scholarly journals Revealing subthreshold motor contributions to perceptual confidence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thibault Gajdos ◽  
Stephen M. Fleming ◽  
Marta Saez Garcia ◽  
Gabriel Weindel ◽  
Karen Davranche
Keyword(s):  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Emg Activity ◽  
Perceptual Discrimination ◽  
Motor Activation ◽  
Perceptual Judgments ◽  
Trial Analysis ◽  
Sensory Evidence ◽  
Perceptual Confidence ◽  
Perception Action

AbstractEstablished models of perceptual metacognition, the ability to evaluate our perceptual judgments, posit that perceptual confidence depends on the strength or quality of feedforward sensory evidence. However, alternative theoretical accounts suggest the entire perception-action cycle, and not only variation in sensory evidence, is monitored when evaluating confidence in one’s percepts. Such models lead to the counterintuitive prediction that perceptual confidence should be directly modulated by features of motor output. To evaluate this proposal here we recorded electromyographic (EMG) activity of motor effectors while subjects performed a near-threshold perceptual discrimination task and reported their confidence in each response. A subset of trials exhibited sub-threshold EMG activity in response effectors before a decision was made. Strikingly, trial-by-trial analysis showed that confidence, but not accuracy, was significantly higher on trials with subthreshold motor activation. These findings support a hypothesis that preparatory motor activity impacts upon confidence over and above performance, consistent with models in which perceptual metacognition integrates information across the perception-action cycle.

Differences Between Normals and Schizophrenics on Activation-induced Change in Two-flash Fusion Threshold

1969 ◽  
Vol 115 (521) ◽  
pp. 477-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. J. Hieatt ◽  
J. E. Tong
Keyword(s):  
Brain Stem ◽  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Experimental Situation ◽  
Arousal Level ◽  
Perceptual Discrimination ◽  
Sources Of Error ◽  
Perceptual Functioning ◽  
Method Of Constant Stimuli

Research relating brain stem stimulation and cortical selectivity by Lindsley (1957) led Venables (1963) to utilize a score from a perceptual discrimination task (two-flash fusion threshold, T.F.T.) to examine hypotheses relating arousal level to perceptual dysfunction and schizophrenic symptoms. Other work failed to confirm the results (Hume and Claridge, 1965), possibly due to the unsuitable method of determining T.F.T., a method of constant stimuli. The following experiments were based on the proposition that perceptual functioning is related to arousal level, and also attempted to resolve confusions arising from earlier studies by control of possible sources of error in the experimental situation.

scholarly journals Qualitative speed-accuracy tradeoff effects that cannot be explained by the diffusion model under the selective influence assumption

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farshad Rafiei ◽  
Dobromir Rahnev
Keyword(s):  
Diffusion Model ◽  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Drift Rate ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Perceptual Discrimination ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Speed Accuracy ◽  
Selective Influence ◽  
Accuracy Tradeoff ◽  
Rt Distributions

It is often thought that the diffusion model explains all effects related to the speed-accuracy tradeoff (SAT) but this has previously been examined with only a few SAT conditions or only a few subjects. Here we collected data from 20 subjects who performed a perceptual discrimination task with five different difficulty levels and five different SAT conditions (5,000 trials/subject). We found that the five SAT conditions produced robustly U-shaped curves for (i) the difference between error and correct response times (RTs), (ii) the ratio of the standard deviation and mean of the RT distributions, and (iii) the skewness of the RT distributions. Critically, the diffusion model where only drift rate varies with contrast and only boundary varies with SAT could not account for any of the three U-shaped curves. Further, allowing all parameters to vary across conditions revealed that both the SAT and difficulty manipulations resulted in substantial modulations in every model parameter, while still providing imperfect fits to the data. These findings demonstrate that the diffusion model cannot fully explain the effects of SAT and establishes three robust but challenging effects that models of SAT should account for.

scholarly journals Effects of expected task difficulty on metacognitive confidence and multitasking

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxine Tamara Sherman ◽  
Anil Seth
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Secondary Task ◽  
Task Difficulty ◽  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Prior Probability ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Perceptual Discrimination ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Decision Confidence

In daily life, repeated experiences with a task (e.g. driving) will generally result in the development of a belief about one’s ability (“I am a good driver”). Here we ask how such beliefs, termed self-efficacy, interact with metacognitive confidence judgements. Across three pre-registered experiments, participants performed a perceptual discrimination task and reported their decision confidence. We induced contextual beliefs about performance (our operationalisation of self-efficacy) by manipulating the prior probability of an easy or hard trial occurring in each block. In Experiment 1 easy and hard trials generated the same levels of performance (a “subjective difficulty” manipulation), whereas in Experiments 2 and 3 performance differed across difficulty conditions (an “objective difficulty” manipulation). Results showed that context (self-efficacy) and difficulty interacted multiplicatively, consistent with the notion that confidence judgements combine decision evidence with a prior (contextual) belief on being correct. This occurred despite context having no corresponding effect on performance. We reasoned that performing tasks in easy contexts may reduce cognitive “load”, and tested this, in Experiment 3, by instructing participants to perform two tasks concurrently. Consistent with a reduction in load, the effects of context transferred from influencing confidence on our primary task to improving performance on the secondary task. Taken together, these studies reveal that contextual beliefs about performance facilitate multitasking, potentially by reducing the load of tasks believed to be easy, and they extend psychophysical investigations of perceptual decision-making by incorporating ‘higher-order’ beliefs about difficulty context, corresponding to intuitive notions of self-efficacy.

scholarly journals Saringan Cangkang Telur Bebek Efektif Memperbaiki Kualitas pH Dan Kadar Besi Air Sumur Bor

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Rahmatullah Jati Pradopo ◽  
Sulaiman Hamzani ◽  
Syarifudin A.
Keyword(s):  
Preliminary Test ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Water Wells ◽  
Trial Analysis ◽  
Water Well ◽  
Egg Shells ◽  
Duck Egg ◽  
Filter Thickness ◽  
Test Result

Water well drill that is in the Pondok Pesantren Hidayatullah Banjarbaru seen physically yellowish and smelly. Preliminary test result obtained pH 4.9 and Fe 2.5 mg/L. Based on the quality of clean water standards have not fulfilled the requirements of 1.0 mg/L and pH 6.5-8.5. It needs to be done research test of duck egg filter making in improving the quality of pH and Fe water well drill. The goal of this research is to know the effectiveness of duck egg filter in improving the quality of pH and Fe water wells drill. Types of research are experiments with pretest-posttest with control group. The population in the research is the whole water well drill in the Pondok Pesantren Hidayatullah Banjarbaru. A research sample is a water well drill that is partially taken for trial. Analysis of the influence thickness of the sieve using Anova asymp Test < œ (0.000 < 0.05) means there is a difference between the filter thickness of duck egg, 0 cm, 20 cm, 40 cm, 60 cm. Then done test Posh Hoc Tests can be concluded that there is a meaningful difference between the thickness of the filter of ducks egg shells 0 cm, 20 cm, 40 cm, 60 Based on the research results of the sieve 40 cm with a weight of 291 gram is an effective sieve in lowering the water level of the well drill.

scholarly journals Pupil-linked arousal biases evidence accumulation towards desirable percepts during perceptual decision-making

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuan Chang Leong ◽  
Roma Dziembaj ◽  
Mark D’Esposito
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Visual Image ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Evidence Accumulation ◽  
Perceptual Judgments ◽  
Arousal System ◽  
Sensory Evidence ◽  
Arousal Response ◽  
Objective Representation

AbstractPeople are biased towards seeing outcomes they are motivated to see. The arousal system coordinates the body’s response to motivationally significant events, and is well positioned to regulate motivational effects on sensory perception. However, it remains unclear whether arousal would enhance or reduce motivational biases. Here we measured pupil dilation as a measure of arousal while participants performed a visual categorization task. We used monetary bonuses to motivate participants to see one category over another. Even though the reward-maximizing strategy was to perform the task accurately, participants were more likely to report seeing the motivationally desirable category. Furthermore, higher arousal levels were associated with making motivationally biased responses. Analyses using computational models indicated that arousal enhanced motivational effects by biasing evidence accumulation in favor of motivationally desirable percepts. These results suggest heightened arousal biases people towards what they want to see and away from an objective representation of the environment.Statement of RelevanceWhen confronted with an event of motivational significance (e.g., an opportunity to earn a huge reward), people often experience a strong arousal response that includes increased sweating, faster heart-rate and larger pupils. Does this arousal response help individuals make more accurate decisions, or does it instead bias and impair decision-making? This work examines the effects of arousal on how people decide what they see when they are motivated to see a particular outcome. We found that heightened arousal, as measured by larger pupils, was associated with a bias in how participants accumulated sensory evidence to make their decisions. As a result, participants became more likely to report seeing an ambiguous visual image as the interpretation they were motivated to see. Our results suggest that arousal biases perceptual judgments towards desirable percepts, and that modulating arousal levels could be a promising approach in reducing motivational biases in decision-making.

scholarly journals Tuned inhibition in perceptual decision-making circuits can explain seemingly suboptimal confidence behavior

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. e1008779
Author(s):  
Brian Maniscalco ◽  
Brian Odegaard ◽  
Piercesare Grimaldi ◽  
Seong Hah Cho ◽  
Michele A. Basso ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Perceptual Discrimination ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Decision Accuracy ◽  
Plausible Model ◽  
Full Complement ◽  
Perceptual Confidence ◽  
Simple Neural Network ◽  
The Brain

Current dominant views hold that perceptual confidence reflects the probability that a decision is correct. Although these views have enjoyed some empirical support, recent behavioral results indicate that confidence and the probability of being correct can be dissociated. An alternative hypothesis suggests that confidence instead reflects the magnitude of evidence in favor of a decision while being relatively insensitive to the evidence opposing the decision. We considered how this alternative hypothesis might be biologically instantiated by developing a simple neural network model incorporating a known property of sensory neurons: tuned inhibition. The key idea of the model is that the level of inhibition that each accumulator unit receives from units with the opposite tuning preference, i.e. its inhibition ‘tuning’, dictates its contribution to perceptual decisions versus confidence judgments, such that units with higher tuned inhibition (computing relative evidence for different perceptual interpretations) determine perceptual discrimination decisions, and units with lower tuned inhibition (computing absolute evidence) determine confidence. We demonstrate that this biologically plausible model can account for several counterintuitive findings reported in the literature where confidence and decision accuracy dissociate. By comparing model fits, we further demonstrate that a full complement of behavioral data across several previously published experimental results—including accuracy, reaction time, mean confidence, and metacognitive sensitivity—is best accounted for when confidence is computed from units without, rather than units with, tuned inhibition. Finally, we discuss predictions of our results and model for future neurobiological studies. These findings suggest that the brain has developed and implements this alternative, heuristic theory of perceptual confidence computation by relying on the diversity of neural resources available.

scholarly journals Changes-of-mind in the absence of new post-decision evidence

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadim A. A. Atiya ◽  
Arkady Zgonnikov ◽  
Martin Schoemann ◽  
Stefan Scherbaum ◽  
Denis O’Hora ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Neural Circuit ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Neural Population ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Decision Uncertainty ◽  
Motion Discrimination ◽  
Initial Decision ◽  
Sensory Evidence

AbstractDecisions are occasionally accompanied by changes-of-mind. While considered a hallmark of cognitive flexibility, the mechanisms underlying changes-of-mind remain elusive. Previous studies on perceptual decision making have focused on changes-of-mind that are primarily driven by the accumulation of additional noisy sensory evidence after the initial decision. In a motion discrimination task, we demonstrate that changes-of-mind can occur even in the absence of additional evidence after the initial decision. Unlike previous studies of changes-of-mind, the majority of changes-of-mind in our experiment occurred in trials with prolonged initial response times. This suggests a distinct mechanism underlying such changes. Using a neural circuit model of decision uncertainty and change-of-mind behaviour, we demonstrate that this phenomenon is associated with top-down signals mediated by an uncertainty-monitoring neural population. Such a mechanism is consistent with recent neurophysiological evidence showing a link between changes-of-mind and elevated top-down neural activity. Our model explains the long response times associated with changes-of-mind through high decision uncertainty levels in such trials, and accounts for the observed motor response trajectories. Overall, our work provides a computational framework that explains changes-of-mind in the absence of new post-decision evidence.Authors SummaryWe used limited availability of sensory evidence during a standard motion discrimination task, and demonstrated that changes-of-mind could occur long after sensory information was no longer available. Unlike previous studies, our experiment further indicated that changes-of-mind were strongly linked to slow response time. We used a reduced version of a previously developed neural computational model of decision uncertainty and change-of-mind to account for these experimental observations. Importantly, our model showed that the replication of these experimental results required a strong link between change-of-mind and high decision uncertainty (i.e. low decision confidence), supporting the notion that change-of-mind are related to decision uncertainty or confidence.

scholarly journals The Acquisition of Culturally Patterned Attention Styles Under Active Inference

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Axel Constant ◽  
Alexander Daniel Dunsmoir Tschantz ◽  
Beren Millidge ◽  
Felipe Criado-Boado ◽  
Luis M Martinez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Visual Discrimination ◽  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Active Inference ◽  
Human Thought ◽  
Cognitive Task Performance ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Perception Action

This paper presents an active inference based simulation study of visual foraging. The goal of the simulation is to show the effect of the acquisition of culturally patterned attention styles on cognitive task performance, under active inference. We show how cultural artefacts like antique vase decorations drive cognitive functions such as perception, action and learning, as well as task performance in a simple visual discrimination task. We thus describe a new active inference based research pipeline that future work may employ to inquire on deep guiding principles determining the manner in which material culture drives human thought, by building and rebuilding our patterns of attention.

scholarly journals Clustering of heading selectivity and perception-related activity in the ventral intraparietal area

2018 ◽  
Vol 119 (3) ◽  
pp. 1113-1126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mengmeng Shao ◽  
Gregory C. DeAngelis ◽  
Dora E. Angelaki ◽  
Aihua Chen
Keyword(s):  
Optic Flow ◽  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Cortical Region ◽  
Related Activity ◽  
Response Characteristics ◽  
Perceptual Judgments ◽  
Ventral Intraparietal Area ◽  
Self Motion ◽  
First Time ◽  
Choice Probabilities

The ventral intraparietal area (VIP) of the macaque brain is a multimodal cortical region, with many cells tuned to both optic flow and vestibular stimuli. Responses of many VIP neurons also show robust correlations with perceptual judgments during a fine heading discrimination task. Previous studies have shown that heading tuning based on optic flow is represented in a clustered fashion in VIP. However, it is unknown whether vestibular self-motion selectivity is clustered in VIP. Moreover, it is not known whether stimulus- and choice-related signals in VIP show clustering in the context of a heading discrimination task. To address these issues, we compared the response characteristics of isolated single units (SUs) with those of the undifferentiated multiunit (MU) activity corresponding to several neighboring neurons recorded from the same microelectrode. We find that MU activity typically shows selectivity similar to that of simultaneously recorded SUs, for both the vestibular and visual stimulus conditions. In addition, the choice-related activity of MU signals, as quantified using choice probabilities, is correlated with the choice-related activity of SUs. Overall, these findings suggest that both sensory and choice-related signals regarding self-motion are clustered in VIP. NEW & NOTEWORTHY We demonstrate, for the first time, that the vestibular tuning of ventral intraparietal area (VIP) neurons in response to both translational and rotational motion is clustered. In addition, heading discriminability and choice-related activity are also weakly clustered in VIP.

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