Neural correlates of evaluations of non-binary social feedback: An EEG study

In complex and diverse social circumstances, decision making is affected by social feedback. Although previous studies have examined the electrophysiological correlates of social feedback with a binary valence, those related to non-binary feedback, or the magnitude of social feedback, remain unclear. This study investigated the electrophysiological correlates of non-binary social feedback and subsequent action selection processing.

Participants were asked to complete a Gabor patch direction judgment task in which they were required to make judgments before and after receiving social feedback. They were informed that the feedback stimuli represented the degree to which other participants made the same choice.

The results revealed that feedback that was highly concordant with the participant's judgments elicited greater P300 activity, which was associated with the fulfillment of expectations regarding social reward. Moreover, moderately concordant feedback induced stronger theta band power, which may indicate monitoring of subjective conflict. Temporal changes in theta power during feedback phase may also relate to adjustments in prediction error. Additionally, when an initial judgment was maintained following social feedback, we observed a stronger increase in beta power, indicating an association with post-social-feedback action processing.