Keynotes | K&Ts | GACs | Talks | Posters | Search

Contributed Talk Session: Tuesday, August 4, 10:15 – 11:15 am, Skirball Theater
Poster C in Poster Session C: Wednesday, August 5, 9:30 – 11:15 am, Kimmel Center, Shorin & Rosenthal Rooms

Dynamic belief state representations in human orbitofrontal cortex under uncertainty

Theo AJ Schäfer¹, Ondrej Zika², Tobias H. Donner³, Nicolas W. Schuck¹; ¹Universität Hamburg, ²University College Dublin, ³University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf

Presenter: Theo AJ Schäfer

Adaptive behavior requires predicting the occurrence and timing of rewards. Some rewards, like annual celebrations, are precisely timed, while others, such as a decisive sports goal, are more uncertain. Because sensory input often provides ambiguous information about time, animals rely on probabilistic belief states to guide their expectations and learning from outcomes. Past fMRI work has implicated the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in the representation of hidden states, and animal work has suggested medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) to be involved in temporal belief states. We investigated 36 human subjects with fMRI, eye-tracking, and computational modeling in a temporally dynamic belief state task. We provide evidence that belief states are encoded in OFC and expressed in subjective expectations, pupil dilation, and gaze behavior.

Topic Area: Decision-Making, Cognitive Control & Event Cognition