The left inferior frontal gyrus is involved in adjusting response bias during a perceptual decision-making task

Greg E. Reckless, Olga T. Ousdal, Andres Server, Henrik Walter, Ole A. Andreassen, Jimmy Jensen

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    21 Citations (Scopus)
    9 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    Introduction

    Changing the way we make decisions from one environment to another allows us to maintain optimal decision-making. One way decision-making may change is how biased one is toward one option or another. Identifying the regions of the brain that underlie the change in bias will allow for a better understanding of flexible decision-making.

    Methods

    An event-related, perceptual decision-making task where participants had to detect a picture of an animal amongst distractors was used during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Positive and negative financial motivation were used to affect a change in response bias, and changes in decision-making behavior were quantified using signal detection theory.

    Results

    Response bias became relatively more liberal during both positive and negative motivated trials compared to neutral trials. For both motivational conditions, the larger the liberal shift in bias, the greater the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) activity. There was no relationship between individuals' belief that they used a different strategy and their actual change in response bias.

    Conclusions

    The present findings suggest that the left IFG plays a role in adjusting response bias across different decision environments. This suggests a potential role for the left IFG in flexible decision-making.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)398-407
    Number of pages9
    JournalBrain and Behavior
    Volume4
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2014

    Swedish Standard Keywords

    • Psychology (50101)

    Keywords

    • fMRI
    • inferior frontal gyrus
    • motivation
    • perceptual decision-making
    • signal detection theory

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