The feedback-related negativity signals salience prediction errors, not reward prediction errors.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Psychophysiology

Background:

• The feedback-related negativity (FRN) is an event-related potential (ERP) linked to reinforcement learning.
• A prominent theory posits FRN reflects reward prediction errors from dopaminergic pathways.
• This theory has not been extensively tested with aversive outcomes like pain.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if the FRN is elicited by aversive outcomes (pain) in addition to monetary rewards.
• To test the dominant theory that FRN specifically signals reward prediction errors.

Main Methods:

• Participants underwent ERP recording during tasks involving monetary rewards and physical pain.
• Stimuli included unexpected omissions and deliveries of rewards and punishments.
• FRN amplitudes were analyzed in response to different outcome types.

Main Results:

• Unexpected reward omissions elicited a more negative FRN than reward deliveries.
• Unexpected pain omissions also elicited a more negative FRN than pain deliveries.
• The FRN response to pain was spatiotemporally and functionally similar to the response to monetary reward.

Conclusions:

• The FRN appears to signal prediction errors for both rewarding and aversive stimuli.
• Data challenge the reward-specific prediction error theory of FRN.
• FRN may represent a more general salience prediction error signal.