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Behavioral and neural properties of social reinforcement learning - PubMed

  • ️Sat Jan 01 2011

Behavioral and neural properties of social reinforcement learning

Rebecca M Jones et al. J Neurosci. 2011.

Abstract

Social learning is critical for engaging in complex interactions with other individuals. Learning from positive social exchanges, such as acceptance from peers, may be similar to basic reinforcement learning. We formally test this hypothesis by developing a novel paradigm that is based on work in nonhuman primates and human imaging studies of reinforcement learning. The probability of receiving positive social reinforcement from three distinct peers was parametrically manipulated while brain activity was recorded in healthy adults using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging. Over the course of the experiment, participants responded more quickly to faces of peers who provided more frequent positive social reinforcement, and rated them as more likeable. Modeling trial-by-trial learning showed ventral striatum and orbital frontal cortex activity correlated positively with forming expectations about receiving social reinforcement. Rostral anterior cingulate cortex activity tracked positively with modulations of expected value of the cues (peers). Together, the findings across three levels of analysis--social preferences, response latencies, and modeling neural responses--are consistent with reinforcement learning theory and nonhuman primate electrophysiological studies of reward. This work highlights the fundamental influence of acceptance by one's peers in altering subsequent behavior.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.

Task parameters. A, Three peers chosen by the participant were associated with distinct probabilities of positive reinforcement. B, Schematic of one trial within a run. The face of one peer (Cue) was displayed for 2 s, during which the face stimulus winked (500 ms) and participants pressed one of two buttons indicating in which eye the wink occurred, followed by a variable interstimulus interval (ISI), followed by the note outcome (Feedback). In this example, the participant received the note (positive social reinforcement) because it appeared in the middle hand. If the note appeared in one of the hands to the left or to the right of the middle hand, the participant did not receive the note (no positive social reinforcement). A variable intertrial interval (ITI) followed.

Figure 2.
Figure 2.

Behavioral responses to cues. A, Likeability ratings for the three peers before engaging in the task (pre-interaction) and after the task (post-interaction). B, Reaction times to the wink for the three peers, broken down by early and late trials of the experiment. C, Reaction times during the final (sixth) run of the experiment and during the run when the contingencies were reversed for the Rare and Continuous conditions.

Figure 3.
Figure 3.

Brain regions reflecting positive correlations with prediction errors. A, Circles denote activity in the ventral striatum. Image threshold p < 0.05, whole-brain corrected. B, Circle denotes activity in the lateral orbital frontal cortex. Image threshold p < 0.05, small volume corrected (see Materials and Methods). All statistical activations are displayed on a representative high-resolution axial image. The left side of the image corresponds to the right side of the brain.

Figure 4.
Figure 4.

Neural activity with positive correlations with learned cue value. Activity in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex reflects a positive correlation with expected values for the cues. Image threshold p < 0.05, whole-brain corrected. Statistical activations are displayed on a representative high-resolution sagittal image.

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