The Effect of Counterfactual Information on Outcome Value Coding in Medial Prefrontal and Cingulate Cortex: From an Absolute to a Relative Neural Code

Pischedda, Doris; Palminteri, Stefano; Coricelli, Giorgio

doi:10.1523/jneurosci.1712-19.2020

Cited by 27 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…As a consequence, the lateral prefrontal cortex participates in the dynamic control of executive actions and in behavioral control (Mansuri et al, 2009 ). Importantly, positive and negative outcomes are encoded in the medial prefrontal cortex but with opposite signs in its ventral and dorsal subdivisions (Pischedda et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Pre-linguistic Processes Of Believingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Believing and Beliefs—Neurophysiological Underpinnings

Seitz

2022

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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Section: Pre-linguistic Processes Of Believingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Believing and Beliefs—Neurophysiological Underpinnings

Seitz

2022

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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“…Secondly, we found in the mOFC a relationship between the strength of the counterfactual prediction error signal and the extent to which the counterfactual outcomes influenced future choices (Fig 5). Encoding of the counterfactual outcome has also been observed in humans mOFC ( 77–79 ), and lesion of the mOFC in patients had been associated with an inability to use counterfactual information to guide future decisions ( 80 ). Those results are compatible with the proposed broader role of the mOFC in representing abstract values ( 81–83 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Strategic exploration in the macaque’s prefrontal cortex

Jahn

Grohn

Cuell

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Humans have been shown to strategically explore. They can identify situations in which gathering information about distant and uncertain options is beneficial for the future. Because primates rely on scare resources when they forage, they are also thought to strategically explore, but whether they use the same strategies as humans and the neural bases of strategic exploration in monkeys are largely unknown. We designed a sequential choice task to investigate whether monkeys mobilize strategic exploration based on whether that information can improve subsequent choice, but also to ask the novel question about whether monkeys adjust their exploratory choices based on the contingency between choice and information, by sometimes providing the counterfactual feedback, about the option not chosen. We show that monkeys decreased their reliance on expected value when exploration could be beneficial, but this was not mediated by changes in the effect of uncertainty on choices. We found strategic exploratory signals in anterior and mid-cingulate cortex (ACC/MCC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). This network was most active when a low value option was chosen which suggests a role in counteracting expected value signals, when exploration away from value should to be considered. Such strategic exploration was abolished when the counterfactual feedback was available. Learning from counterfactual outcome was associated with the recruitment of a different circuit centered on the medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), where we showed that monkeys represent chosen and unchosen reward prediction errors. Overall, our study shows how ACC/MCC-dlPFC and OFC circuits together could support exploitation of available information to the fullest and drive behavior towards finding more information through exploration when it is beneficial.

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“…We find evidence that this indeed could be the case; whereas spatial certainty does influence priorities prior to target onset, the current data show that the influence of incentive value corresponds very closely to counterfactual losses, which are only known at the point of target and distractor onset. Critically, this account predicts that incentive values impact performance when there is a counterfactual loss, with negligible impact when the current outcome matches the best Pischedda, Palminteri, and Coricelli 2020), where participants are instructed to select from between competing options. It is interesting that we observe evidence for a visual prioritisation signal that reflects counterfactual loss in the current paradigm, as participants have no choice over which reward outcome will be attained on any given trial.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pearl 2009). Such counterfactual representations have been shown to motivate relative value encoding between choice values in the medial prefrontal cortex (Pischedda, Palminteri, and Coricelli 2020), and have been shown to generate prediction errors proportional to the probability of reward gain for the best unchosen option (Boorman, Behrens, and Rushworth 2011). Collectively these findings imply the brain simulates the outcomes that can be gained from unchosen options in order to inform future decisions (Fouragnan et al 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

On the influence of spatial and value attentional cues across individuals

Garner¹,

Lovell-Kane²,

Carroll³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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The visual world provides a myriad of cues every instance that can be used to direct information processing. How does the brain integrate predictive information from disparate sources to modify visual priorities, and are combination strategies consistent across individuals? Previous evidence shows that sensory cues that are predictive of the value of a visually guided task (incentive value) and cues that signal where task-relevant stimuli may occur (spatial certainty) act independently to bias attention. Anticipatory accounts propose that both cues are comparably encoded into an attentional priority map, whereas the counterfactual account argues that incentive value cues instead induce a reactive encoding of losses based on the direction of attention. Here we adjudicate between these alternatives and further determine whether there are individual differences in how attentional cues are encoded. 149 participants viewed two coloured placeholders that specified the potential value of correctly identifying an imminent target if it appeared in that specific placeholder. Prior to the target’s presentation, an endogenous spatial cue indicated the target’s more likely location. The anticipatory and counterfactual accounts were used to motivate parametric regressors that were compared in their explanatory power of the observed data, at the group level and on data stratified by a clustering algorithm applied to identify individual differences. The algorithm revealed 2 subtypes in the population; whereas all individuals use spatial certainty cues a subset does not use incentive value cues. However, when used, the influence of incentive value cues reflects a counterfactual loss function. The data show that spatial certainty and incentive value act independently to influence visual priorities because they act at distinct points in information processing, and that theories of motivated attention must account for the non-uniform influence of incentive value on visual priorities.

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The Effect of Counterfactual Information on Outcome Value Coding in Medial Prefrontal and Cingulate Cortex: From an Absolute to a Relative Neural Code

Cited by 27 publications

References 64 publications

Believing and Beliefs—Neurophysiological Underpinnings

Believing and Beliefs—Neurophysiological Underpinnings

Strategic exploration in the macaque’s prefrontal cortex

On the influence of spatial and value attentional cues across individuals

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