IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0029633.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rapid Processing of Both Reward Probability and Reward Uncertainty in the Human Anterior Cingulate Cortex

Author

Listed:
  • Rongjun Yu
  • Wu Zhou
  • Xiaolin Zhou

Abstract

Reward probability and uncertainty are two fundamental parameters of decision making. Whereas reward probability indicates the prospect of winning, reward uncertainty, measured as the variance of probability, indicates the degree of risk. Several lines of evidence have suggested that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) plays an important role in reward processing. What is lacking is a quantitative analysis of the encoding of reward probability and uncertainty in the human ACC. In this study, we addressed this issue by analyzing the feedback-related negativity (FRN), an event-related potential (ERP) component that reflects the ACC activity, in a simple gambling task in which reward probability and uncertainty were parametrically manipulated through predicting cues. Results showed that at the outcome evaluation phase, while both win and loss-related FRN amplitudes increased as the probability of win or loss decreased, only the win-related FRN was modulated by reward uncertainty. This study demonstrates the rapid encoding of reward probability and uncertainty in the human ACC and offers new insights into the functions of the ACC.

Suggested Citation

  • Rongjun Yu & Wu Zhou & Xiaolin Zhou, 2011. "Rapid Processing of Both Reward Probability and Reward Uncertainty in the Human Anterior Cingulate Cortex," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(12), pages 1-7, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0029633
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0029633
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0029633
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0029633&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0029633?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Levy, H & Markowtiz, H M, 1979. "Approximating Expected Utility by a Function of Mean and Variance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(3), pages 308-317, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xin, Baohua, 2022. "From Lab Experiments to the Field: The Case of a Price Formation Model Based on Laboratory Findings," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    2. Faisal Mushtaq & Gijsbert Stoet & Amy Rachel Bland & Alexandre Schaefer, 2013. "Relative Changes from Prior Reward Contingencies Can Constrain Brain Correlates of Outcome Monitoring," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(6), pages 1-11, June.
    3. Rongjun Yu & Yi Huang, 2013. "A Nickel Ain't Worth a Dime Anymore: The Illusion of Money and the Rapid Encoding of Its True Value," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(1), pages 1-8, January.
    4. Alexandre Schaefer & Luciano G Buratto & Nobuhiko Goto & Emilie V Brotherhood, 2016. "The Feedback-Related Negativity and the P300 Brain Potential Are Sensitive to Price Expectation Violations in a Virtual Shopping Task," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(9), pages 1-21, September.
    5. Vincent Man & Jeffrey Cockburn & Oliver Flouty & Phillip E. Gander & Masahiro Sawada & Christopher K. Kovach & Hiroto Kawasaki & Hiroyuki Oya & Matthew A. Howard III & John P. O’Doherty, 2024. "Temporally organized representations of reward and risk in the human brain," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-16, December.
    6. Qingguo Ma & Yue Hu, 2015. "Beauty Matters: Social Preferences in a Three-Person Ultimatum Game," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(5), pages 1-17, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Li, Chenguang & Sexton, Richard J., 2009. "Impacts of Retailers’ Pricing Strategies for Produce Commodities on Farmer Welfare," 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China 51720, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Markowitz, Harry, 2014. "Mean–variance approximations to expected utility," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 234(2), pages 346-355.
    3. Marc Peter Radke & Manuel Rupprecht, 2021. "Household Wealth: Low-Yielding and Poorly Structured?," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-40, March.
    4. Silva, A. Christian & Prange, Richard E., 2007. "Virtual volatility," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 376(C), pages 507-516.
    5. Johnson, Michael & O'Connor, Ian & Malcolm, Bill, 2006. "Agribusiness Assets in Investment Portfolios," 2006 Conference (50th), February 8-10, 2006, Sydney, Australia 139794, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    6. Guo, Xu & Lien, Donald & Wong, Wing-Keung, 2015. "Good Approximation of Exponential Utility Function for Optimal Futures Hedging," MPRA Paper 66841, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Prakash, Arun J. & Chang, Chun-Hao & Pactwa, Therese E., 2003. "Selecting a portfolio with skewness: Recent evidence from US, European, and Latin American equity markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(7), pages 1375-1390, July.
    8. Berck, Peter, 1980. "Portfolio Theory and the Demand for Futures: theory and the case of California cotton," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt58j4t4qp, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    9. Raquel M. Gaspar & Paulo M. Silva, 2023. "Investors’ perspective on portfolio insurance," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 22(1), pages 49-79, January.
    10. Shi, Shasha & Yin, Yafeng & An, Qingxian & Chen, Ke, 2021. "Optimal build-operate-transfer road contracts under information asymmetry and uncertainty," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 65-86.
    11. Bali, Turan G. & Demirtas, K. Ozgur & Levy, Haim & Wolf, Avner, 2009. "Bonds versus stocks: Investors' age and risk taking," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 817-830, September.
    12. M. Glawischnig & I. Seidl, 2013. "Portfolio optimization with serially correlated, skewed and fat tailed index returns," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 21(1), pages 153-176, January.
    13. Kassimatis, Konstantinos, 2021. "Mean-variance versus utility maximization revisited: The case of constant relative risk aversion," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    14. repec:dau:papers:123456789/11029 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Gourieroux, C. & Monfort, A., 2005. "The econometrics of efficient portfolios," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 1-41, January.
    16. Flavin, Marjorie & Yamashita, Takashi, 1998. "Owner-Occupied Housing and the Composition of the Household Portfolio over the Life Cycle," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt89x293v9, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.
    17. Guerrero-Baena, M. Dolores & Villanueva, Anastasio J. & Gómez-Limón, José A. & Glenk, Klaus, 2019. "Willingness to pay for improved irrigation water supply reliability: An approach based on probability density functions," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 11-22.
    18. Blank, Steven C., 2005. "Hedging with off-farm income: implications for production and investment decisions across farm sizes," 2005 Annual Meeting, July 6-8, 2005, San Francisco, California 291741, Western Agricultural Economics Association.
    19. repec:bpj:pepspp:v:18:y:2012:i:3:p:3:n:9 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Marie Brière & Valérie Mignon & Kim Oosterlinck & Ariane Szafarz, 2016. "Towards greater diversification in central bank reserves," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 17(4), pages 295-312, July.
    21. Monica Billio & Bertrand Maillet & Loriana Pelizzon, 2022. "A meta-measure of performance related to both investors and investments characteristics," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 313(2), pages 1405-1447, June.
    22. Firoozye, Nikan & Tan, Vincent & Zohren, Stefan, 2023. "Canonical portfolios: Optimal asset and signal combination," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0029633. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.