scholarly journals Sex-specific speed–accuracy trade-offs shape neural processing of acoustic signals in a grasshopper

2021 ◽  
Vol 288 (1945) ◽  
pp. 20210005
Author(s):  
Jan Clemens ◽  
Bernhard Ronacher ◽  
Michael S. Reichert

Speed–accuracy trade-offs—being fast at the risk of being wrong—are fundamental to many decisions and natural selection is expected to resolve these trade-offs according to the costs and benefits of behaviour. We here test the prediction that females and males should integrate information from courtship signals differently because they experience different pay-offs along the speed–accuracy continuum. We fitted a neural model of decision making (a drift–diffusion model of integration to threshold) to behavioural data from the grasshopper Chorthippus biguttulus to determine the parameters of temporal integration of acoustic directional information used by male grasshoppers to locate receptive females. The model revealed that males had a low threshold for initiating a turning response, yet a large integration time constant enabled them to continue to gather information when cues were weak. This contrasts with parameters estimated for females of the same species when evaluating potential mates, in which response thresholds were much higher and behaviour was strongly influenced by unattractive stimuli. Our results reveal differences in neural integration consistent with the sex-specific costs of mate search: males often face competition and need to be fast, while females often pay high error costs and need to be deliberate.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Clemens ◽  
Bernhard Ronacher ◽  
Michael Reichert

AbstractSpeed-accuracy tradeoffs – being fast at the risk of being wrong – are fundamental to many decisions and natural selection is expected to resolve these tradeoffs according to the costs and benefits of behavior. We here test the prediction that females and males should integrate information from courtship signals differently because they experience different payoffs along the speed-accuracy continuum. We fitted a neural model of decision making to behavioral data to determine the parameters of temporal integration of acoustic directional information used by male grasshoppers to locate receptive females. The model revealed that males had a low threshold for initiating a turning response, yet a large integration time constant enabled them to continue to gather information when cues were weak. This contrasts with parameters estimated for females of the same species when evaluating potential mates, in which thresholds for response were much higher and behavior was strongly influenced by unattractive stimuli. Our results reveal differences in neural integration consistent with the sex-specific costs of mate search: Males often face competition and need to be fast, females often pay high error costs and need to be deliberate.Graphical abstract


2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 118-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olive Emil Wetter ◽  
Jürgen Wegge ◽  
Klaus Jonas ◽  
Klaus-Helmut Schmidt

In most work contexts, several performance goals coexist, and conflicts between them and trade-offs can occur. Our paper is the first to contrast a dual goal for speed and accuracy with a single goal for speed on the same task. The Sternberg paradigm (Experiment 1, n = 57) and the d2 test (Experiment 2, n = 19) were used as performance tasks. Speed measures and errors revealed in both experiments that dual as well as single goals increase performance by enhancing memory scanning. However, the single speed goal triggered a speed-accuracy trade-off, favoring speed over accuracy, whereas this was not the case with the dual goal. In difficult trials, dual goals slowed down scanning processes again so that errors could be prevented. This new finding is particularly relevant for security domains, where both aspects have to be managed simultaneously.


2012 ◽  
Vol 85 (2) ◽  
pp. 274-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qingyang Li ◽  
Michael T. Amlung ◽  
Manouela Valtcheva ◽  
Jazmin Camchong ◽  
Benjamin P. Austin ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
William S. Evans ◽  
Robert Cavanaugh ◽  
Yina Quique ◽  
Emily Boss ◽  
Jeffrey J. Starns ◽  
...  

Purpose The purpose of this study was to develop and pilot a novel treatment framework called BEARS (Balancing Effort, Accuracy, and Response Speed). People with aphasia (PWA) have been shown to maladaptively balance speed and accuracy during language tasks. BEARS is designed to train PWA to balance speed–accuracy trade-offs and improve system calibration (i.e., to adaptively match system use with its current capability), which was hypothesized to improve treatment outcomes by maximizing retrieval practice and minimizing error learning. In this study, BEARS was applied in the context of a semantically oriented anomia treatment based on semantic feature verification (SFV). Method Nine PWA received 25 hr of treatment in a multiple-baseline single-case series design. BEARS + SFV combined computer-based SFV with clinician-provided BEARS metacognitive training. Naming probe accuracy, efficiency, and proportion of “pass” responses on inaccurate trials were analyzed using Bayesian generalized linear mixed-effects models. Generalization to discourse and correlations between practice efficiency and treatment outcomes were also assessed. Results Participants improved on naming probe accuracy and efficiency of treated and untreated items, although untreated item gains could not be distinguished from the effects of repeated exposure. There were no improvements on discourse performance, but participants demonstrated improved system calibration based on their performance on inaccurate treatment trials, with an increasing proportion of “pass” responses compared to paraphasia or timeout nonresponses. In addition, levels of practice efficiency during treatment were positively correlated with treatment outcomes, suggesting that improved practice efficiency promoted greater treatment generalization and improved naming efficiency. Conclusions BEARS is a promising, theoretically motivated treatment framework for addressing the interplay between effort, accuracy, and processing speed in aphasia. This study establishes the feasibility of BEARS + SFV and provides preliminary evidence for its efficacy. This study highlights the importance of considering processing efficiency in anomia treatment, in addition to performance accuracy. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.14935812


2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heinrich René Liesefeld ◽  
Markus Janczyk

2005 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 1541-1553 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny C. A. Read ◽  
Bruce G. Cumming

The temporal properties of disparity-sensitive neurons place important temporal constraints on stereo matching. We examined these constraints by measuring the responses of disparity-selective neurons in striate cortex of awake behaving monkeys to random-dot stereograms that contained interocular delays. Disparity selectivity was gradually abolished by increasing interocular delay (when the delay exceeds the integration time, the inputs from the 2 eyes become uncorrelated). The amplitude of the disparity-selective response was a Gaussian function of interocular delay, with a mean of 16 ms (±5 ms, SD). Psychophysical measures of stereoacuity, in both monkey and human observers, showed a closely similar dependency on time, suggesting that temporal integration in V1 neurons is what determines psychophysical matching constraints over time. There was a slight but consistent asymmetry in the neuronal responses, as if the optimum stimulus is one in which the right stimulus leads by about 4 ms. Because all recordings were made in the left hemisphere, this probably reflects nasotemporal differences in conduction times; psychophysical data are compatible with this interpretation. In only a few neurons (5/72), interocular delay caused a change in the preferred disparity. Such tilted disparity/delay profiles have been invoked previously to explain depth perception in the stroboscopic version of the Pulfrich effect (and other variants). However, the great majority of the neurons did not show tilted disparity/delay profiles. This suggests that either the activity of these neurons is ignored when viewing Pulfrich stimuli, or that current theories relating neuronal properties to perception in the Pulfrich effect need to be reevaluated.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Marshall ◽  
Ralf H.J.M. Kurvers ◽  
Jens Krause ◽  
Max Wolf

Majority-voting and the Condorcet Jury Theorem pervade thinking about collective decision-making. Thus, it is typically assumed that majority-voting is the best possible decision mechanism, and that scenarios exist where individually-weak decision-makers should not pool information. Condorcet and its applications implicitly assume that only one kind of error can be made, yet signal detection theory shows two kinds of errors exist, ‘false positives’ and ‘false negatives’. We apply signal detection theory to collective decision-making to show that majority voting is frequently sub-optimal, and can be optimally replaced by quorum decision-making. While quorums have been proposed to resolve within-group conflicts, or manage speed-accuracy trade-offs, our analysis applies to groups with aligned interests undertaking single-shot decisions. Our results help explain the ubiquity of quorum decision-making in nature, relate the use of sub- and super-majority quorums to decision ecology, and may inform the design of artificial decision-making systems.Impact StatementTheory typically assumes that majority voting is optimal; this is incorrect – majority voting is typically sub-optimal, and should be replaced by sub-majority or super-majority quorum voting. This helps explain the prevalence of quorum-sensing in even the simplest collective systems, such as bacterial communities.


2006 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric J. Fimbel ◽  
Martin Lemay ◽  
Martin Arguin
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