Lapses in perceptual decisions reflect exploration

Abstract
Data availability
Article and author information
Metrics

Abstract

Perceptual decision-makers often display a constant rate of errors independent of evidence strength. These 'lapses' are treated as a nuisance arising from noise tangential to the decision, e.g. inattention or motor errors. Here, we use a multisensory decision task in rats to demonstrate that these explanations cannot account for lapses' stimulus dependence. We propose a novel explanation: lapses reflect a strategic trade-off between exploiting known rewarding actions and exploring uncertain ones. We tested this model's predictions by selectively manipulating one action's reward magnitude or probability. As uniquely predicted by this model, changes were restricted to lapses associated with that action. Finally, we show that lapses are a powerful tool for assigning decision-related computations to neural structures based on disruption experiments (here, posterior striatum and secondary motor cortex). These results suggest that lapses reflect an integral component of decision-making and are informative about action values in normal and disrupted brain states.

Data availability

Data are publicly available: http://repository.cshl.edu/id/eprint/38957/

The following data sets were generated

(2020) Dataset from: Lapses in perceptual decisions reflect exploration
https://doi.org/10.14224/1.38957.

http://repository.cshl.edu/id/eprint/38957/

Article and author information

Author details

Sashank Pisupati

Department of Neuroscience, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-0923-0585
Lital Chartarifsky-Lynn

Department of Neuroscience, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Anup Khanal

Department of Neuroscience, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Anne K Churchland

Department of Neurobiology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States

For correspondence
AChurchland@mednet.ucla.edu

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-3205-3794

Funding

Army Research Office (W911NF-16-1-0368)

Sashank Pisupati
Lital Chartarifsky-Lynn
Anup Khanal
Anne K Churchland

National Institutes of Health (R01 EY022979)

Anne K Churchland

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

Ethics

Animal experimentation: All animal procedures and experiments were in accordance with the National Institutes of Healths Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and were approved by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Animal Care and Use Committee (protocol 19-16-13-10-7).

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.