TY - JOUR
T1 - Neural correlates of reinforcement learning and social preferences in competitive bidding
AU - van den Bos, Wouter
AU - Talwar, Arjun
AU - McClure, Samuel M.
PY - 2013/1/30
Y1 - 2013/1/30
N2 - In competitive social environments, people often deviate from what rational choice theory prescribes, resulting in losses or suboptimal monetary gains. We investigate how competition affects learning and decision-making in a common value auction task. During the experiment, groups of five human participants were simultaneously scanned using MRI while playing the auction task. We first demonstrate that bidding is well characterized by reinforcement learning with biased reward representations dependent on social preferences. Indicative of reinforcement learning, we found that estimated trial-by-trial prediction errors correlated with activity in the striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Additionally, we found that individual differences in social preferences were related to activity in the temporal-parietal junction and anterior insula. Connectivity analyses suggest that monetary and social value signals are integrated in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and striatum. Based on these results, we argue for a novel mechanistic account for the integration of reinforcement history and social preferences in competitive decision-making.
AB - In competitive social environments, people often deviate from what rational choice theory prescribes, resulting in losses or suboptimal monetary gains. We investigate how competition affects learning and decision-making in a common value auction task. During the experiment, groups of five human participants were simultaneously scanned using MRI while playing the auction task. We first demonstrate that bidding is well characterized by reinforcement learning with biased reward representations dependent on social preferences. Indicative of reinforcement learning, we found that estimated trial-by-trial prediction errors correlated with activity in the striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Additionally, we found that individual differences in social preferences were related to activity in the temporal-parietal junction and anterior insula. Connectivity analyses suggest that monetary and social value signals are integrated in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and striatum. Based on these results, we argue for a novel mechanistic account for the integration of reinforcement history and social preferences in competitive decision-making.
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U2 - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3095-12.2013
DO - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3095-12.2013
M3 - Article
C2 - 23365249
AN - SCOPUS:84873035715
SN - 0270-6474
VL - 33
SP - 2137
EP - 2146
JO - Journal of Neuroscience
JF - Journal of Neuroscience
IS - 5
ER -