manipulate the motivational status of ‘old’- and ‘new’-responses. In both conditions, responses concordant with the incentive manipulation led to increased striatal activity, i.e. Responses concordant with the incentive manipulation led to increased striatal activity, i.e. ‘new’-responses were associated with striatal activity when correct rejections were externally incentivized and ‘old’-responses were associated with VS activity when hits were rewarded [8]
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