title: Reward value enhances post-decision error-related activity in the cingulate cortex.
abstract: By saying "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new", Albert Einstein himself allegedly implied that the making and processing of errors are essential for behavioral adaption to a new or changing environment. These essential error-related cognitive and neural processes are likely influenced by reward value. However, previous studies have not dissociated accuracy and value and so the distinct effect of reward on error processing in the brain remained unknown. Therefore, we set out to investigate this at various points in decision-making. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to scan participants while they completed a random dot motion discrimination task where reward and non-reward were associated with stimuli via classical conditioning. Pre-error activity was found in the medial frontal cortex prior to response but this was not related to reward value. At response time, error-related activity was found to be significantly greater in reward than non-reward trials in the midcingulate cortex. Finally at outcome time, error-related activity was found in the anterior cingulate cortex in non-reward trials. These results show that reward value enhances post-decision but not pre-decision error-related activities and these results therefore have implications for theories of error correction and confidence.
authors.affiliation: Brain Science Institute, Tamagawa University, 6-1-1 Tamagawagakuen, Machida, Tokyo 194-8610, Japan; Graduate School of Brain Sciences, Tamagawa University, 6-1-1 Tamagawagakuen, Machida, Tokyo 194-8610, Japan.
authors.forename: Jessica E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.affiliation: Brain Science Institute, Tamagawa University, 6-1-1 Tamagawagakuen, Machida, Tokyo 194-8610, Japan; Department of Neurophysiology, Juntendo University, 2-1-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8421, Japan; Department of Social Psychology, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan. Electronic address: akitoshi.ogawa@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Akitoshi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ogawa
authors.affiliation: Brain Science Institute, Tamagawa University, 6-1-1 Tamagawagakuen, Machida, Tokyo 194-8610, Japan; Graduate School of Brain Sciences, Tamagawa University, 6-1-1 Tamagawagakuen, Machida, Tokyo 194-8610, Japan.
authors.forename: Masamichi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sakagami
mesh_terms: D001931:Brain Mapping; D003657:Decision Making; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time; D012201:Reward; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Anterior cingulate cortex; Decision-making; Error processing; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Medial frontal cortex; Performance monitoring