Anterior cingulate cortex and the expected value of control
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1
Princeton University, Princeton Neuroscience Institute, United States of America
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2
Princeton University, Psychology, Princeton Neuroscience Institute, United States of America
The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) has been a near-ubiquitous presence in the neuroscience of cognitive control, and yet the functions it subserves are still under debate. Particularly common in this literature has been the finding that dACC tracks the strength of cognitive control required of a task based on current task demands (e.g., conflict), and influences how control is deployed. More recent work has extended these earlier findings to show that dACC also tracks the experienced cost associated with exerting cognitive effort, suggesting an additional role for this region in estimating not only how much control is necessary, but how much is worth exerting (given available incentives). It therefore remains an open question to what degree the dACC is responsible for the evaluation of both control strength and control costs, and the regulation of control itself, and how these functions relate to what is known about the dACC's role in tracking reward, punishment, and violations of expectation in the domain of motor actions. Building on previous models of cognitive control and action valuation, we offer a normative model of cognitive control that considers how both the type and strength of control is determined based on available payoffs and costs (including the cost of exerting control), similarly to how these calculations might be made when choosing motor actions. Within this framework, we suggest that a central function of the dACC is to determine and specify the optimal type and strength of cognitive control to engage at any given time.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Sebastian Musslick for assistance in modeling This work is supported by the C.V. Starr Foundation (A.S.), the National Institute of Mental Health R01MH098815-01 (M.M.B.) and the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.
Keywords:
Decision Making,
Prefrontal Cortex,
cognitive control,
Reward,
effort
Conference:
XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014.
Presentation Type:
Symposia
Topic:
Cognition and Executive Processes
Citation:
Shenhav
A,
Botvinick
MM and
Cohen
JD
(2015). Anterior cingulate cortex and the expected value of control.
Conference Abstract:
XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII).
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00440
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Received:
14 Apr 2015;
Published Online:
24 Apr 2015.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Amitai Shenhav, Princeton University, Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton, New Jersey, 8540, United States of America, ashenhav@princeton.edu