New paper on neural basis of updating under ambiguity

Congratulations to Kenji Kobayashi, who paper on updating under ambiguity was just accepted at Journal of Neuroscience.

Title: Neural mechanisms of updating under reducible and irreducible uncertainty

Authors: Kenji Kobayashi and Ming Hsu

Abstract
Adaptive decision-making depends on agents’ ability to make use of environmental signals to reduce uncertainty. However, because there exist multiple types of uncertainty, agents should take into account not only the extent to which signals violate prior expectancy but also whether uncertainty can be reduced in the first place. Here we studied how the brain responds to signals under conditions of reducible and irreducible uncertainty. We show behaviorally that subjects’ value updating was sensitivity to the reducibility of uncertainty, and could be quantitative characterized by a Bayesian model where agents ignore expectancy violations that do not update beliefs or values. Using fMRI, we found that neural processes underlying belief and value updating were separable from responses to expectancy violation, and that reducibility of uncertainty in value modulated connection from belief- to value-updating regions. Together, these results provide insights into how agents use the knowledge on uncertainty to improve decisions while ignoring mere expectancy violation.