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Humans strategically shift decision bias by flexibly adjusting sensory evidence accumulation.

ABSTRACT: Decision bias is traditionally conceptualized as an internal reference against which sensory evidence is compared. Instead, we show that individuals implement decision bias by shifting the rate of sensory evidence accumulation toward a decision bound. Participants performed a target detection task while we recorded EEG. We experimentally manipulated participants' decision criterion for reporting targets using different stimulus-response reward contingencies, inducing either a liberal or a conservative bias. Drift diffusion modeling revealed that a liberal strategy biased sensory evidence accumulation toward target-present choices. Moreover, a liberal bias resulted in stronger midfrontal pre-stimulus 2-6 Hz (theta) power and suppression of pre-stimulus 8-12 Hz (alpha) power in posterior cortex. Alpha suppression in turn was linked to the output activity in visual cortex, as expressed through 59-100 Hz (gamma) power. These findings show that observers can intentionally control cortical excitability to strategically bias evidence accumulation toward the decision bound that maximizes reward.

SUBMITTER: Kloosterman NA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6365056 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Humans strategically shift decision bias by flexibly adjusting sensory evidence accumulation.

Kloosterman Niels A NA de Gee Jan Willem JW Werkle-Bergner Markus M Lindenberger Ulman U Garrett Douglas D DD Fahrenfort Johannes Jacobus JJ

eLife 20190206

Decision bias is traditionally conceptualized as an internal reference against which sensory evidence is compared. Instead, we show that individuals implement decision bias by shifting the rate of sensory evidence accumulation toward a decision bound. Participants performed a target detection task while we recorded EEG. We experimentally manipulated participants' decision criterion for reporting targets using different stimulus-response reward contingencies, inducing either a liberal or a conser ...[more]

PMID: 30724733

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Project description:Children with and without dyslexia differ in their behavioral responses to visual information, particularly when required to pool dynamic signals over space and time. Importantly, multiple processes contribute to behavioral responses. Here we investigated which processing stages are affected in children with dyslexia when performing visual motion processing tasks, by combining two methods that are sensitive to the dynamic processes leading to responses. We used a diffusion model which decomposes response time and accuracy into distinct cognitive constructs, and high-density EEG. Fifty children with dyslexia (24 male) and 50 typically developing children (28 male) 6-14 years of age judged the direction of motion as quickly and accurately as possible in two global motion tasks (motion coherence and direction integration), which varied in their requirements for noise exclusion. Following our preregistered analyses, we fitted hierarchical Bayesian diffusion models to the data, blinded to group membership. Unblinding revealed reduced evidence accumulation in children with dyslexia compared with typical children for both tasks. Additionally, we identified a response-locked EEG component which was maximal over centro-parietal electrodes which indicated a neural correlate of reduced drift rate in dyslexia in the motion coherence task, thereby linking brain and behavior. We suggest that children with dyslexia tend to be slower to extract sensory evidence from global motion displays, regardless of whether noise exclusion is required, thus furthering our understanding of atypical perceptual decision-making processes in dyslexia.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Reduced sensitivity to visual information has been reported in dyslexia, with a lively debate about whether these differences causally contribute to reading difficulties. In this large preregistered study with a blind modeling approach, we combine state-of-the art methods in both computational modeling and EEG analysis to pinpoint the stages of processing that are atypical in children with dyslexia in two visual motion tasks that vary in their requirement for noise exclusion. We find reduced evidence accumulation in children with dyslexia across both tasks, and identify a neural marker, allowing us to link brain and behavior. We show that children with dyslexia exhibit general difficulties with extracting sensory evidence from global motion displays, not just in tasks that require noise exclusion.

Dataset Information

Humans strategically shift decision bias by flexibly adjusting sensory evidence accumulation.

Publications

Humans strategically shift decision bias by flexibly adjusting sensory evidence accumulation.

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