Guest Presenter: Lei Zhang
University of Vienna

Talk Title: A network supporting social influences in human decision-making

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. The 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.

The workshop is open to all. Research assistants, graduate students and postdocs are encouraged to attend. Workshops will involve a short presentation of work (15-25 minutes) with an extended discussion at the end. The presentations will be live-streamed and recorded in collaboration with the OnNeuro platform, check it out here!

Join us in PS217 for some snacks and science on November 22nd, 1-2pm!