Dissociating uncertainty responses and reinforcement signals in the comparative study of uncertainty monitoring.

TLDR

Studies of animal uncertainty monitoring are confounded by paradigms that conflate avoidance with feedback signals and stimulus aversion. They used a deferred‑feedback uncertainty‑monitoring task that prevented participants from linking reinforcement signals to specific stimuli or responses. Humans and one monkey produced uncertainty responses independent of feedback, unifying comparative literature and demonstrating that deferred‑feedback dissociates performance from reinforcement, with broad theoretical and practical implications.

Abstract

Although researchers are exploring animals' capacity for monitoring their states of uncertainty, the use of some paradigms allows the criticism that animals map avoidance responses to error-causing stimuli not because of uncertainty monitored but because of feedback signals and stimulus aversion. The authors addressed this criticism with an uncertainty-monitoring task in which participants completed blocks of trials with feedback deferred so that they could not associate reinforcement signals to particular stimuli or stimulus-response pairs. Humans and 1 of 2 monkeys were able to make cognitive, decisional uncertainty responses that were independent of feedback or reinforcement history within a task. This finding unifies the comparative literature on uncertainty monitoring. The dissociation of performance from reinforcement has theoretical implications, and the deferred-feedback technique has many applications.