To err is human ?

Humans and other animals learn by making mistakes. They can also learn from observing the mistakes of others. The brain processes self-generated errors in a region called the medial frontal cortex (MFC) but little is known about how it processes the observed errors of others. A Japanese research team led by Masaki Isoda and Atsushi Iriki of the RIKEN Brain Science Institute has now demonstrated that the MFC is involved in processing observed errors

The team studied the brains of monkeys while the animals performed the same task. Two monkeys sat opposite each other and took turns to choose between a yellow and green button, one of which resulted in a liquid reward for both. Each monkey’s turn consisted of two choices.

After blocks of between 5 and 17 choices, the button that resulted in reward was switched unpredictably, usually causing an error on the next choice. The choices made by each monkey immediately after such errors, or errors that were random, showed that they used both their own errors and their partner’s to guide their subsequent choices. While the monkeys performed this task, the researchers recorded activity of single neurons in their brains.
In this way they were able to determine which behavioural aspect was most closely associated with each neuron’s activity, explains Isoda. “We found that many neurons in the medial frontal cortex were not activated when the monkey made an error itself, but they became active when their partner made an error.” This brain activity shows that it is the MFC which processes observations of another’s error, and the corresponding behavior shows that observing and processing such errors guides subsequent actions.

read more at RIKEN