I Plan Therefore I Choose: Free-Choice Bias Due to Prior Action-Probability but Not Action-Value

Complementary encoding of priors in monkey frontoparietal network supports a dual process of decision-making

Prior expectations of movement instructions can promote preliminary action planning and influence choices. We investigated how action priors affect action-goal encoding in premotor and parietal cortices and if they bias subsequent free choice. Monkeys planned reaches according to visual cues that indicated relative probabilities of two possible goals. On instructed trials, the reach goal was determined by a secondary cue respecting these probabilities. On rarely interspersed free-choice trials without instruction, both goals offered equal reward. Action priors induced graded free-choice biases and graded frontoparietal motor-goal activity, complementarily in two subclasses of neurons. Down-regulating neurons co-encoded both possible goals and decreased opposite-to-preferred responses with decreasing prior, possibly supporting a process of choice by elimination. Up-regulating neurons showed increased preferred-direction responses with increasing prior, likely supporting a process of computing net likelihood. Action-selection signals emerged earliest in down-regulating neurons of premotor cortex, arguing for an initiation of selection in the frontal lobe.

Decision-making in sensorimotor control

Skilled sensorimotor interactions with the world result from a series of decision-making processes that determine, on the basis of information extracted during the unfolding sequence of events, which movements to make and when and how to make them. Despite this inherent link between decision-making and sensorimotor control, research into each of these two areas has largely evolved in isolation, and it is only fairly recently that researchers have begun investigating how they interact and, together, influence behaviour. Here, we review recent behavioural, neurophysiological and computational research that highlights the role of decision-making processes in the selection, planning and control of goal-directed movements in humans and nonhuman primates.

Spatial attention during saccade decisions

Behavioral measures of decision making are usually limited to observations of decision outcomes. In the present study, we made use of the fact that oculomotor and sensory selection are closely linked to track oculomotor decision making before oculomotor responses are made. We asked participants to make a saccadic eye movement to one of two memorized target locations and observed that visual sensitivity increased at both the chosen and the nonchosen saccade target locations, with a clear bias toward the chosen target. The time course of changes in visual sensitivity was related to saccadic latency, with the competition between the chosen and nonchosen targets resolved faster before short-latency saccades. On error trials, we observed an increased competition between the chosen and nonchosen targets. Moreover, oculomotor selection and visual sensitivity were influenced by top-down and bottom-up factors as well as by selection history and predicted the direction of saccades. Our findings demonstrate that saccade decisions have direct visual consequences and show that decision making can be traced in the human oculomotor system well before choices are made. Our results also indicate a strong association between decision making, saccade target selection, and visual sensitivity.NEW & NOTEWORTHY We show that saccadic decisions can be tracked by measuring spatial attention. Spatial attention is allocated in parallel to the two competing saccade targets, and the time course of spatial attention differs for fast-slow and for correct-erroneous decisions. Saccade decisions take the form of a competition between potential saccade goals, which is associated with spatial attention allocation to those locations.