The neural systems that mediate human perceptual decision making

Electrophysiological differences in inhibitory control processing between collegiate level soccer players and non-athletes in the absence of performance differences

Inhibitory control, the ability to manage conflicting responses and suppress inappropriate actions, is crucial for team sports athletes, including soccer players. While previous studies have shown that soccer players possess superior inhibitory control, the underlying mechanisms responsible for this advantage remain unclear. Thus, this research aimed to investigate the neural processes involved in conflict resolution and response inhibition, comparing collegiate level soccer players with non-athletes. Participants completed a novel go/no-go task that involved conflict resolution and response inhibition, while their electroencephalograms were recorded. Despite no significant difference in behavioral performance between the two groups, soccer players exhibited notable N2 and frontal midline theta modulations in response to conflict resolution and inhibition, which were comparatively weaker in non-athletes. Our findings suggest that expertise in team sports may enhance neural sensitivity to subtle yet significant information, even without a discernible behavioral advantage.

Biological motion perception in the theoretical framework of perceptual decision-making: An event-related potential study

Biological motion perception plays a critical role in various decisions in daily life. Failure to decide accordingly in such a perceptual task could have life-threatening consequences. Neurophysiology and computational modeling studies suggest two processes mediating perceptual decision-making. One of these signals is associated with the accumulation of sensory evidence and the other with response selection. Recent EEG studies with humans have introduced an event-related potential called Centroparietal Positive Potential (CPP) as a neural marker aligned with the sensory evidence accumulation while effectively distinguishing it from motor-related lateralized readiness potential (LRP). The present study aims to investigate the neural mechanisms of biological motion perception in the framework of perceptual decision-making, which has been overlooked before. More specifically, we examine whether CPP would track the coherence of the biological motion stimuli and could be distinguished from the LRP signal. We recorded EEG from human participants while they performed a direction discrimination task of a point-light walker stimulus embedded in various levels of noise. Our behavioral findings revealed shorter reaction times and reduced miss rates as the coherence of the stimuli increased. In addition, CPP tracked the coherence of the biological motion stimuli with a tendency to reach a common level during the response, albeit with a later onset than the previously reported results in random-dot motion paradigms. Furthermore, CPP was distinguished from the LRP signal based on its temporal profile. Overall, our results suggest that the mechanisms underlying perceptual decision-making generalize to more complex and socially significant stimuli like biological motion.

The Calmodulin-interacting peptide Pcp4a regulates feeding state-dependent behavioral choice in zebrafish

Animals constantly need to judge the valence of an object in their environment: is it potential food or a threat? The brain makes fundamental decisions on the appropriate behavioral strategy by integrating external information from sensory organs and internal signals related to physiological needs. For example, a hungry animal may take more risks than a satiated one when deciding to approach or avoid an object. Using a proteomic profiling approach, we identified the Calmodulin-interacting peptide Pcp4a as a key regulator of foraging-related decisions. Food intake reduced abundance of protein and mRNA of pcp4a via dopamine D2-like receptor-mediated repression of adenylate cyclase. Accordingly, deleting the pcp4a gene made zebrafish larvae more risk averse in a binary decision assay. Strikingly, neurons in the tectum became less responsive to prey-like visual stimuli in pcp4a mutants, thus biasing the behavior toward avoidance. This study pinpoints a molecular mechanism modulating behavioral choice according to internal state.

Action video games normalise the phonemic awareness in pre-readers at risk for developmental dyslexia

Action video-games (AVGs) could improve reading efficiency, enhancing not only visual attention but also phonological processing. Here we tested the AVG effects upon three consolidated language-based predictors of reading development in a sample of 79 pre-readers at-risk and 41 non-at-risk for developmental dyslexia. At-risk children were impaired in either phonemic awareness (i.e., phoneme discrimination task), phonological working memory (i.e., pseudoword repetition task) or rapid automatized naming (i.e., RAN of colours task). At-risk children were assigned to different groups by using an unequal allocation randomization: (1) AVG (n = 43), (2) Serious Non-Action Video Game (n = 11), (3) treatment-as-usual (i.e., speech therapy, n = 11), and (4) waiting list (n = 14). Pre- and post-training comparisons show that only phonemic awareness has a significantly higher improvement in the AVG group compared to the waiting list, the non-AVG, and the treatment-as-usual groups, as well as the combined active groups (n = 22). This cross-modal plastic change: (i) leads to a recovery in phonemic awareness when compared to the not-at-risk pre-readers; (ii) is present in more than 80% of AVG at-risk pre-readers, and; (iii) is maintained at a 6-months follow-up. The present findings indicate that this specific multisensory attentional training positively affects how phonemic awareness develops in pre-readers at risk for developmental dyslexia, paving the way for innovative prevention programs.

Reduced dorsal fronto-striatal connectivity at rest in anorexia nervosa

BACKGROUND

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a serious psychiatric illness that remains difficult to treat. Elucidating the neural mechanisms of AN is necessary to identify novel treatment targets and improve outcomes. A growing body of literature points to a role for dorsal fronto-striatal circuitry in the pathophysiology of AN, with increasing evidence of abnormal task-based fMRI activation within this network among patients with AN. Whether these abnormalities are present at rest and reflect fundamental differences in brain organization is unclear.

METHODS

The current study combined resting-state fMRI data from patients with AN (n = 89) and healthy controls (HC; n = 92) across four studies, removing site effects using ComBat harmonization. First, the a priori hypothesis that dorsal fronto-striatal connectivity strength - specifically between the anterior caudate and dlPFC - differed between patients and HC was tested using seed-based functional connectivity analysis with small-volume correction. To assess specificity of effects, exploratory analyses examined anterior caudate whole-brain connectivity, amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF), and node centrality.

RESULTS

Compared to HC, patients showed significantly reduced right, but not left, anterior caudate-dlPFC connectivity (p = 0.002) in small-volume corrected analyses. Whole-brain analyses also identified reduced connectivity between the right anterior caudate and left superior frontal and middle frontal gyri (p = 0.028) and increased connectivity between the right anterior caudate and right occipital cortex (p = 0.038). No group differences were found in analyses of anterior caudate ALFF and node centrality.

CONCLUSIONS

Decreased coupling of dorsal fronto-striatal regions indicates that circuit-based abnormalities persist at rest and suggests this network may be a potential treatment target.

Parkinson's disease impairs cortical sensori-motor decision-making cascades

The transformation from perception to action requires a set of neuronal decisions about the nature of the percept, identification and selection of response options and execution of the appropriate motor response. The unfolding of such decisions is mediated by distributed representations of the decision variables-evidence and intentions-that are represented through oscillatory activity across the cortex. Here we combine magneto-electroencephalography and linear ballistic accumulator models of decision-making to reveal the impact of Parkinson's disease during the selection and execution of action. We used a visuomotor task in which we independently manipulated uncertainty in sensory and action domains. A generative accumulator model was optimized to single-trial neurophysiological correlates of human behaviour, mapping the cortical oscillatory signatures of decision-making, and relating these to separate processes accumulating sensory evidence and selecting a motor action. We confirmed the role of widespread beta oscillatory activity in shaping the feed-forward cascade of evidence accumulation from resolution of sensory inputs to selection of appropriate responses. By contrasting the spatiotemporal dynamics of evidence accumulation in age-matched healthy controls and people with Parkinson's disease, we identified disruption of the beta-mediated cascade of evidence accumulation as the hallmark of atypical decision-making in Parkinson's disease. In frontal cortical regions, there was inefficient processing and transfer of perceptual information. Our findings emphasize the intimate connection between abnormal visuomotor function and pathological oscillatory activity in neurodegenerative disease. We propose that disruption of the oscillatory mechanisms governing fast and precise information exchanges between the sensory and motor systems contributes to behavioural changes in people with Parkinson's disease.

Flash Suppression Reveals an Additional Nonvisual Extrastriate Contribution for Amblyopic Suppression

Purpose

A growing body of evidence suggests that anomalous binocular interactions underlie the deficits in amblyopia, but their nature and neural basis are still not fully understood.

Methods

We examined the behavioral and neural correlates of interocular suppression in 13 adult amblyopes and 13 matched controls using a flash suppression paradigm while recording steady-state visual evoked potentials. The strength of suppression was manipulated by changing the contrast (10%, 20%, 30%, or 100%) of the flash stimulus, or the suppressor, presented either in the dominant (fellow) or nondominant (amblyopic) eye.

Results

At the behavioral level, interocular suppression in normal observers was found, regardless of the eye origin of the flash onset. However, the pattern of suppression in the amblyopes was not symmetric, meaning that the suppression from the dominant eye was stronger, supporting a putative chronic suppression of the amblyopic eye. Interestingly, the amblyopic eye was able to suppress the dominant eye but only at the highest contrast level. At the electrophysiology level, suppression of the steady-state visual evoked potential responses in both groups in all conditions was similar over the occipital region, but differed over the frontal region.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that, although suppression in amblyopia involves an imbalanced interaction between the inputs to the two eyes in the visual cortex, there is also involvement of nonvisual extrastriate areas.

Unraveling tactile categorization and decision-making in the subregions of supramarginal gyrus via direct cortical stimulation

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to investigate the potential of direct cortical stimulation (DCS) to modulate tactile categorization and decision-making, as well as to identify the specific locations where these cognitive functions occur.

METHODS

We analyzed behavioral changes in three epilepsy patients with implanted electrodes using electrocorticography (ECoG) and a vibrotactile discrimination task. DCS was applied to investigate its impact on tactile categorization and decision-making processes. We determined the precise location of the electrodes where each cognitive function was modulated.

RESULTS

This functional discrimination was related with gamma band activity from ECoG. DCS selectively affected either tactile categorization or decision-making processes. Tactile categorization was modulated by stimulating the rostral part of the supramarginal gyrus, while decision-making was modulated by stimulating the caudal part.

CONCLUSIONS

DCS can enhance cognitive processes and map brain regions responsible for tactile categorization and decision-making within the supramarginal gyrus. This study also demonstrates that DCS and the gamma activity of ECoG can concordantly identify the detailed brain mapping in a tactile process compared to other functional neuroimaging.

SIGNIFICANCE

The combination of DCS and ECoG gamma activity provides a more nuanced and detailed understanding of brain function than traditional neuroimaging techniques alone.

Discrete tactile feature comparison subprocess in human brain during a decision-making process

From sensory input to motor action, encoded sensory features flow sequentially along cortical networks for decision-making. Despite numerous studies probing the decision-making process, the subprocess that compares encoded sensory features before making a decision has not been fully elucidated in humans. In this study, we investigated sensory feature comparison by presenting two different tasks (a discrimination task, in which participants made decisions by comparing two sequential tactile stimuli; and a detection task, in which participants responded to the second tactile stimulus in two sequential stimuli) to epilepsy patients while recording electrocorticography (ECoG). By comparing tactile-specific gamma band (30-200 Hz) power between the two tasks, the decision-making process was divided into three subprocesses-categorization, comparison, and decision-consistent with a previous study (Heekeren et al., 2004). These subprocesses occurred sequentially in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, premotor cortex, secondary somatosensory cortex, and parietal lobe. Gamma power showed two different patterns of correlation with response time. In the inferior parietal lobule (IPL), there was a negative correlation. This means that as gamma power increased, response time decreased. In the secondary somatosensory cortex (S2), there was a positive correlation. Here, as gamma power increased, response time also increased. These results indicate that the IPL and S2 encode tactile feature comparison differently. Our connectivity analysis showed that the S2 transmitted tactile information to the IPL. Our findings suggest that multiple areas in the parietal lobe encode sensory feature comparison differently before making a decision.

Connectome-based reservoir computing with the conn2res toolbox

The connection patterns of neural circuits form a complex network. How signaling in these circuits manifests as complex cognition and adaptive behaviour remains the central question in neuroscience. Concomitant advances in connectomics and artificial intelligence open fundamentally new opportunities to understand how connection patterns shape computational capacity in biological brain networks. Reservoir computing is a versatile paradigm that uses high-dimensional, nonlinear dynamical systems to perform computations and approximate cognitive functions. Here we present conn2res: an open-source Python toolbox for implementing biological neural networks as artificial neural networks. conn2res is modular, allowing arbitrary network architecture and dynamics to be imposed. The toolbox allows researchers to input connectomes reconstructed using multiple techniques, from tract tracing to noninvasive diffusion imaging, and to impose multiple dynamical systems, from spiking neurons to memristive dynamics. The versatility of the conn2res toolbox allows us to ask new questions at the confluence of neuroscience and artificial intelligence. By reconceptualizing function as computation, conn2res sets the stage for a more mechanistic understanding of structure-function relationships in brain networks.

Hallucination-Proneness is Associated With a Decrease in Robust Averaging of Perceptual Evidence

BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESIS

Hallucinations are characterized by disturbances in perceptual decision-making about environmental stimuli. When integrating across multiple stimuli to form a perceptual decision, typical observers engage in "robust averaging" by down-weighting extreme perceptual evidence, akin to a statistician excluding outlying data. Furthermore, observers adapt to contexts with more unreliable evidence by increasing this down-weighting strategy. Here, we test the hypothesis that hallucination-prone individuals (n = 38 high vs n = 91 low) would show a decrease in this robust averaging and diminished sensitivity to changes in evidence variance.

STUDY DESIGN

We used a multielement perceptual averaging task to elicit dichotomous judgments about the "average color" (red/blue) of an array of stimuli in trials with varied strength (mean) and reliability (variance) of decision-relevant perceptual evidence. We fitted computational models to task behavior, with a focus on a log-posterior-ratio (LPR) model which integrates evidence as a function of the log odds of each perceptual option and produces a robust averaging effect.

STUDY RESULTS

Hallucination-prone individuals demonstrated less robust averaging, seeming to weigh inlying and outlying extreme or untrustworthy evidence more equally. Furthermore, the model that integrated evidence as a function of the LPR of the two perceptual options and produced robust averaging showed poorer fit for the group prone to hallucinations. Finally, the weighting strategy in hallucination-prone individuals remained insensitive to evidence variance.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings provide empirical support for theoretical proposals regarding evidence integration aberrations in psychosis and alterations in the perceptual systems that track statistical regularities in environmental stimuli.

Knowledge of Threat Biases Perceptual Decision Making in Anxiety: Evidence From Signal Detection Theory and Drift Diffusion Modeling

Background

Threat biases are considered key factors in the development and maintenance of anxiety. However, these biases are poorly operationalized and remain unquantified. Furthermore, it is unclear whether and how prior knowledge of threat and its uncertainty induce these biases and how they manifest in anxiety.

Method

Participants (n = 55) used prestimulus cues to decide whether the subsequently presented stimuli were threatening or neutral. The cues either provided no information about the probability (high uncertainty) or indicated high probability (low uncertainty) of encountering threatening or neutral targets. We used signal detection theory and hierarchical drift diffusion modeling to quantify bias.

Results

High-uncertainty threat cues improved discrimination of subsequent threatening and neutral stimuli more than neutral cues. However, anxiety was associated with worse discrimination of threatening versus neutral stimuli following high-uncertainty threat cues. Using hierarchical drift diffusion modeling, we found that threat cues biased decision making not only by shifting the starting point of evidence accumulation toward the threat decision but also by increasing the efficiency with which sensory evidence was accumulated for both threat-related and neutral decisions. However, higher anxiety was associated with a greater shift of starting point toward the threat decision but not with the efficiency of evidence accumulation.

Conclusions

Using computational modeling, these results highlight the biases by which knowledge regarding uncertain threat improves perceptual decision making but impairs it in case of anxiety.

Influence of frontal-to-parietal connectivity in pseudoneglect: A cortico-cortical paired associative stimulation study

Pseudoneglect is a set of visuospatial biases that entails a behavioral advantage for stimuli appearing in the left hemifield compared to the right one. Although right hemisphere dominance for visuospatial processing has been invoked to explain this phenomenon, its neurophysiological mechanisms are still debated, and the role of intra- and inter-hemispheric connectivity is yet to be defined. The present study explored the possibility of modulating pseudoneglect in healthy participants through a cortico-cortical paired associative stimulation protocol (ccPAS): a non-invasive brain stimulation protocol that manipulates the interplay between brain regions through the repeated, time-locked coupling of two transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) pulses. In the first experiment, healthy participants underwent a frontal-to-parietal (FP) and a parietal-to-frontal (PF) ccPAS. In the FP protocol, the first TMS pulse targeted the right frontal eye field (FEF), and the second pulse the right inferior parietal lobule (IPL), two critical areas for visuospatial and attentional processing. In the PF condition, the order of the pulses was reversed. In both protocols, the inter-stimulus interval (ISI) was 10 ms. Before and after stimulation, pseudoneglect was assessed with a landmark task and a manual line bisection task. A second experiment controlled for ccPAS timing dependency by testing FP-ccPAS with a longer ISI of 100 ms. Results showed that after administering the FP-ccPAS with the ISI of 10 ms, participants' leftward bias in the landmark task increased significantly, with no effects in the manual line bisection task. The other two protocols tested were ineffective. Our findings showed that ccPAS could be used to modulate pseudoneglect by exploiting frontal-to-parietal connectivity, possibly through increased top-down attentional control. FP-ccPAS could represent a promising tool to investigate connectivity properties within visuospatial and attentional networks in the healthy and as a potential rehabilitation protocol in patients suffering from severe visuospatial pathologies.

Social norms shape visual appearance: Taking a closer look at the link between social norm learning and perceptual decision-making

One of the most fundamental questions in social psychology is whether norms can change individuals' minds by shaping the visual appearance of stimuli. This question was first raised by Muzafer Sherif (1935). Drawing on the extended social reinforcement account (Germar and Mojzisch, 2019), we aimed to provide a rigorous test of the hypothesis that norm learning leads to a persistent perceptual bias and, hence, to a change in the visual appearance of stimuli. From a methodological perspective, we used both a diffusion model approach and the method of adjustment, a well-established technique from psychophysics and vision research. The results of Experiments 1-3 show that norm effects on perceptual decision-making are robustly replicable, and are due to genuine social influence, that is, they cannot be explained by non-social priming, contingency learning effects (Experiments 1 and 2) or anchoring effects (Experiment 3). Most importantly, by using a psychophysical approach, Experiment 4 shows, for the first time, that social norm learning alters individuals' point of subjective equality and, hence, the visual appearance of stimuli.

Encoding of continuous perceptual choices in human early visual cortex

Introduction

Research on the neural mechanisms of perceptual decision-making has typically focused on simple categorical choices, say between two alternative motion directions. Studies on such discrete alternatives have often suggested that choices are encoded either in a motor-based or in an abstract, categorical format in regions beyond sensory cortex.

Methods

In this study, we used motion stimuli that could vary anywhere between 0° and 360° to assess how the brain encodes choices for features that span the full sensory continuum. We employed a combination of neuroimaging and encoding models based on Gaussian process regression to assess how either stimuli or choices were encoded in brain responses.

Results

We found that single-voxel tuning patterns could be used to reconstruct the trial-by-trial physical direction of motion as well as the participants' continuous choices. Importantly, these continuous choice signals were primarily observed in early visual areas. The tuning properties in this region generalized between choice encoding and stimulus encoding, even for reports that reflected pure guessing.

Discussion

We found only little information related to the decision outcome in regions beyond visual cortex, such as parietal cortex, possibly because our task did not involve differential motor preparation. This could suggest that decisions for continuous stimuli take can place already in sensory brain regions, potentially using similar mechanisms to the sensory recruitment in visual working memory.

Altered Associations Between Task Performance and Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex Activation During Cognitive Control in Schizophrenia

BACKGROUND

Dysfunctional cognitive control processes are now well understood to be core features of schizophrenia (SZ). A body of work suggests that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) plays a critical role in explaining cognitive control disruptions in SZ. Here, we examined relationships between DLPFC activation and drift rate (DR), a model-based performance measure that combines reaction time and accuracy, in people with SZ and healthy control (HC) participants.

METHODS

One hundred fifty-one people with recent-onset SZ spectrum disorders and 118 HC participants performed the AX-Continuous Performance Task during functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning. Proactive cognitive control-associated activation was extracted from left and right DLPFC regions of interest. Individual behavior was fit using a drift diffusion model, allowing DR to vary between task conditions.

RESULTS

Behaviorally, people with SZ showed significantly lower DRs than HC participants, particularly during high proactive control trial types ("B" trials). Recapitulating previous findings, the SZ group also demonstrated reduced cognitive control-associated DLPFC activation compared with HC participants. Furthermore, significant group differences were also observed in the relationship between left and right DLPFC activation with DR, such that positive relationships between DR and activation were found in HC participants but not in people with SZ.

CONCLUSIONS

These results suggest that DLPFC activation is less associated with cognitive control-related behavioral performance enhancements in SZ. Potential mechanisms and implications are discussed.

Visuo-vestibular heading perception: a model system to study multi-sensory decision making

Integrating noisy signals across time as well as sensory modalities, a process named multi-sensory decision making (MSDM), is an essential strategy for making more accurate and sensitive decisions in complex environments. Although this field is just emerging, recent extraordinary works from different perspectives, including computational theory, psychophysical behaviour and neurophysiology, begin to shed new light onto MSDM. In the current review, we focus on MSDM by using a model system of visuo-vestibular heading. Combining well-controlled behavioural paradigms on virtual-reality systems, single-unit recordings, causal manipulations and computational theory based on spiking activity, recent progress reveals that vestibular signals contain complex temporal dynamics in many brain regions, including unisensory, multi-sensory and sensory-motor association areas. This challenges the brain for cue integration across time and sensory modality such as optic flow which mainly contains a motion velocity signal. In addition, new evidence from the higher-level decision-related areas, mostly in the posterior and frontal/prefrontal regions, helps revise our conventional thought on how signals from different sensory modalities may be processed, converged, and moment-by-moment accumulated through neural circuits for forming a unified, optimal perceptual decision. This article is part of the theme issue 'Decision and control processes in multisensory perception'.

Studying perceptual bias in favor of the from-above Necker cube perspective in a goal-directed behavior

When viewing a completely ambiguous image, different interpretations can switch involuntarily due to internal top-down processing. In the case of the Necker cube, an entirely ambiguous stimulus, observers often display a bias in perceptual switching between two interpretations based on their perspectives: one with a from-above perspective (FA) and the other with a from-below perspective (FB). Typically, observers exhibit a priori top-down bias in favor of the FA interpretation, which may stem from a statistical tendency in everyday life where we more frequently observe objects from above. However, it remains unclear whether this perceptual bias persists when individuals voluntarily decide on the Necker cube's interpretation in goal-directed behavior, and the impact of ambiguity in this context is not well-understood. In our study, we instructed observers to voluntarily identify the orientation of a Necker cube while manipulating its ambiguity from low (LA) to high (HA). Our investigation aimed to test two hypotheses: (i) whether the perspective (FA or FB) would result in a bias in response time, and (ii) whether this bias would depend on the level of stimulus ambiguity. Additionally, we analyzed electroencephalogram (EEG) signals to identify potential biomarkers that could explain the observed perceptual bias. The behavioral results confirmed a perceptual bias in favor of the from-above perspective, as indicated by shorter response times. However, this bias diminished for stimuli with high ambiguity. For the LA stimuli, the occipital theta-band power consistently exceeded the frontal theta-band power throughout most of the decision-making time. In contrast, for the HA stimuli, the frontal theta-band power started to exceed the occipital theta-band power during the 0.3-s period preceding the decision. We propose that occipital theta-band power reflects evidence accumulation, while frontal theta-band power reflects its evaluation and decision-making processes. For the FB perspective, occipital theta-band power exhibited higher values and dominated over a longer duration, leading to an overall increase in response time. These results suggest that more information and more time are needed to encode stimuli with a FB perspective, as this template is less common for the observers compared to the template for a cube with a FA perspective.

Inhalation boosts perceptual awareness and decision speed

The emergence of consciousness is one of biology's biggest mysteries. During the past two decades, a major effort has been made to identify the neural correlates of consciousness, but in comparison, little is known about the physiological mechanisms underlying first-person subjective experience. Attention is considered the gateway of information to consciousness. Recent work suggests that the breathing phase (i.e., inhalation vs. exhalation) modulates attention, in such a way that attention directed toward exteroceptive information would increase during inhalation. One key hypothesis emerging from this work is that inhalation would improve perceptual awareness and near-threshold decision-making. The present study directly tested this hypothesis. We recorded the breathing rhythms of 30 humans performing a near-threshold decision-making task, in which they had to decide whether a liminal Gabor was tilted to the right or the left (objective decision task) and then to rate their perceptual awareness of the Gabor orientation (subjective decision task). In line with our hypothesis, the data revealed that, relative to exhalation, inhalation improves perceptual awareness and speeds up objective decision-making, without impairing accuracy. Overall, the present study builds on timely questions regarding the physiological mechanisms underlying consciousness and shows that breathing shapes the emergence of subjective experience and decision-making.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Breathing is a ubiquitous biological rhythm in animal life. However, little is known about its effect on consciousness and decision-making. Here, we measured the respiratory rhythm of humans performing a near-threshold discrimination experiment. We show that inhalation, compared with exhalation, improves perceptual awareness and accelerates decision-making while leaving accuracy unaffected.

Fronto-parietal networks shape human conscious report through attention gain and reorienting

How do attention and consciousness interact in the human brain? Rival theories of consciousness disagree on the role of fronto-parietal attentional networks in conscious perception. We recorded neural activity from 727 intracerebral contacts in 13 epileptic patients, while they detected near-threshold targets preceded by attentional cues. Clustering revealed three neural patterns: first, attention-enhanced conscious report accompanied sustained right-hemisphere fronto-temporal activity in networks connected by the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) II-III, and late accumulation of activity (>300 ms post-target) in bilateral dorso-prefrontal and right-hemisphere orbitofrontal cortex (SLF I-III). Second, attentional reorienting affected conscious report through early, sustained activity in a right-hemisphere network (SLF III). Third, conscious report accompanied left-hemisphere dorsolateral-prefrontal activity. Task modeling with recurrent neural networks revealed multiple clusters matching the identified brain clusters, elucidating the causal relationship between clusters in conscious perception of near-threshold targets. Thus, distinct, hemisphere-asymmetric fronto-parietal networks support attentional gain and reorienting in shaping human conscious experience.

Stimulation along the anterior-posterior axis of lateral frontal cortex reduces visual serial dependence

Serial dependence is an attractive pull that recent perceptual history exerts on current judgments. Theory suggests that this bias is due to a form of short-term plasticity prevalent specifically in the frontal lobe. We sought to test the importance of the frontal lobe to serial dependence by disrupting neural activity along its lateral surface during two tasks with distinct perceptual and motor demands. In our first experiment, stimulation of the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) during an oculomotor delayed response task decreased serial dependence only in the first saccade to the target, whereas stimulation posterior to the LPFC decreased serial dependence only in adjustments to eye position after the first saccade. In our second experiment, which used an orientation discrimination task, stimulation anterior to, in, and posterior to the LPFC all caused equivalent decreases in serial dependence. In this experiment, serial dependence occurred only between stimuli at the same location; an alternation bias was observed across hemifields. Frontal stimulation had no effect on the alternation bias. Transcranial magnetic stimulation to parietal cortex had no effect on serial dependence in either experiment. In summary, our experiments provide evidence for both functional differentiation (Experiment 1) and redundancy (Experiment 2) in frontal cortex with respect to serial dependence.

Secondary motor integration as a final arbiter in sensorimotor decision-making

Sensorimotor decision-making is believed to involve a process of accumulating sensory evidence over time. While current theories posit a single accumulation process prior to planning an overt motor response, here, we propose an active role of motor processes in decision formation via a secondary leaky motor accumulation stage. The motor leak adapts the "memory" with which this secondary accumulator reintegrates the primary accumulated sensory evidence, thus adjusting the temporal smoothing in the motor evidence and, correspondingly, the lag between the primary and motor accumulators. We compare this framework against different single accumulator variants using formal model comparison, fitting choice, and response times in a task where human observers made categorical decisions about a noisy sequence of images, under different speed-accuracy trade-off instructions. We show that, rather than boundary adjustments (controlling the amount of evidence accumulated for decision commitment), adjustment of the leak in the secondary motor accumulator provides the better description of behavior across conditions. Importantly, we derive neural correlates of these 2 integration processes from electroencephalography data recorded during the same task and show that these neural correlates adhere to the neural response profiles predicted by the model. This framework thus provides a neurobiologically plausible description of sensorimotor decision-making that captures emerging evidence of the active role of motor processes in choice behavior.

Predictive saccades and decision making in the beetle-predating saffron robber fly

Internal predictions about the sensory consequences of self-motion, encoded by corollary discharge, are ubiquitous in the animal kingdom, including for fruit flies, dragonflies, and humans. In contrast, predicting the future location of an independently moving external target requires an internal model. With the use of internal models for predictive gaze control, vertebrate predatory species compensate for their sluggish visual systems and long sensorimotor latencies. This ability is crucial for the timely and accurate decisions that underpin a successful attack. Here, we directly demonstrate that the robber fly Laphria saffrana, a specialized beetle predator, also uses predictive gaze control when head tracking potential prey. Laphria uses this predictive ability to perform the difficult categorization and perceptual decision task of differentiating a beetle from other flying insects with a low spatial resolution retina. Specifically, we show that (1) this predictive behavior is part of a saccade-and-fixate strategy, (2) the relative target angular position and velocity, acquired during fixation, inform the subsequent predictive saccade, and (3) the predictive saccade provides Laphria with additional fixation time to sample the frequency of the prey's specular wing reflections. We also demonstrate that Laphria uses such wing reflections as a proxy for the wingbeat frequency of the potential prey and that consecutively flashing LEDs to produce apparent motion elicits attacks when the LED flicker frequency matches that of the beetle's wingbeat cycle.

Crossmodal interactions in human learning and memory

Most studies of memory and perceptual learning in humans have employed unisensory settings to simplify the study paradigm. However, in daily life we are often surrounded by complex and cluttered scenes made up of many objects and sources of sensory stimulation. Our experiences are, therefore, highly multisensory both when passively observing the world and when acting and navigating. We argue that human learning and memory systems are evolved to operate under these multisensory and dynamic conditions. The nervous system exploits the rich array of sensory inputs in this process, is sensitive to the relationship between the sensory inputs, and continuously updates sensory representations, and encodes memory traces based on the relationship between the senses. We review some recent findings that demonstrate a range of human learning and memory phenomena in which the interactions between visual and auditory modalities play an important role, and suggest possible neural mechanisms that can underlie some surprising recent findings. We outline open questions as well as directions of future research to unravel human perceptual learning and memory.

From Image to Diagnosis: Characterizing Sources of Error in Histopathologic Interpretation

An accurate histopathologic diagnosis on surgical biopsy material is necessary for the clinical management of patients and has important implications for research, clinical trial design/enrollment, and public health education. This study used a mixed methods approach to isolate sources of diagnostic error while residents and attending pathologists interpreted digitized breast biopsy slides. Ninety participants including pathology residents and attendings at major United States medical centers reviewed a set of 14 digitized whole slide images of breast biopsies. Each case had a consensus-defined diagnosis and critical region of interest (cROI) representing the most significant pathology on the slide. Participants were asked to view unmarked digitized slides, draw their own participant region of interest (pROI), describe its features, and render a diagnosis. Participants' review behavior was tracked using case viewer software and an eye-tracking device. Diagnostic accuracy was calculated in comparison to the consensus diagnosis. We measured the frequency of errors emerging during four interpretive phases: 1) detecting the cROI, 2) recognizing its relevance, 3) using the correct terminology to describe findings in the pROI, and 4) making a diagnostic decision. According to eye tracking data, both trainees and attending pathologists were very likely (about 94% of the time) to find the cROI when inspecting a slide. However, trainees were less likely to consider the cROI relevant to their diagnosis. Pathology trainees were more likely (41% of cases) to use incorrect terminology to describe pROI features than attending pathologists (21% of cases). Failure to accurately describe features was the only factor strongly associated with an incorrect diagnosis. Identifying where errors emerge in the interpretive and/or descriptive process and working on building organ-specific feature recognition and verbal fluency in describing those features are critical steps for achieving competency in diagnostic decision making.

Modality-specific sensory and decisional carryover effects in duration perception

BACKGROUND

The brain uses recent history when forming perceptual decisions. This results in carryover effects in perception. Although separate sensory and decisional carryover effects have been shown in many perceptual tasks, their existence and nature in temporal processing are unclear. Here, we investigated whether and how previous stimuli and previous choices affect subsequent duration perception, in vision and audition.

RESULTS

In a series of three experiments, participants were asked to classify visual or auditory stimuli into "shorter" or "longer" duration categories. In experiment 1, visual and auditory stimuli were presented in separate blocks. Results showed that current duration estimates were repelled away from the previous trial's stimulus duration, but attracted towards the previous choice, in both vision and audition. In experiment 2, visual and auditory stimuli were pseudorandomly presented in one block. We found that sensory and decisional carryover effects occurred only when previous and current stimuli were from the same modality. Experiment 3 further investigated the stimulus dependence of carryover effects within each modality. In this experiment, visual stimuli with different shape topologies (or auditory stimuli with different audio frequencies) were pseudorandomly presented in one visual (or auditory) block. Results demonstrated sensory carryover (within each modality) despite task-irrelevant differences in visual shape topology or audio frequency. By contrast, decisional carryover was reduced (but still present) across different visual topologies and completely absent across different audio frequencies.

CONCLUSIONS

These results suggest that serial dependence in duration perception is modality-specific. Moreover, repulsive sensory carryover effects generalize within each modality, whereas attractive decisional carryover effects are contingent on contextual details.

Age-related differences in ERP correlates of value-based decision making

This study evaluates age-related differences in the temporal dynamics underlying neural processing of value for decision-making in younger and older adults. We applied a lottery-choice task with event-related potentials to determine how and when brain activity during choice and outcome processing diverge between younger and older adults. Behaviorally, older adults accepted more losing stakes than younger adults. During choice, younger adults evinced higher P2 ERP-response positivity with a later P3 positivity that monotonically increased with low to middle to high win probability. Older adults evinced lower P2 responses and P3 amplitudes with more positivity for high and low relative to middle win probability. Both age groups showed similar feedback-related negativity and late parietal positivity, indicating intact reward prediction error representations and salience integration. Feedback-P3 showed more complex sensitivity to expectancy violations in older than younger adults, suggesting subjective uncertainty about reward expectations. Reduced early general neural processing of objective stimulus value with greater contribution of downstream subjective processes might underlie older adult risk-taking behaviors.

[Obsessive Doubting as a Philosophical-Psychopathological Phenomenon]

Obsessive doubting (OD) is a rather forgotten and underestimated psychopathological phenomenon, although clinically it seems to exist in many patients with e. g. obsessive-compulsive disorder. The few primary psychoanalytic and cognitive-scientific studies in the literature concerning OD do not explain the phenomenon completely, nor do they offer treatment perspectives. Here, another way is proposed. Doubting whether one's perception of objects, other people and one's own self is correct, which is part of human nature, can reach pathological dimensions as in OD. Doubting is regarded as an existential problem of human beings, and is one of the major questions of philosophy from very early times, but is especially central to scepticism. If grounds against such doubting can be found, mental solution strategies within the framework of theoretical depth psychotherapy including cognitive training approaches can be established for treatment of patients with OD.

Neural Correlates of Delay Discounting in the Light of Brain Imaging and Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation: What We Know and What Is Missed

In decision making, the subjective value of a reward declines with the delay to its receipt, describing a hyperbolic function. Although this phenomenon, referred to as delay discounting (DD), has been extensively characterized and reported in many animal species, still, little is known about the neuronal processes that support it. Here, after drawing a comprehensive portrait, we consider the latest neuroimaging and lesion studies, the outcomes of which often appear contradictory among comparable experimental settings. In the second part of the manuscript, we focus on a more recent and effective route of investigation: non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS). We provide a comprehensive review of the available studies that applied transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to affect subjects’ performance in DD tasks. The aim of our survey is not only to highlight the superiority of NIBS in investigating DD, but also to suggest targets for future experimental studies, since the regions considered in these studies represent only a fraction of the possible ones. In particular, we argue that, based on the available neurophysiological evidence from lesion and brain imaging studies, a very promising and underrepresented region for future neuromodulation studies investigating DD is the orbitofrontal cortex.

The structural basis of age-related decline in global motion perception at fast and slow speeds

A decrease in global motion perception (GMP) has been reported in older adults, and this age-related decline in GMP varies with the speed of global motion. However, no studies have investigated whether the asynchronous age-related decline in GMP is related to degenerative changes in brain structure. In this study, the random dot kinematogram paradigm and structural magnetic resonance imaging were used to investigate the asynchronous aging of GMP at fast and slow speeds (called fast GMP and slow GMP, respectively) and their relationships with brain structure. Ninety-four older adults (65.74 ± 4.50 yrs) and 90 younger adults (22.83 ± 4.84 yrs) participated in the experiment. The results showed that older adults had higher motion coherence thresholds (MCT) than younger adults at both fast and slow speeds. Brain-behavior correlation analyses of younger adults revealed that none of the correlations between morphological measures and MCTs survived correction for multiple comparisons. For older adults, slow MCT was correlated with cortical thickness in the bilateral V4v, V5/MT+, left V7, V8, LO, and surface area in the right V7. Fast MCT was significantly correlated with gray matter volume in the right V7 and thickness in the left V5/MT+. These results support the view that global motion extraction occurs within two speed-tuned systems that are at least partially independent in terms of their neural substrates, which deteriorate with age at different speeds. Aging of GMP is also associated with morphological changes in the visual cortex. Age-related cerebral atrophy in the dorsal stream may impair both fast and slow GMP, whereas aging of the ventral stream specifically impairs slow GMP.

What Do We Know About Threat-Related Perceptual Decision Making?

The ability to make rapid and precise decisions regarding the presence or absence of threats in our environment is critical for our survival. While threatening stimuli may be detected more accurately and faster due to the "bottom-up" salience of their features, in the real-world, these stimuli are often encountered in familiar environments in which "top-down" cues signal their arrival. There has been significant progress in our understanding of the mechanisms by which we make perceptual decisions regarding relatively routine stimuli; however, the mechanisms of threat-related perceptual decision-making remain unclear. In this paper, we discuss the psychological, computational, and neural mechanisms by which information from threatening stimuli is integrated with our prior knowledge from cues and surrounding contexts to guide perceptual decision-making.

Strategically managing learning during perceptual decision making

Making optimal decisions in the face of noise requires balancing short-term speed and accuracy. But a theory of optimality should account for the fact that short-term speed can influence long-term accuracy through learning. Here, we demonstrate that long-term learning is an important dynamical dimension of the speed-accuracy trade-off. We study learning trajectories in rats and formally characterize these dynamics in a theory expressed as both a recurrent neural network and an analytical extension of the drift-diffusion model that learns over time. The model reveals that choosing suboptimal response times to learn faster sacrifices immediate reward, but can lead to greater total reward. We empirically verify predictions of the theory, including a relationship between stimulus exposure and learning speed, and a modulation of reaction time by future learning prospects. We find that rats' strategies approximately maximize total reward over the full learning epoch, suggesting cognitive control over the learning process.

The regulations on cortical activation and functional connectivity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex-primary somatosensory cortex elicited by acupuncture with reinforcing-reducing manipulation

Introduction

Traditional acupuncture with reinforcing-reducing manipulation is essential for clinical effectiveness, whereas the underlying central mechanism of it remains unknown. This study with multiple-channels functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) aims to explore cerebral-response modes during acupuncture with reinforcing-reducing manipulations.

Materials and methods

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy data were recorded from 35 healthy participants during the lifting-thrusting reinforcing manipulation, the lifting-thrusting reducing manipulation, and the even reinforcing-reducing manipulation with lifting-thrusting. The general linear model based (GLM) cortical activation analysis and the functional connectivity (FC) based on region of interest (ROI) analysis were combined to be conducted.

Results

In comparison with the baseline, the results showed that three acupuncture with reinforcing-reducing manipulations similarly induced the hemodynamic responses in the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and increased FC between the DLPFC and primary somatosensory cortex (S1). Specifically, the even reinforcing-reducing manipulation deactivated the bilateral DLPFC, the frontopolar area (FP), the right primary motor cortex (M1), the bilateral S1, and the bilateral secondary somatosensory cortex (S2); The reducing manipulation deactivated the bilateral DLPFC; The reinforcing manipulation activated the bilateral DLPFC, the left S1, and the right S2. The between-group comparisons indicated that the reinforcing-reducing manipulation induced opposite hemodynamic responses in the bilateral DLPFC and the left S1 and exhibited different FC patterns in the left DLPFC-S1, within the right DLPFC, and between the left S1 and the left orbitofrontal cortex (OFC).

Conclusion

These findings verified the feasibility of fNIRS for investigating cerebral functional activities of acupuncture manipulations, suggesting that the regulations on the DLPFC-S1 cortex may be the potential central mechanism for the realization of acupuncture with reinforcing-reducing manipulation's effect.

Clinical trial registration

ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier, ChiCTR2100051893.

The gradient model of brain organization in decisions involving “empathy for pain”

Influential models of cortical organization propose a close relationship between heteromodal association areas and highly connected hubs in the default mode network. The “gradient model” of cortical organization proposes a close relationship between these areas and highly connected hubs in the default mode network, a set of cortical areas deactivated by demanding tasks. Here, we used a decision-making task and representational similarity analysis with classic “empathy for pain” stimuli to probe the relationship between high-level representations of imminent pain in others and these areas. High-level representations were colocalized with task deactivations or the transitions from activations to deactivations. These loci belonged to 2 groups: those that loaded on the high end of the principal cortical gradient and were associated by meta-analytic decoding with the default mode network, and those that appeared to accompany functional repurposing of somatosensory cortex in the presence of visual stimuli. These findings suggest that task deactivations may set out cortical areas that host high-level representations. We anticipate that an increased understanding of the cortical correlates of high-level representations may improve neurobiological models of social interactions and psychopathology.

Calibrating Vision: Concepts and Questions

The idea that visual coding and perception are shaped by experience and adjust to changes in the environment or the observer is universally recognized as a cornerstone of visual processing, yet the functions and processes mediating these calibrations remain in many ways poorly understood. In this article we review a number of facets and issues surrounding the general notion of calibration, with a focus on plasticity within the encoding and representational stages of visual processing. These include how many types of calibrations there are - and how we decide; how plasticity for encoding is intertwined with other principles of sensory coding; how it is instantiated at the level of the dynamic networks mediating vision; how it varies with development or between individuals; and the factors that may limit the form or degree of the adjustments. Our goal is to give a small glimpse of an enormous and fundamental dimension of vision, and to point to some of the unresolved questions in our understanding of how and why ongoing calibrations are a pervasive and essential element of vision.

Trial-by-trial fluctuations in amygdala activity track motivational enhancement of desirable sensory evidence during perceptual decision-making

People are biased toward seeing outcomes that they are motivated to see. For example, wanting their favored team to prevail biases sports fans to perceive an ambiguous foul in a manner that is favorable to the team they support. Here, we test the hypothesis that such motivational biases in perceptual decision-making are associated with amygdala activity. We used monetary incentives to experimentally manipulate participants to want to see one percept over another while they performed a categorization task involving ambiguous images. Participants were more likely to categorize an image as the category we motivated them to see, suggesting that wanting to see a particular percept biased their perceptual decisions. Heightened amygdala activity was associated with motivation consistent categorizations and tracked trial-by-trial enhancement of neural activity in sensory cortices encoding the desirable category. Analyses using a drift diffusion model further suggest that trial-by-trial amygdala activity was specifically associated with biases in the accumulation of sensory evidence. In contrast, frontoparietal regions commonly associated with biases in perceptual decision-making were not associated with motivational bias. Altogether, our results suggest that wanting to see an outcome biases perceptual decisions via distinct mechanisms and may depend on dynamic fluctuations in amygdala activity.

Verifying unfamiliar identities: Effects of processing name and face information in the same identity-matching task

Matching the identity of unfamiliar faces is important in applied identity verification tasks, for example when verifying photo ID at border crossings, in secure access areas, or when issuing identity credentials. In these settings, other biographical details-such as name or date of birth on an identity document-are also often compared to existing records, but the impact of these concurrent checks on decisions has not been examined. Here, we asked participants to sequentially compare name, then face information between an ID card and digital records to detect errors. Across four experiments (combined n = 274), despite being told that mismatches between written name pairs and face image pairs were independent, participants were more likely to say that face images matched when names also matched. Across all experiments, we found that this bias was unaffected by the image quality, suggesting that the source of the bias is somewhat independent of perceptual processes. In a final experiment, we show that this decisional bias was found only for name checks, but not when participants were asked to check ID card expiration dates or unrelated object names. We conclude that the bias arises from processing identity information and propose that it operates at the level of unfamiliar person identity representations. Results are interpreted in the context of theoretical models of face processing, and we discuss applied implications.

Disentangling choice value and choice conflict in sequential decisions under risk

Recent years have witnessed a surge of interest in understanding the neural and cognitive dynamics that drive sequential decision making in general and foraging behavior in particular. Due to the intrinsic properties of most sequential decision-making paradigms, however, previous research in this area has suffered from the difficulty to disentangle properties of the decision related to (a) the value of switching to a new patch versus, which increases monotonically, and (b) the conflict experienced between choosing to stay or leave, which first increases but then decreases after reaching the point of indifference between staying and switching. Here, we show how the same problems arise in studies of sequential decision-making under risk, and how they can be overcome, taking as a specific example recent research on the ‘pig’ dice game. In each round of the ‘pig’ dice game, people roll a die and accumulate rewards until they either decide to proceed to the next round or lose all rewards. By combining simulation-based dissections of the task structure with two experiments, we show how an extension of the standard paradigm, together with cognitive modeling of decision-making processes, allows to disentangle properties related to either switch value or choice conflict. Our study elucidates the cognitive mechanisms of sequential decision making and underscores the importance of avoiding potential pitfalls of paradigms that are commonly used in this research area.

A large body of work has investigated how people make sequential decisions under risk. For instance, how people decide whether to continue gambling for potentially greater rewards or to cash in to avoid losing everything. Here, we identify a critical confound in this line of research, between (a) the value of switching and (b) the amount of conflict between choosing to stay or switch. Using a previously proposed paradigm (i.e., the pig dice game) as an example, we replicated behavior from a recent study and showed that switch value is highly correlated with choice conflict. By simulating behavior across hypothetical contexts, we then identified and tested novel variants of this task that allow to deconfound switch value and conflict. However, only by means of sequential sampling modeling we could conclude that it is conflict rather than switch value that drives response times in this task. Sequential sampling modeling also shows how the switch value influences other cognitive components in this task.

Measuring sensitivity to social distancing behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic

Social distancing remains an effective nonpharmaceutical behavioral interventions to limit the spread of COVID-19 and other airborne diseases, but monitoring and enforcement create nontrivial challenges. Several jurisdictions have turned to "311" resident complaint platforms to engage the public in reporting social distancing non-compliance, but differences in sensitivity to social distancing behaviors can lead to a mis-allocation of resources and increased health risks for vulnerable communities. Using hourly visit data to designated establishments and more than 71,000 social distancing complaints in New York City during the first wave of the pandemic, we develop a method, derived from the Weber-Fechner law, to quantify neighborhood sensitivity and assess how tolerance to social distancing infractions and complaint reporting behaviors vary with neighborhood characteristics. We find that sensitivity to non-compliance is lower in minority and low-income neighborhoods, as well as in lower density areas, resulting in fewer reported complaints than expected given measured levels of overcrowding.

Response Time Distributions and the Accumulation of Visual Evidence in Freely Moving Mice

Response time (RT) distributions are histograms of the observed RTs for discriminative choices, comprising a rich source of empirical information to study perceptual processes. The drift-diffusion model (DDM), a mathematical formulation predicting decision tasks, reproduces the RT distributions, contributing to our understanding of these processes from a theoretical perspective. Notably, although the mouse is a popular model system for studying brain function and behavior, little is known about mouse perceptual RT distributions, and their description from an information-accumulation perspective. We combined an automated visual discrimination task with pharmacological micro-infusions of targeted brain regions to acquire thousands of responses from freely-moving adult mice. Both choices and escape latencies showed a strong dependency on stimulus discriminability. By applying a DDM fit to our experimental data, we found that the rate of incoming evidence (drift rate) increased with stimulus contrast but was reversibly impaired when inactivating the primary visual cortex (V1). Other brain regions involved in the decision-making process, the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and the frontal orienting fields (FOF), also influenced relevant parameters from the DDM. The large number of empirical observations that we collected for this study allowed us to achieve accurate convergence for the model fit. Therefore, changes in the experimental conditions were mirrored by changes in model parameters, suggesting the participation of relevant brain areas in the decision-making process. This approach could help interpret future studies involving attention, discrimination, and learning in adult mice.

Signal neutrality, scalar property, and collapsing boundaries as consequences of a learned multi-timescale strategy

We postulate that three fundamental elements underlie a decision making process: perception of time passing, information processing in multiple timescales and reward maximisation. We build a simple reinforcement learning agent upon these principles that we train on a random dot-like task. Our results, similar to the experimental data, demonstrate three emerging signatures. (1) signal neutrality: insensitivity to the signal coherence in the interval preceding the decision. (2) Scalar property: the mean of the response times varies widely for different signal coherences, yet the shape of the distributions stays almost unchanged. (3) Collapsing boundaries: the “effective” decision-making boundary changes over time in a manner reminiscent of the theoretical optimal. Removing the perception of time or the multiple timescales from the model does not preserve the distinguishing signatures. Our results suggest an alternative explanation for signal neutrality. We propose that it is not part of motor planning. It is part of the decision-making process and emerges from information processing on multiple timescales.

Human perceptual and metacognitive decision-making rely on distinct brain networks

Perceptual decisions depend on the ability to exploit available sensory information in order to select the most adaptive option from a set of alternatives. Such decisions depend on the perceptual sensitivity of the organism, which is generally accompanied by a corresponding level of certainty about the choice made. Here, by use of corticocortical paired associative transcranial magnetic stimulation protocol (ccPAS) aimed at inducing plastic changes, we shaped perceptual sensitivity and metacognitive ability in a motion discrimination task depending on the targeted network, demonstrating their functional dissociation. Neurostimulation aimed at boosting V5/MT+-to-V1/V2 back-projections enhanced motion sensitivity without impacting metacognition, whereas boosting IPS/LIP-to-V1/V2 back-projections increased metacognitive efficiency without impacting motion sensitivity. This double-dissociation provides causal evidence of distinct networks for perceptual sensitivity and metacognitive ability in humans.

Event-Related Potential Evidence for Involuntary Consciousness During Implicit Memory Retrieval

Classical notion claims that a memory is implicit if has nothing to do with consciousness during the information retrieval from storage, or is otherwise explicit. Here, we demonstrate event-related potential evidence for involuntary consciousness during implicit memory retrieval. We designed a passive oddball paradigm for retrieval of implicit memory in which an auditory stream of Shepard tones with musical pitch interval contrasts were delivered to the subjects. These contrasts evoked a mismatch negativity response, which is an event-related potential and a neural marker of implicit memory, in the subjects with long-term musical training, but not in the subjects without. Notably, this response was followed by a salient P3 component which implies involvement of involuntary consciousness in the implicit memory retrieval. Finally, source analysis of the P3 revealed moving dipoles from the frontal lobe to the insula, a brain region closely related to conscious attention. Our study presents a case of involvement of involuntary consciousness in the implicit memory retrieval and suggests a potential challenge to the classical definition of implicit memory.

Indoor Air Pollution and Decision-Making Behavior: An Interdisciplinary Review

The human brain is constantly exposed to air pollutants, some of which might be disruptive or even lethal to certain neurons implicated in abstract features of cognitive function. In this review, we present new evidence from behavioral and neural studies in humans, suggesting a link between indoor fine particulate matter and decision-making behavior. To illustrate this relationship, we use qualitative sources, such as historical documents of the Vietnam War to develop hypotheses of how aerial transmission of pollutants might obstruct alternative choices during the evaluation of policy decisions. We first describe the neural circuits driving decision-making processes by addressing how neurons and their cognate receptors directly evaluate and transduce physical phenomena into sensory perceptions that allow us to decide the best course of action among competing alternatives. We then raise the possibility that indoor air pollutants might also impact cell-signaling systems outside the brain parenchyma to further obstruct the computational analysis of the social environment. We also highlight how particulate matter might be pathologically integrated into the brain to override control of sensory decisions, and thereby perturb selection of choice. These lines of research aim to extend our understanding of how inhalation of airborne particulates and toxicants in smoke, for example, might contribute to cognitive impairment and negative health outcomes.

Humans utilize sensory evidence of others' intended action to make online decisions

We often acquire sensory information from another person's actions to make decisions on how to move, such as when walking through a crowded hallway. Past interactive decision-making research has focused on cognitive tasks that did not allow for sensory information exchange between humans prior to a decision. Here, we test the idea that humans accumulate sensory evidence of another person's intended action to decide their own movement. In a competitive sensorimotor task, we show that humans exploit time to accumulate sensory evidence of another's intended action and utilize this information to decide how to move. We captured this continuous interactive decision-making behaviour with a drift-diffusion model. Surprisingly, aligned with a 'paralysis-by-analysis' phenomenon, we found that humans often waited too long to accumulate sensory evidence and failed to make a decision. Understanding how humans engage in interactive and online decision-making has broad implications that spans sociology, athletics, interactive technology, and economics.

Perceptual Decision Impairments Linked to Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms are Substantially Driven by State-Based Effects

Computational models of decision making have identified a relationship between obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCS), both in the general population and in patients, and impairments in perceptual evidence accumulation. Some studies have interpreted these deficits to reflect global disease traits which give rise to clusters of OCS. Such assumptions are not uncommon, even if implicit, in computational psychiatry more broadly. However, it is well established that state- and trait-symptom scores are often correlated (e.g., state and trait anxiety), and the extent to which perceptual deficits are actually explained by state-based symptoms is unclear. State-based symptoms may give rise to information processing differences in a number of ways, including the mechanistically less interesting possibility of tying up working memory and attentional resources for off-task processing. In a general population sample (N = 150), we investigated the extent to which previously identified impairments in perceptual evidence accumulation were related to trait vs stated-based OCS. In addition, we tested whether differences in working memory capacity moderated state-based impairments, such that impairments were worse in individuals with lower working memory capacity. We replicated previous work demonstrating a negative relationship between the rate of evidence accumulation and trait-based OCS when state-based symptoms were unaccounted for. When state-based effects were included in the model, they captured a significant degree of impairment while trait-based effects were attenuated, although they did not disappear completely. We did not find evidence that working memory capacity moderated the state-based effects. Our work suggests that investigating the relationship between information processing and state-based symptoms may be important more generally in computational psychiatry beyond this specific context.

Neural and computational processes of accelerated perceptual awareness and decisions: A 7T fMRI study

Rapidly detecting salient information in our environments is critical for survival. Visual processing in subcortical areas like the pulvinar and amygdala has been shown to facilitate unconscious processing of salient stimuli. It is unknown, however, if and how these areas might interact with cortical regions to facilitate faster conscious perception of salient stimuli. Here we investigated these neural processes using 7T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in concert with computational modelling while participants (n = 33) engaged in a breaking continuous flash suppression paradigm (bCFS) in which fearful and neutral faces are initially suppressed from conscious perception but then eventually ‘breakthrough’ into awareness. Participants reported faster breakthrough times for fearful faces compared with neutral faces. Drift‐diffusion modelling suggested that perceptual evidence was accumulated at a faster rate for fearful faces compared with neutral faces. For both neutral and fearful faces, faster response times were associated with greater activity in the amygdala (specifically within its subregions, including superficial, basolateral and amygdalo‐striatal transition area) and the insula. Faster rates of evidence accumulation coincided with greater activity in frontoparietal regions and occipital lobe, as well as the amygdala. A lower decision‐boundary correlated with activity in the insula and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), but not with the amygdala. Overall, our findings suggest that hastened perceptual awareness of salient stimuli recruits the amygdala and, more specifically, is driven by accelerated evidence accumulation in fronto‐parietal and visual areas. In sum, we have mapped distinct neural computations that accelerate perceptual awareness of visually suppressed faces.

Computational mechanisms for context-based behavioral interventions: A large-scale analysis

A large body of research in the social and behavioral sciences studies the impact of behavioral interventions (or “nudges”) on decisions. Although this work has been extremely influential, we currently lack an overarching theoretical framework for behavioral interventions that provides a systematic account of their behavioral consequences, cognitive and neurobiological mechanisms, and statistical interpretations. In this paper, we propose such a theoretical framework using the diffusion decision model, a quantitative theory of decision-making whose parameters offer a theoretically compelling characterization of choice underpinnings. Our results not only reveal insights about how context-based interventions alter behavior but also offer practitioners a model-based method for choosing between behavioral interventions based on different goals.

Choice context influences decision processes and is one of the primary determinants of what people choose. This insight has been used by academics and practitioners to study decision biases and to design behavioral interventions to influence and improve choices. We analyzed the effects of context-based behavioral interventions on the computational mechanisms underlying decision-making. We collected data from two large laboratory studies involving 19 prominent behavioral interventions, and we modeled the influence of each intervention using a leading computational model of choice in psychology and neuroscience. This allowed us to parametrize the biases induced by each intervention, to interpret these biases in terms of underlying decision mechanisms and their properties, to quantify similarities between interventions, and to predict how different interventions alter key choice outcomes. In doing so, we offer researchers and practitioners a theoretically principled approach to understanding and manipulating choice context in decision-making.