My choice, my actions: self-determination, not instrumental value of outcomes enhances outcome monitoring during learning.
Cereb Cortex
; 34(8)2024 Aug 01.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-39118215
ABSTRACT
Freedom of choice enhances our sense of agency. During goal-directed behavior, the freedom to choose between different response options increases the neural processing of positive and negative feedback, indicating enhanced outcome monitoring under conditions of high agency experience. However, it is unclear whether this enhancement is predominantly driven by an increased salience of self- compared to externally determined action outcomes or whether differences in the perceived instrumental value of outcomes contribute to outcome monitoring in goal-directed tasks. To test this, we recorded electroencephalography while participants performed a reinforcement learning task involving free choices, action-relevant forced choices, and action-irrelevant forced choices. We observed larger midfrontal theta power and N100 amplitudes for feedback following free choices compared with action-relevant and action-irrelevant forced choices. In addition, a Reward Positivity was only present for free but not forced choice outcomes. Crucially, our results indicate that enhanced outcome processing is not driven by the relevance of outcomes for future actions but rather stems from the association of outcomes with recent self-determined choice. Our findings highlight the pivotal role of self-determination in tracking the consequences of our actions and contribute to an understanding of the cognitive processes underlying the choice-induced facilitation in outcome monitoring.
Key words
Full text:
1
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Choice Behavior
/
Personal Autonomy
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Electroencephalography
Limits:
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
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Male
Language:
En
Journal:
Cereb Cortex
Journal subject:
CEREBRO
Year:
2024
Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Germany