Many decisions rely on how we evaluate potential outcomes and estimate their corresponding probabilities of occurrence. Outcome evaluation is subjective because it requires consulting internal preferences and is sensitive to context. In contrast, probability estimation requires extracting statistics from the environment and therefore imposes unique challenges to the decision maker. Here, we show that probability estimation, like outcome evaluation, is subject to context effects that bias probability estimates away from other events present in the same context. However, unlike valuation, these context effects appeared to be scaled by estimated uncertainty, which is largest at intermediate probabilities. Blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) imaging showed that patterns of multivoxel activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), and intraparietal sulcus (IPS) predicted individual differences in context effects on probability estimates. These results establish VMPFC as the neurocomputational substrate shared between valuation and probability estimation and highlight the additional involvement of dACC and IPS that can be uniquely attributed to probability estimation. Because probability estimation is a required component of computational accounts from sensory inference to higher cognition, the context effects found here may affect a wide array of cognitive computations.

许多决定取决于我们如何评估潜在结果并估计其相应的发生概率。结果评估是主观的，因为它需要咨询内部偏好并且对环境敏感。相反，概率估计需要从环境中提取统计信息，因此给决策者带来了独特的挑战。在这里，我们表明，概率估计与结果评估一样，受上下文影响的影响，使概率估计偏离相同上下文中存在的其他事件。但是，与估值不同，这些上下文效应似乎由估计的不确定性来缩放，该不确定性在中间概率时最大。血氧水平依赖性（BOLD）成像显示背侧扣带回皮质（dACC）中的多体素活动模式，腹侧前额叶皮层（VMPFC）和顶叶内沟（IPS）预测了上下文对概率估计值的个体差异。这些结果将VMPFC确立为评估和概率估计之间共享的神经计算底物，并突显了dACC和IPS的额外参与，这可以归因于概率估计。因为概率估计是从感觉推断到更高认知的计算帐户的必要组成部分，所以此处找到的上下文效应可能会影响各种各样的认知计算。这些结果将VMPFC确立为评估和概率估计之间共享的神经计算底物，并突显了dACC和IPS的额外参与，这可以归因于概率估计。因为概率估计是从感觉推断到更高认知的计算帐户的必要组成部分，所以此处找到的上下文效应可能会影响各种各样的认知计算。这些结果将VMPFC确立为评估和概率估计之间共享的神经计算底物，并突显了dACC和IPS的额外参与，这可以归因于概率估计。因为概率估计是从感觉推断到更高认知的计算帐户的必要组成部分，所以此处发现的上下文效应可能会影响各种各样的认知计算。