Differential effects of social feedback valence and self-relevance on brain responses and behaviour

Theoretical accounts propose that people update their feedback expectations asymmetrically, with stronger updating after positive than negative feedback and self-relevant than irrelevant feedback. Further, attributions to the senders influence neuronal responses towards social evaluative feedback. In this study, we examined how both attributed self-relevance and acquired sender valence through their feedback behaviour impact learning about and Event-Related Potential (ERP) responses towards the social evaluative feedback. We investigated these questions in an ERP study (N = 40), where participants received either constant positive or negative feedback from senders, either self-relevant or directed to an unknown person. Participants first indicated their feedback expectations and were then exposed to the feedback and the sender's face. Feedback expectations changed according to sender behaviour over time, while surprisingly, expectations changed stronger for negative senders in general and positive self-irrelevant senders. For feedback, increased P1 responses to worse-than-expected feedback were observed, while mid-latency Early Posterior Negativity; Feedback Related Negativity (FRN) and late components Late Positive Potential to feedback were increased by feedback self-relevance. The FRN was additionally affected by sender valence and expectedness. Our findings thereby reveal different facets of behavioural and neuronal effects of attributed sender self-relevance and acquired sender valence.