Frontal theta overrides pavlovian learning biases

A laboratory EEG study of how the front of the brain helps people act against instinctive pulls: the urge to move toward rewards and to freeze in the face of punishment, even when the task calls for the opposite. Participants did a learning task that separated what action was needed from whether it led to reward or punishment, while their EEG was recorded, and a computer model estimated how strongly that instinctive bias steered each person's choices. Stronger theta activity over the middle of the forehead went with a better ability to override the bias, both between people and from one trial to the next.