Pupil Dilation and the Slow Wave ERP Reflect Surprise about Choice Outcome Resulting from Intrinsic Variability in Decision Confidence

Central to human and animal cognition is the ability to learn from feedback in order to optimize future rewards. Such a learning signal might be encoded and broadcasted by the brain’s arousal systems, including the noradrenergic locus coeruleus. Pupil responses and the positive slow wave component of event-related potentials reflect rapid changes in the arousal level of the brain. Here, we ask whether and how these variables may reflect surprise: the mismatch between one’s expectation about being correct and the outcome of a decision, when expectations fluctuate due to internal factors (e.g., engagement). We show that during an elementary decision task in the face of uncertainty both physiological markers of phasic arousal reflect surprise. We further show that pupil responses and slow wave event-related potential are unrelated to each other and that prediction error computations depend on feedback awareness. These results further advance our understanding of the role of central arousal systems in decision-making under uncertainty.