scholarly journals Spectral signature and behavioral consequence of spontaneous shifts of pupil-linked arousal in human

eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ella Podvalny ◽  
Leana E King ◽  
Biyu J He
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Resting State ◽  
Pupil Size ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Spectral Power ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Spectral Signature ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Perceptual Decision ◽  
Pupil Constriction

Arousal levels perpetually rise and fall spontaneously. How markers of arousal - pupil size and frequency content of brain activity - relate to each other and influence behavior in humans is poorly understood. We simultaneously monitored magnetoencephalography and pupil in healthy volunteers at rest and during a visual perceptual decision-making task. Spontaneously varying pupil size correlates with power of brain activity in most frequency bands across large-scale resting-state cortical networks. Pupil size recorded at prestimulus baseline correlates with subsequent shifts in detection bias (c) and sensitivity (d'). When dissociated from pupil-linked state, prestimulus spectral power of resting state networks still predicts perceptual behavior. Fast spontaneous pupil constriction and dilation correlate with large-scale brain activity as well but not perceptual behavior. Our results illuminate the relation between central and peripheral arousal markers and their respective roles in human perceptual decision-making.

scholarly journals Separable neural signatures of confidence during perceptual decisions

eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tarryn Balsdon ◽  
Pascal Mamassian ◽  
Valentin Wyart
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Neural Circuit ◽  
Spectral Power ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Perceptual Decision ◽  
Decision Confidence ◽  
Electrical Brain Activity ◽  
Human Participants

Perceptual confidence is an evaluation of the validity of perceptual decisions. While there is behavioural evidence that confidence evaluation differs from perceptual decision-making, disentangling these two processes remains a challenge at the neural level. Here, we examined the electrical brain activity of human participants in a protracted perceptual decision-making task where observers tend to commit to perceptual decisions early whilst continuing to monitor sensory evidence for evaluating confidence. Premature decision commitments were revealed by patterns of spectral power overlying motor cortex, followed by an attenuation of the neural representation of perceptual decision evidence. A distinct neural representation was associated with the computation of confidence, with sources localised in the superior parietal and orbitofrontal cortices. In agreement with a dissociation between perception and confidence, these neural resources were recruited even after observers committed to their perceptual decisions, and thus delineate an integral neural circuit for evaluating perceptual decision confidence.

scholarly journals Separable neural signatures of confidence during perceptual decisions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Balsdon ◽  
P. Mamassian ◽  
V. Wyart
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Neural Circuit ◽  
Spectral Power ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Perceptual Decision ◽  
Electrical Brain Activity ◽  
Sensory Evidence ◽  
Human Participants

AbstractPerceptual confidence is an evaluation of the validity of perceptual decisions. While there is behavioural evidence that confidence evaluation differs from perceptual decision-making, disentangling these two processes remains a challenge at the neural level. Here we examined the electrical brain activity of human participants in a protracted perceptual decision-making task where observers tend to commit to perceptual decisions early whilst continuing to monitor sensory evidence for evaluating confidence. Premature decision commitments were revealed by patterns of spectral power overlying motor cortex, followed by an attenuation of the neural representation of perceptual decision evidence. A distinct neural representation was associated with suboptimalities affecting confidence reports, with sources localised in the superior parietal and orbitofrontal cortices. In agreement with a dissociation between perception and confidence, these neural resources were recruited even after observers committed to their perceptual decisions, and thus delineate an integral neural circuit for the computation of confidence.

scholarly journals Performance-optimized hierarchical models only partially predict neural responses during perceptual decision making

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Gwilliams ◽  
Jean-Rémi King
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Hand Movement ◽  
Temporal Organization ◽  
Natural Image ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Healthy Human ◽  
Perceptual Decision

AbstractModels of perceptual decision making have historically been designed to maximally explain behaviour and brain activity independently of their ability to actually perform tasks. More recently, performance-optimized models have been shown to correlate with brain responses to images and thus present a complementary approach to understand perceptual processes. In the present study, we compare how these approaches comparatively account for the spatio-temporal organization of neural responses elicited by ambiguous visual stimuli. Forty-six healthy human subjects performed perceptual decisions on briefly flashed stimuli constructed from ambiguous characters. The stimuli were designed to have 7 orthogonal properties, ranging from low-sensory levels (e.g. spatial location of the stimulus) to conceptual (whether stimulus is a letter or a digit) and task levels (i.e. required hand movement). Magneto-encephalography source and decoding analyses revealed that these 7 levels of representations are sequentially encoded by the cortical hierarchy, and actively maintained until the subject responds. This hierarchy appeared poorly correlated to normative, drift-diffusion, and 5-layer convolutional neural networks (CNN) optimized to accurately categorize alpha-numeric characters, but partially matched the sequence of activations of 3/6 state-of-the-art CNNs trained for natural image labeling (VGG-16, VGG-19, MobileNet). Additionally, we identify several systematic discrepancies between these CNNs and brain activity, revealing the importance of single-trial learning and recurrent processing. Overall, our results strengthen the notion that performance-optimized algorithms can converge towards the computational solution implemented by the human visual system, and open possible avenues to improve artificial perceptual decision making.

scholarly journals Large-scale network dynamics of beta-band oscillations underlie auditory perceptual decision-making

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 166-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohsen Alavash ◽  
Christoph Daube ◽  
Malte Wöstmann ◽  
Alex Brandmeyer ◽  
Jonas Obleser
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Network Dynamics ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Beta Band ◽  
Perceptual Decision ◽  
Large Scale Network ◽  
Scale Network ◽  
Decision Speed

Perceptual decisions vary in the speed at which we make them. Evidence suggests that translating sensory information into perceptual decisions relies on distributed interacting neural populations, with decision speed hinging on power modulations of the neural oscillations. Yet the dependence of perceptual decisions on the large-scale network organization of coupled neural oscillations has remained elusive. We measured magnetoencephalographic signals in human listeners who judged acoustic stimuli composed of carefully titrated clouds of tone sweeps. These stimuli were used in two task contexts, in which the participants judged the overall pitch or direction of the tone sweeps. We traced the large-scale network dynamics of the source-projected neural oscillations on a trial-by-trial basis using power-envelope correlations and graph-theoretical network discovery. In both tasks, faster decisions were predicted by higher segregation and lower integration of coupled beta-band (∼16–28 Hz) oscillations. We also uncovered the brain network states that promoted faster decisions in either lower-order auditory or higher-order control brain areas. Specifically, decision speed in judging the tone sweep direction critically relied on the nodal network configurations of anterior temporal, cingulate, and middle frontal cortices. Our findings suggest that global network communication during perceptual decision-making is implemented in the human brain by large-scale couplings between beta-band neural oscillations.

scholarly journals Differentiating between Models of Perceptual Decision Making Using Pupil Size Inferred Confidence

2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (41) ◽  
pp. 8874-8888 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katsuhisa Kawaguchi ◽  
Stephane Clery ◽  
Paria Pourriahi ◽  
Lenka Seillier ◽  
Ralf M. Haefner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Pupil Size ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Perceptual Decision

Reward modulates the association between sensory noise and brain activity during perceptual decision-making

2020 ◽  
Vol 149 ◽  
pp. 107675
Author(s):  
Christian Baeuchl ◽  
Nils Kroemer ◽  
Shakoor Pooseh ◽  
Johannes Petzold ◽  
Sebastian Bitzer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Perceptual Decision ◽  
Sensory Noise

scholarly journals Large-scale network dynamics of beta-band oscillations underlie auditory perceptual decision-making

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohsen Alavash ◽  
Christoph Daube ◽  
Malte Wöestmann ◽  
Alex Brandmeyer ◽  
Jonas Obleser
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Network Dynamics ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Beta Band ◽  
Perceptual Decision ◽  
Large Scale Network ◽  
Scale Network ◽  
Decision Speed

AbstractPerceptual decisions vary in the speed at which we make them. Evidence suggests that translating sensory information into behavioral decisions relies on distributed interacting neural populations, with decision speed hinging on power modulations of neural oscillations. Yet, the dependence of perceptual decisions on the large-scale network organization of coupled neural oscillations has remained elusive. We measured magnetoencephalography signals in human listeners who judged acoustic stimuli made of carefully titrated clouds of tone sweeps. These stimuli were used under two task contexts where the participants judged the overall pitch or direction of the tone sweeps. We traced the large-scale network dynamics of source-projected neural oscillations on a trial-by-trial basis using power envelope correlations and graph-theoretical network discovery. Under both tasks, faster decisions were predicted by higher segregation and lower integration of coupled beta-band (~16-28 Hz) oscillations. We also uncovered brain network states that promoted faster decisions and emerged from lower-order auditory and higher-order control brain areas. Specifically, decision speed in judging tone-sweep direction critically relied on nodal network configurations of anterior temporal, cingulate and middle frontal cortices. Our findings suggest that global network communication during perceptual decision-making is implemented in the human brain by large-scale couplings between beta-band neural oscillations.Author SummaryThe speed at which we make perceptual decisions varies. This translation of sensory information into behavioral decisions hinges on dynamic changes in neural oscillatory activity. However, the large-scale neural network embodiment supporting perceptual decision-making is unclear. Alavash et al. address this question by experimenting two auditory perceptual decision-making situations. Using graph-theoretical network discovery, they trace the large-scale network dynamics of coupled neural oscillations to uncover brain network states supporting the speed of auditory perceptual decisions. They find that higher network segregation of coupled beta-band oscillations supports faster auditory perceptual decisions over trials. Moreover, when auditory perceptual decisions are relatively difficult, the decision speed benefits from higher segregation of frontal cortical areas, but lower segregation and integration of auditory cortical areas.

scholarly journals Evidence accumulation during perceptual decision-making is sensitive to the dynamics of attentional selection

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dragan Rangelov ◽  
Jason B. Mattingley
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Attentional Selection ◽  
Adaptive Behaviour ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Perceptual Decision ◽  
Sensory Inputs

AbstractThe ability to select and combine multiple sensory inputs in support of accurate decisions is a hallmark of adaptive behaviour. Attentional selection is often needed to prioritize stimuli that are task-relevant and to attenuate potentially distracting sources of sensory information. As most studies of perceptual decision-making to date have made use of task-relevant stimuli only, relatively little is known about how attention modulates decision making. To address this issue, we developed a novel ‘integrated’ decision-making task, in which participants judged the average direction of successive target motion signals while ignoring concurrent and spatially overlapping distractor motion signals. In two experiments that varied the role of attentional selection, we used linear regression to quantify the influence of target and distractor stimuli on behaviour. Using electroencephalography, we characterised the neural correlates of decision making, attentional selection and feature-specific responses to target and distractor signals. While targets strongly influenced perceptual decisions and associated neural activity, we also found that concurrent and spatially coincident distractors exerted a measurable bias on both behaviour and brain activity. Our findings suggest that attention operates as a real-time but imperfect filter during perceptual decision-making by dynamically modulating the contributions of task-relevant and irrelevant sensory inputs.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document