Larger Feedback-related Negativity Research Articles

Neural markers of human aggression and cooperation are influenced by zero-sum or non-zero-sum groups.

Cooperation and competition in social interaction are important to social development. There are many studies examining the neural mechanism underlying these behaviors; however, little is known about the potential role of payoff norms in social interactions. This study introduced two distinct payoff norms: zero-sum (ZS) and non-zero-sum (NZS). In the ZS group, only the player with the highest total score would receive a reward; while in the NZS group, rewards were determined by the combined total score of both players, and individual rewards were prorated according to each player's contribution to the total score. Electroencephalography was used to examine individuals' neural responses during the Chicken Game in these different groups. The behavioral findings revealed a higher rate of cooperation in the NZS group compared to the ZS group. Aggressive behaviors from opponents elicited larger feedback-related negativity (FRN) and lower P300 amplitudes in both groups. Notably, larger FRN and smaller P300 amplitudes were elicited by participants' aggressive behaviors compared to their cooperative behaviors in the ZS group, whereas larger P300 amplitudes were elicited by aggressive behaviors compared to cooperative behaviors in the NZS group. Additionally, a greater theta event-related synchronization (ERS) was observed solely when participants exhibited aggression in the NZS group. The type of group moderated the association between posterior theta-ERS and cooperative rates. Specifically, theta-ERS was negatively associated with cooperative rates in the NZS group, whereas a reversed association was found in the ZS group. These findings provide valuable insights into the neurobiological foundations of cooperation under different economic payoff norms.

Sex differences on the response to others' gains and losses under cooperation and competition

Although previous studies have shown that task performance is affected by others' presence and (the consequences of) others' actions, it is unclear how task performance varies in different social situations and the role that sex plays in it. In the present study, we investigated sex differences in the evaluation processing of another person's outcomes in both cooperative and competitive contexts. We recorded the event-related potentials (ERPs) of 72 normal adults who played a gambling task with a partner or against an opponent. The behavioral results indicate that males take longer to make decisions in competitive contexts, while females take longer to make decisions in cooperative contexts. According to the ERP findings, feedback-related negativity (FRN) was influenced by sex, with larger FRN following another person's loss among males in both cooperative and competitive contexts. The P300 was influenced by sex and context, such that males had greater P300 when another person made a gain under the cooperative context, while females had greater P300 when another person lost under the cooperative context. Our findings suggest that the processing of another person's outcome can be modulated by the sex during the early stage and by both the context and sex during the late stage.

Hypersensitivity to negative feedback during dynamic risky-decision making in major depressive disorder: An event-related potential study

Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) exhibit a diminished ability to think or concentrate, indecisiveness, and altered sensitivity to reward and punishment. These impairments can influence complex risk-related decision-making in dynamic environments. The neurophysiological mechanisms mediating MDD effects on decision-making behavior are not well understood. Patients with MDD (N=50) and healthy controls (HC, N=40) were enrolled. They completed a series of psychometric tests. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during the performance of a well-validated modified version of Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). BART behavior data were similar across the two groups except the MDD patients showed more stability of risk aversion. Neurophysiologically, BART losses generated larger P3 amplitudes than wins, and MDD patients had larger feedback-related negativity (FRN) components than HCs in response to negative feedback (losses). Greater FRN amplitudes in response to losses correlated with higher levels of depressiveness, psychological pain, and anhedonia. A longer FRN latency in MDD patients was associated with more severe suicidal ideation. The findings are based on cross-sectional data, which are not powerful enough to make causal inferences. MDD patients exhibit enhanced FRNs in the frontocentral region after receiving negative feedback in a risky decision-making task. FRN magnitude is associated with depressive symptom severity. Punishment hypersensitivity may contribute to the maintenance of depressive symptoms in MDD patients, and FRN may be a useful index of such hypersensitivity.

Stimulus valence influences the evaluative processing of action outcome.

The aim of the current study is to reveal the influence of prior associations between feedback stimuli and outcomes, in everyday life, on the early and late evaluative processing of outcomes. Participants were subjected to a simple gambling task while their electroencephalograms were recorded. Over two conditions, participants received congruent and incongruent feedback stimuli during the task. Feedback stimuli previously associated with positive outcomes were paired with monetary gain in the congruent condition and paired with monetary loss in the incongruent condition. We analyzed feedback-related negativity and P300 event-related brain potentials, as indices of early and late outcome evaluation. The results show that monetary loss, compared to gain, elicited larger feedback-related negativity, irrespective of congruency. However, the feedback-related negativity effect was delayed in the incongruent condition and an increased P300 amplitude was observed for congruent-loss outcomes. The valence of stimuli formed through experiences differently modulate early and late processes of outcome evaluation. The present study emphasizes the need to consider the stimulus valence to understand processes of outcome evaluation.

Effect of other visible reviews’ votes and personality on review helpfulness evaluation: an event-related potentials study

Few studies have investigated the mechanism underlying the connection between votes and review helpfulness. A within-subject experiment with a between-group factor of personality traits was adopted to measure participants’ neural response in the processing of votes regarding review helpfulness. The results showed that a larger feedback-related negativity (FRN) and smaller P300 were induced when their personal voting behavior was inconsistent with the relative majority votes. The results confirmed that the participants established a reference frame of relative majority votes via comparison of the votes associated with other visible reviews and that they applied this reference frame to evaluate their personal voting behavior. Moreover, the participants with higher openness showed lower ΔFRN values, confirming the individual differences in the influence of the reference frame of the relative majority votes on outcome evaluation.

Electrophysiological correlates of processing facial attractiveness and its influence on cooperative behavior

The present study investigated the temporal features of processing facial attractiveness, and its influence on the subsequent cooperative behavior. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded for both face stimuli (attractive or unattractive faces) and feedback stimuli (loss or gain) while participants performed a modified trust game task, in which participants decided whether to cooperate with fictional partners (attractive or unattractive faces) for a chance to earn monetary rewards; feedback (loss or gain) were presented after their decisions. The behavioral results showed that participants were more likely to cooperate with the attractive partners than with the unattractive partners. The ERP analysis for face stimuli showed that a smaller P2 amplitude was elicited by attractive faces compared to unattractive faces. In addition, attractive faces elicited larger N2 and smaller late positive component (LPC) amplitudes than unattractive faces. More interestingly, a larger feedback related negativity (FRN) was elicited within the attractive face condition compared with the unattractive face condition. Therefore, our findings demonstrate that the discrimination of attractive and unattractive faces occurs at the early P2 stage, reflecting automatic processing of facial attractiveness. Moreover, the present study further demonstrates that facial attractiveness facilitates cooperative behavior, and that FRN elicited by outcome stimuli might be used as an index of how people judge and predict another's behavior in a social game.

Feedback-related Negativity in Outcome Evaluation with a Deception Task

Outcome evaluation is one of the important functions of the cognitive system.It can provide rapid and efficient information about the outcomes of one's behavior in order to facilitate the performance of the behavior.Recently,researchers have shown great interest in the neural mechanisms of outcome evaluation.Many studies have confirmed that a significant ERP component,called feedback-related negativity(FN),could be elicited by negative performance feedback compared to positive outcomes.The purpose of this study was to investigate the mechanisms of the outcome evaluation reflected by FN and to explore whether FN is affected by the magnitude information carrying different intensity levels of the expectation. To observe the outcome evaluation following complex cognitive processes,a deception task was conducted in a simulated experimental situation involving the identification of currency.The participants were required to identify pictures of genuine Renminbi(RMB) from a set of pictures of fake ones.The participants were asked to press the left key to indicate genuine RMB pictures and the right key to indicate fake ones.However,we told them that for each genuine RMB picture,they could decide whether to "declare"(tell the truth) or "smuggle"(lie) and that telling the truth would result in them receiving a small but certain monetary reward,whereas lying may lead to a potential gain if they escaped being caught or a risk of double penalty if their lie was detected by the software. Seventeen healthy undergraduates who had never participated in any electroencephalography(EEG) experiment before volunteered for this study.The EEG was recorded from 64 scalp channels using electrodes mounted in an elastic cap.Feedback-related ERPs were calculated for an 800ms epoch including a 100ms pre-feedback baseline.The outcome valences(gain when deception was successful and loss when deception was unsuccessful) by the magnitudes(pictures of the RMB worth 1, 5,and 10) resulted in six waveforms.The brain electrical source analysis(BESA) technique was also adopted in order to estimate the dipole sourcing of FN. The ERPs of the truthful condition were obviously distinct from those of the two deceptive conditions.With regard to the deceptive conditions,compared with the "gain" feedback,the "loss" outcomes elicited a more negative deflection at the frontocentral sites in the time windows of 230~450ms.A repeated-measures ANOVA on the mean amplitudes of this time window revealed significant main effects of the outcome valences and the magnitudes;however,the interaction between these two factors did not reach significance.Further tests indicated that the "loss" outcomes elicited larger FN than did the gain outcomes and the magnitudes did not affect the FN.Finally,sourcing analysis showed that FN may be generated from brain regions near the anterior cingulated cortex(ACC). These results suggested that the FN was sensitive to the valance rather than the magnitude of the outcome information.This finding is in agreement with the contemporary theories of outcome evaluation as well as the developed concept of the "adaptive critic" in the reinforcement learning error-related negativity(ERN) hypothesis,which suggested that FN reflected a binary evaluation of good versus bad outcomes based on whether the outcomes were consistent with the expectation.

The Devil You Know

Individuals differ in the extent to which they respond negatively to uncertainty. Although some individuals feel little discomfort when facing the unknown, those high in neuroticism find it aversive. We examined neurophysiological responses to uncertainty using an event-related potential framework. Participants completed a time-estimation task while their neural activity was recorded via electroencephalography. The feedback-related negativity (FRN), an evoked potential that peaks approximately 250 ms after the receipt of feedback information, was examined under conditions of positive, negative, and uncertain feedback. The magnitude of these responses was then analyzed in relation to individual differences in neuroticism. As expected, a larger FRN was observed after negative feedback than after positive feedback for all participants. For individuals who scored highly on trait neuroticism, however, uncertain feedback produced a larger neural response than did negative feedback. These results are discussed in terms of affective responses to uncertainty among neurotic individuals.