Biology subjects

Pessiglione, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Pessiglione, M..

8 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Determinants of persistence in sequential effort-based decision-making

Goal-directed behavior often requires sustained effort across a sequence of interdependent decisions, yet the determinants of persistence in such contexts remain poorly understood. Here, we investigated how individuals regulate persistence in a novel sequential effort-based task in which they controlled an avatar through successive checkpoints to reach a final goal and could make repeated attempts following failure. At each attempt, participants could choose either to persist in the same task or to disengage toward an easier but less rewarding alternative. We found that decisions to persist or disengage were jointly shaped by multiple interacting factors. Disengagement increased with task difficulty and lower skill level. It also increased with repeated attempts and time-on-task, indexing fatigue, and with accumulated errors, indexing lack of progress. Conversely, proximity to the goal promoted persistence and shaped decision dynamics by reducing choice conflict during persistence decisions and increasing hesitation during disengagement near the goal. Notably, clearing the first checkpoint produced a sharp increase in persistence, suggesting that early success plays a pivotal role. Furthermore, persistence reflected both retrospective and prospective evaluations of effort, with prior investment promoting commitment and anticipated effort reducing it. Finally, disengagement was preceded by short-term performance decline but not by gradual increases in decision conflict, suggesting relatively abrupt strategy shifts following repeated failures. Together, these findings provide a comprehensive account of persistence in sequential effortful tasks, showing that decisions to persist or disengage are jointly shaped by multiple factors related to fatigue, (lack of) progress, goal proximity, and early success.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2025

Choosing the best or avoiding the worst: complementary and opponent value signals in the human brain

Whether the brain encodes the subjective value of pleasant and unpleasant situations via a single integrated circuit or through distinct pathways remains unresolved. It is also unclear how neural value signals guide choices when the context involves choosing the most favorable option or avoiding the most unfavorable one. To address these questions, we recorded intracerebral activity from 27 participants as they first rated pleasant and unpleasant scenarios and then made binary choices across all combinations of item domain (pleasant/unpleasant) and choice frame (choose best/worst). Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) broadband gamma activity (BGA, 50-150 Hz) tracked the value of pleasant items during rating and pre-choice, correlating positively with the most pleasant item irrespective of choice frame. Similarly, anterior insula (aIns) BGA tracked the value of unpleasant items during rating and pre-choice, correlating negatively with the most unpleasant item irrespective of choice frame. The difference in relative value correlations between the vmPFC and aIns was larger for choices involving a conflict between item domain and choice frame, consistent with slower response times and choices less aligned with value differences in these trials. These findings reveal dissociable yet complementary neural systems for pleasant and unpleasant valuation and highlight how such signals may guide flexible decision-making across contexts.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Direct stimulation of anterior insula and ventromedial prefrontal cortex disrupts economic choices

Neural activities within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and anterior insula are associated with economic choices. However, whether these brain regions are causally related to these processes remains unclear. To address this issue, we leveraged rare intracerebral electrical stimulation (iES) data in epileptic patients. We show that opposite effects of iES on choice depend on the location of stimulation on a dorso-ventral axis within each area, thus demonstrating dissociable neural circuits causally involved in accepting versus avoiding challenges.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

The online metacognitive control of decisions

Difficult decisions typically involve mental effort, which scales with the deployment of cognitive (e.g., mnesic, attentional) resources engaged in processing decision-relevant information. But how does the brain regulate mental effort? A possibility is that the brain optimizes a resource allocation problem, whereby the amount of invested resources balances its expected cost (i.e. effort) and benefit. Our working assumption is that subjective decision confidence serves as the benefit term of the resource allocation problem, hence the "metacognitive" nature of decision control. Here, we present a computational model for the online metacognitive control of decisions or oMCD. Formally, oMCD is a Markov Decision Process that optimally solves the ensuing resource allocation problem under agnostic assumptions about the inner workings of the underlying decision system. We demonstrate how this makes oMCD a quasi-optimal control policy for a broad class of decision processes, including -but not limited to- progressive attribute integration. We disclose oMCDs main properties (in terms of choice, confidence and response time), and show that they reproduce most established empirical results in the field of value-based decision making. Finally, we discuss the possible connections between oMCD and most prominent neurocognitive theories about decision control and mental effort regulation.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2021

A shared brain system forming confidence judgment across cognitive domains

Confidence is typically defined as a subjective judgment about whether a decision is right. Decisions are based on sources of information that come from various cognitive domains and are processed in different brain systems. An unsettled question is whether the brain computes confidence in a similar manner whatever the domain or in a manner that would be idiosyncratic to each domain. To address this issue, human participants of both sexes performed two tasks probing confidence in decisions made about the same material (history and geography statements), but based on different cognitive processes: semantic memory for deciding whether the statement was true or false, and duration perception for deciding whether the statement display was long or short. At the behavioral level, we found that the same factors (difficulty, accuracy, response time and confidence in the preceding decision) predicted confidence judgments in both tasks. At the neural level, we observed using fMRI that confidence judgments in both tasks were associated to activity in the same brain regions: positively in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and negatively in a prefronto-parietal network. Together, these findings suggest the existence of a shared brain system that generates confidence judgments in a similar manner across cognitive domains.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Intracerebral mechanisms explaining the impact of incidental feedback on mood state and risky choice

Identifying factors whose fluctuations are associated with choice inconsistency is a major issue for rational decision theory. Here, we investigated the neuro-computational mechanisms through which mood fluctuations may bias human choice behavior. Intracerebral EEG data were collected in a large group of participants (n = 30), while they were performing interleaved quiz and choice tasks. Neural baseline activity preceding choice onset was confronted first to mood level, estimated by a computational model integrating the feedbacks received in the quiz task, and then to the weighting of option attributes, in a computational model predicting risk attitude in the choice task. Results showed that 1) elevated broadband gamma activity (BGA) in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and dorsal anterior insula (daIns) was respectively signaling periods of high and low mood, 2) increased vmPFC and daIns BGA respectively promoted and tempered risk taking by overweighting gain versus loss prospects. Thus, incidental feedbacks induce brain states that correspond to different moods and bias the comparison of safe and risky options. More generally, these findings might explain why people experiencing positive (or negative) outcome in some part of their life tend to expect success (or failure) in any other.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Value, confidence and deliberation in preference tasks: a triple dissociation in the medial prefrontal cortex

Deciding about courses of action involves minimizing costs and maximizing benefits. Decision neuroscience studies have implicated both the ventral and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC and dmPFC) in signaling goal value and action cost, but the precise functional role of these regions is still a matter of debate. Here, we suggest a more general functional partition that applies not only to decisions but also to judgments about goal value (expected reward) and action cost (expected effort). In this conceptual framework, cognitive representations related to options (reward value and effort cost) are dissociated from metacognitive representations (confidence and deliberation) related to solving the task (providing a judgment or making a choice). Thus, we used an original approach with the goal of identifying consistencies across several preference tasks, from likeability ratings to binary decisions involving both attribute integration and option comparison. FMRI results confirmed the vmPFC as a generic valuation system, its activity increasing with reward value and decreasing with effort cost. In contrast, more dorsal regions were not concerned with the valuation of options but with metacognitive variables, confidence level being reflected in mPFC activity and deliberation time in dmPFC activity. Thus, there was a dissociation between the effort attached to choice options (represented in the vmPFC) and the effort invested in deliberation (represented in the dmPFC), the latter being expressed in pupil dilation. More generally, assessing commonalities across preference tasks might help reaching a unified view of the neural mechanisms underlying the cost/benefit tradeoffs that drive human behavior.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2017

Red Bull Gives You Incentive Motivation: Understanding Placebo Effects of Energy Drinks on Human Cognitive Performance

The consumption of cognitive enhancers like energy drinks (EnD) is on the rise, but do they really improve cognitive performance, and, if yes, why? We examined two novel psychological mechanisms. First, we dissociated the role of expectations and actual consumption by crossing what people consumed--Red Bull Silver Edition or a similar-tasting Sprite soda--and what they thought they consumed. We found that participants performed better in a numerical Stroop task when they believed that they had consumed an EnD, irrespective of what they had actually consume, Second, we investigated the role of motivation for such a placebo effect of EnD. We found that expected, but not actual, consumption of EnD increased the effects of incentives on cognitive performance. Our results suggest that believing that one consumes an EnD increased participants motivation to perform and thus enhanced their performance.\n\nSignificance statementAcademic doping has become increasingly popular on campuses around the globe over the last years. However, it remains unknown if and how commercially available cognitive enhancers such as energy drinks (EnD) impact cognitive performance. We varied actual and believed consumption of an EnD and measured cognitive performance and its allocation according to the magnitude of points to earn. We found that the belief that one has consumed an EnD but not its actual consumption, increased cognitive performance specifically in high point trials compared to low point trials. These findings provide novel insights into motivational processes underpinning marketing-led expectancy effects, and contribute to the current public policy debate on the use and abuse of increased alertness and concentration claims for EnD.

neuroscience↗