Abstract
Most human decision-making takes place in a social context, which could influence individual decisions. Using a novel probabilistic reversal learning task in a social setup, we observed opposite effects of social influence on choice and confidence. People succumb to the group when confronted with dissenting information whereas increase their confidence when observing confirming information. Using computational modeling and functional neuroimaging of goal-directed learning, we were able to separate normative influence leading to changes in choice behavior and informational influence resulting in changes in value computations, and identified their unique neural representations. Subsequent valuation was accommodated by both reward prediction error and social prediction error. Moreover, we established an interaction of two brain networks related to processing reward and social information, which modulates behavioral adjustment.
One Sentence Summary Social influence modulates goal-directed learning and the interaction between the brain’s reward hub and social hub.