The role of premature evidence accumulation in making difficult perceptual decisions under temporal uncertainty

Abstract
Data availability
Article and author information
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Abstract

The computations and neural processes underpinning decision making have primarily been investigated using highly simplified tasks in which stimulus onsets cue observers to start accumulating choice-relevant information. Yet, in daily life we are rarely afforded the luxury of knowing precisely when choice-relevant information will appear. Here, we examined neural indices of decision formation while subjects discriminated subtle stimulus feature changes whose timing relative to stimulus onset ('foreperiod') was uncertain. Joint analysis of behavioural error patterns and neural decision signal dynamics indicated that subjects systematically began the accumulation process before any informative evidence was presented, and further, that accumulation onset timing varied systematically as a function of the foreperiod of the preceding trial. These results suggest that the brain can adjust to temporal uncertainty by strategically modulating accumulation onset timing according to statistical regularities in the temporal structure of the sensory environment with particular emphasis on recent experience.

Data availability

Data is available on dryad at https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.b2rbnzs8r and Github https://github.com/CiaraDevine/Temporal_Uncertainty_DevineCA_2019

The following data sets were generated

1. Devine CA
(2019) The Role of Premature Evidence Accumulation in Making Difficult Perceptual Decisions under Temporal Uncertainty
Dryad Digital Repository, doi:10.5061/dryad.b2rbnzs8r.

https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.b2rbnzs8r

Article and author information

Author details

Ciara A Devine

Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

For correspondence
devineca@tcd.ie

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-7522-1172
Christine Gaffney

Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Gerard M Loughnane

Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-1961-5294
Simon P Kelly

School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-9983-3595
Redmond G O'Connell

Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

For correspondence
reoconne@tcd.ie

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-6949-2793

Funding

Irish Research Council (Postgraduate Fellowship)

Ciara A Devine
Redmond G O'Connell

H2020 European Research Council (Starting Grant 63829)

Redmond G O'Connell

National Science Foundation (BCS-1358955)

Simon P Kelly
Redmond G O'Connell

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Human subjects: Written, informed consent was obtained from all subjects prior to taking part in this study and all procedures were approved by the Trinity College Dublin ethics committee (SPREC112014-01) and conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Copyright

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.