Hanks Timothy, Kiani Roozbeh, Shadlen Michael N
Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, United States.
Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, United States.
Elife. 2014 May 27;3:e02260. doi: 10.7554/eLife.02260.
Decision making often involves a tradeoff between speed and accuracy. Previous studies indicate that neural activity in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) represents the gradual accumulation of evidence toward a threshold level, or evidence bound, which terminates the decision process. The level of this bound is hypothesized to mediate the speed-accuracy tradeoff. To test this, we recorded from LIP while monkeys performed a motion discrimination task in two speed-accuracy regimes. Surprisingly, the terminating threshold levels of neural activity were similar in both regimes. However, neurons recorded in the faster regime exhibited stronger evidence-independent activation from the beginning of decision formation, effectively reducing the evidence-dependent neural modulation needed for choice commitment. Our results suggest that control of speed vs accuracy may be exerted through changes in decision-related neural activity itself rather than through changes in the threshold applied to such neural activity to terminate a decision.
决策通常涉及速度与准确性之间的权衡。先前的研究表明,顶内沟外侧区(LIP)的神经活动代表着朝向阈值水平或证据界限的证据逐渐积累,该证据界限会终止决策过程。据推测,这个界限的水平介导了速度与准确性之间的权衡。为了对此进行测试,我们在猴子执行两种速度 - 准确性模式的运动辨别任务时记录了LIP的活动。令人惊讶的是,两种模式下神经活动的终止阈值水平相似。然而,在较快模式下记录的神经元从决策形成开始就表现出更强的与证据无关的激活,有效地减少了做出选择所需的依赖证据的神经调制。我们的结果表明,速度与准确性的控制可能是通过决策相关神经活动本身的变化来实现的,而不是通过应用于此类神经活动以终止决策的阈值变化来实现的。