Hey, what is your choice? Uncertainty and inconsistency enhance subjective anticipation of upcoming information in a social context

This research examined whether uncertainty would modulate subjective anticipation during social interactions as it does in the non-social context, and further explored how response consistency between participants would influence one’s anticipation. We set up an encyclopedic knowledge quiz involving two anonymous same-sex players and manipulated the difficulty of proposed questions (high-uncertainty accompanies highly difficult questions). An enlarged stimulus-preceding negativity was observed when participants were anticipating the presentation of their counterparts’ responses to high-uncertainty questions (versus low-uncertainty ones), as well as when they were anticipating the display of correct answers to high-uncertainty questions after they found out that responses given by their partners were inconsistent (versus consistent) with their own. In addition, inconsistent responses gave rise to a more salient difference wave reward positivity and a more positive P300 during the feedback stage. Taken together, these results suggested that both uncertainty and inconsistency would enhance subjective anticipation of upcoming information during social interactions, and that inconsistency would strengthen one’s concern and attention over outcomes.