TY - JOUR TI - Neural activity tracking identity and confidence in social information AU - Trudel, Nadescha AU - Lockwood, Patricia L AU - Rushworth, Matthew FS AU - Wittmann, Marco K A2 - Liljeholm, Mimi A2 - Frank, Michael J VL - 12 PY - 2023 DA - 2023/02/10 SP - e71315 C1 - eLife 2023;12:e71315 DO - 10.7554/eLife.71315 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.71315 AB - Humans learn about the environment either directly by interacting with it or indirectly by seeking information about it from social sources such as conspecifics. The degree of confidence in the information obtained through either route should determine the impact that it has on adapting and changing behaviour. We examined whether and how behavioural and neural computations differ during non-social learning as opposed to learning from social sources. Trial-wise confidence judgements about non-social and social information sources offered a window into this learning process. Despite matching exactly the statistical features of social and non-social conditions, confidence judgements were more accurate and less changeable when they were made about social as opposed to non-social information sources. In addition to subjective reports of confidence, differences were also apparent in the Bayesian estimates of participants’ subjective beliefs. Univariate activity in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and posterior temporoparietal junction more closely tracked confidence about social as opposed to non-social information sources. In addition, the multivariate patterns of activity in the same areas encoded identities of social information sources compared to non-social information sources. KW - social neuroscience KW - confidence KW - Bayesian modelling KW - dorsomedial prefrontal cortex KW - posterior parietal junction JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -