Behavioural and neural signatures of perceptual decision-making are modulated by pupil-linked arousal
- Newcastle University, United Kingdom
- Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
- Monash University, Australia
- University College Dublin, Ireland
Abstract
The timing and accuracy of perceptual decision-making is exquisitely sensitive to fluctuations in arousal. Although extensive research has highlighted the role of various neural processing stages in forming decisions, our understanding of how arousal impacts these processes remains limited. Here we isolated electrophysiological signatures of decision-making alongside signals reflecting target selection, attentional engagement and motor output and examined their modulation as a function of tonic and phasic arousal, indexed by baseline and task-evoked pupil diameter, respectively. Reaction times were shorter on trials with lower tonic, and higher phasic arousal. Additionally, these two pupil measures were predictive of a unique set of EEG signatures that together represent multiple information processing steps of decision-making. Finally, behavioural variability associated with fluctuations in tonic and phasic arousal, indicative of neuromodulators acting on multiple timescales, was mediated by its effects on the EEG markers of attentional engagement, sensory processing and the variability in decision processing.
Data availability
All data have been deposited at https://figshare.com/s/8d6f461834c47180a444, in association with Newman et al (2017).All analysis scripts are publicly available at https://github.com/jochemvankempen/2019_pupil_decisionMaking
Article and author information
Author details
Gerard M Loughnane
Redmond G O'Connell
Funding
Wellcome (93104)
- Jochem van Kempen
- Alexander Thiele
Australian Research Council (FT130101488)
- Mark A Bellgrove
Office of Naval Research Global
- Alexander Thiele
- Redmond G O'Connell
- Mark A Bellgrove
Newcastle University, Monash University
- Alexander Thiele
- Mark A Bellgrove
Australian Research Council (DP150100986)
- Mark A Bellgrove
Australian Research Council (DP180102066)
- Mark A Bellgrove
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Human subjects: The experimental protocal was approved by the human research ethics committee from Monash University and Trinity College Dublin, and informed consent was obtained from all participants before testing. Project number Monash University: 3658, Trinity College: SPREC012014-1
Copyright
© 2019, van Kempen et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 3,904
- views
-
- 598
- downloads
-
- 82
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Citations by DOI
-
- 82
- citations for umbrella DOI https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.42541
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Behavioural and neural signatures of perceptual decision-making are modulated by pupil-linked arousal
eLife 8:e42541.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.42541
