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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Dec 20.
Published in final edited form as: Cell Rep. 2021 Nov 30;37(9):110065. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2021.110065

Figure 2. Hippocampus and lateral OFC both represent task structure.

Figure 2.

(A) Decision phase. The trial procedure was like learning blocks 9–16, with the only difference being that no feedback was given after decisions. The same eight foods were shown in each mini-block in different contexts but in a randomized order. Each run consisted of eight mini-blocks.

(B) Decision performance. Foods were categorized as context dependent (CD) or context invariant (CI), and the proportion of optimal decisions was calculated for CD and CI foods separately and averaged across stores for each run. Decision performance showed that participants learned the task structure well enough to make optimal decisions for both CD and CI foods. CD foods were slightly better than CI foods (p = 0.049).

(C) Task structure. We calculated pattern similarity (PS) for the two same sub-structure trial pairs (CD-CD or CI-CI) and different sub-structure trial pairs (CD-CI).

(D) Task structure representation in hippocampus. Behavioral performance indicated that participants learned the difference between CD and CI task structures. Pattern similarity for same task structure trial pairs was higher than different task structure.

(E) Task structure representation in OFC. Lateral OFC pattern similarity was higher for same task structure compared with different task structure.

(F) Learning and task structure in hippocampus. We calculated a neural index for task structure representation in hippocampus, PS same-different task structure, and an index for learning differentiation, performance CD-CI for each participant. The learning index (i.e., difference in learning performance between CD and CI trials) was positively correlated with the neural index (i.e., differences in neural representation of same versus different sub-structure).

(G) Learning and task structure in lateral OFC. There was a positive correlation between neural index of task structure representation in lateral OFC and learning index.

(H) Hippocampus and lateral OFC represent task structure similarly. There was a strong correlation between the hippocampus neural index and lateral OFC neural index.

Error bars denote within-subject 95% confidence intervals.