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Related Experiment Videos

The cerebral response during subjective choice with and without self-reference.

Sterling C Johnson1, Taylor W Schmitz, Tisha N Kawahara-Baccus

  • 1William S. Middleton VA Medical Center, Madison, WI 53705, USA. scj@medicine.wisc.edu

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
|December 17, 2005
PubMed
Summary

Self-referential processing, not just subjective choices, drives activity in the anterior medial prefrontal cortex (AMPFC) and retrosplenial cortex (RSC). This study clarifies brain regions involved in personal decisions.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Decision-Making Research

Background:

  • Anterior medial prefrontal cortex (AMPFC) and retrosplenial cortex (RSC) are implicated in self-referential decision-making.
  • These regions also activate during other evaluative tasks like theory of mind, often involving subjective ambiguity.
  • Previous studies often do not control for ambiguity in self-referential decision-making research.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate neural processes underlying subjective decision-making with and without a self-referential component.
  • To differentiate brain activity related to personal preference versus objective similarity judgments in ambiguous contexts.

Main Methods:

  • Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used in 17 healthy adult participants.

Related Experiment Videos

  • A task involved subjective color judgments: internal (self-preference) versus external (color similarity).
  • Conditions were designed without objectively correct responses to isolate subjective decision-making.

    • Main Results:

    • Greater activation was observed in the AMPFC, RSC, and caudate nucleus during internal subjective decision-making (self-preference).
    • This suggests a specific neural signature for self-referential processing.
    • The findings differentiate self-referential effects from general subjective judgments under ambiguity.

    Conclusions:

    • The AMPFC and RSC responses are primarily driven by self-referential processing.
    • Subjective judgments alone, even with ambiguous alternatives, do not fully account for the observed AMPFC and RSC activation.
    • This research clarifies the neural basis of self-referential decision-making.