Observational learning strategies impact the neural correlates of declarative memory formation

Abstract

Individuals exhibit variability in their propensity to learn from observing others' behaviors. Here we investigated how individual differences in adopting others' decisions influence both their own choices and subsequent memory for contextual information. In an fMRI-based probabilistic reinforcement-learning task, participants were tasked with either making choices or observing decisions between visual cues, leading to either congruent or opposing outcomes. Following each decision, participants viewed a unique picture and received feedback on the outcome. By fitting alternative reinforcement learning models to individual participants, we were able to differentiate between individuals who distinguished their own decisions from those of others and those who integrated information from others into their own decision-making process. Individuals who integrated choices of others’ exhibited enhanced fMRI activation in social cognition networks. These participants also showed subsequent-memory effects in occipito-temporal regions, as well as a linear correspondence between activation and subsequent confidence ratings. These findings demonstrate that modeling behavior on an individual basis may tease apart unique learning strategies, which manifest in differential neural activation and recollective experience.