Neural activity tracking identity and confidence in social information

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Social Psychology
• Behavioral Economics

Background:

• Humans acquire environmental knowledge through direct interaction or social information from conspecifics.
• The confidence in acquired information influences behavioral adaptation and change.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the differences in behavioral and neural computations between non-social and social learning.
• To analyze how confidence judgments in social versus non-social information sources impact learning processes.

Main Methods:

• Participants provided trial-wise confidence judgments for both non-social and social information sources.
• Bayesian estimates of subjective beliefs were analyzed alongside confidence reports.
• Brain activity was measured using neuroimaging techniques, focusing on dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and posterior temporoparietal junction.

Main Results:

• Confidence judgments were more accurate and less volatile for social information compared to non-social information, despite identical statistical properties.
• Neural activity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and posterior temporoparietal junction correlated more strongly with confidence in social information.
• Distinct neural patterns in these regions encoded the identities of social information sources versus non-social ones.

Conclusions:

• Social learning benefits from enhanced confidence accuracy and stability, influencing belief updating and behavior.
• Specific brain regions, including the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and posterior temporoparietal junction, play a crucial role in processing confidence related to social information.
• The brain differentially encodes information sources, highlighting the unique computational role of social learning.