Counterfactual Choice and Learning in a Neural Network Centered on Human Lateral Frontopolar Cortex

By Erie Boorman, Timothy Edward John Behrens, Matthew F. S. Rushworth. 2011

208 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Decision making and learning in a real-world context require organisms to track not only the choices they make and the outcomes that follow but also other untaken, or counterfactual, choices and their outcomes. Although the neural system responsible for tracking the value of choices actually taken is increasingly well understood, whether a neural system tracks counterfactual information is currently unclear. Using a three-alternative decision-making task, a Bayesian reinforcement-learning algorithm, and fMRI, we investigated the coding of counterfactual choices and prediction errors in the human brain. Rather than representing evidence favoring multiple counterfactual choices, lateral frontal polar cortex (lFPC), dorsomedial frontal cortex (DMFC), and posteromedial cortex (PMC) encode the reward-based evidence favoring the best counterfactual option at future decisions. In addition to encoding counterfactual reward expectations, the network carries a signal for learning about counterfactual options when feedback is available—a counterfactual prediction error. Unlike other brain regions that have been associated with the processing of counterfactual outcomes, counterfactual prediction errors within the identified network cannot be related to regret theory. Furthermore, individual variation in counterfactual choice-related activity and prediction error-related activity, respectively, predicts variation in the propensity to switch to profitable choices in the future and the ability to learn from hypothetical feedback. Taken together, these data provide both neural and behavioral evidence to support the existence of a previously unidentified neural system responsible for tracking both counterfactual choice options and their outcomes.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cognitive Neuroscience

Citations in the corpus

Orthogonal representations for robust context-dependent task performance in brains and neural networks (2022, neutral): “, 2010) (Figures S3C and S3D), and an encoding of choice value (Boorman et al., 2011) in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and the striatum (Figure S3E).”
Executive control and decision-making in the prefrontal cortex (2015, unknown): “Other fMRI studies show at the FPC is involved in holding on and monitoring lternative courses of action [19,20,50].”
Neural basis of reinforcement learning and decision making. (2012, background): “Analogous to reward prediction error, the difference between hypothetical and predicted outcomes is referred to as fictive or counterfactual reward prediction error (Lohrenz et al. 2007, Boorman et al. 2011).”
Neurophysiology of performance monitoring and adaptive behavior. (2014, background): “In multiple-choice conditions, the pMFC appears to code the value of not continuing with the performed action (42), and in foraging tasks, it seems to reflect the value of searching for better alternatives to a currently performed action (304).”