Neural Mechanisms for Adaptive Learned Avoidance of Mental Effort
Neural Mechanisms for Adaptive Learned Avoidance of Mental Effort
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DOI：
10.1523/jneurosci.1995-17.2018
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发表时间：
2018-03-07
影响因子：
5.3
通讯作者：
Morita, Kenji
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Nagase, Asako Mitsuto;Onoda, Keiichi;Morita, Kenji
人类倾向于避免脑力劳动。以前的研究已经证明了这种倾向，使用各种需求选择任务，参与者通常会避免与更高的认知需求相关的选项。然而，目前还不清楚人类是否会在不确定和非平稳的环境中适应性地避免脑力劳动。如果是这样的话，我们也不清楚是什么神经机制导致了这种习得性回避，以及它们是否与认知需求类型无关。我们通过开发新的需求选择任务来解决这些问题，其中选择选项和认知需求水平之间的关联随着时间的推移而变化，使用心算和空间推理问题（男性/女性：29：4和18：2）。大多数参与者表现出回避，他们的选择取决于先前多次试验的需求。我们假设参与者通过经验更新了心理努力的预期成本，并通过强化学习模型来拟合他们的选择，比较几种可能性。基于模型的功能磁共振成像分析显示，背内侧和外侧额叶皮质的活动与所选选项的试验预期成本呈正相关，通常在不同类型的认知需求中。分析还显示，腹内侧前额叶皮层的负相关的趋势。我们进一步确定了相关的成本预测错误的时间的问题介绍或回答问题，后者部分重叠或接近的相关预期成本的时间选择线索在背内侧额叶皮层。这些结果表明，人类自适应地学习，以避免精神上的努力，有神经机制来表示预期成本和成本预测误差，以及相同的机制操作的各种类型的认知需求。
Humans tend to avoid mental effort. Previous studies have demonstrated this tendency using various demand-selection tasks; participants generally avoid options associated with higher cognitive demand. However, it remains unclear whether humans avoid mental effort adaptively in uncertain and nonstationary environments. If so, it also remains unclear what neural mechanisms underlie such learned avoidance and whether they remain the same regardless of cognitive-demand types. We addressed these issues by developing novel demand-selection tasks where associations between choice options and cognitive-demand levels change over time, with two variations using mental arithmetic and spatial reasoning problems (males/females: 29:4 and 18:2). Most participants showed avoidance, and their choices depended on the demand experienced on multiple preceding trials. We assumed that participants updated the expected cost of mental effort through experience, and fitted their choices by reinforcement learning models, comparing several possibilities. Model-based fMRI analyses revealed that activity in the dorsomedial and lateral frontal cortices was positively correlated with the trial-by-trial expected cost for the chosen option commonly across the different types of cognitive demand. Analyses also revealed a trend of negative correlation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. We further identified correlates of cost-prediction error at time of problem presentation or answering the problem, the latter of which partially overlapped with or were proximal to the correlates of expected cost at time of choice cue in the dorsomedial frontal cortex. These results suggest that humans adaptively learn to avoid mental effort, having neural mechanisms to represent expected cost and cost-prediction error, and the same mechanisms operate for various types of cognitive demand.