Multiple decisions about one object involve parallel sensory acquisition but time-multiplexed evidence incorporation
Abstract
The brain is capable of processing several streams of information that bear on different aspects of the same problem. Here we address the problem of making two decisions about one object, by studying difficult perceptual decisions about the color and motion of a dynamic random dot display. We find that the accuracy of one decision is unaffected by the difficulty of the other decision. However, the response times reveal that the two decisions do not form simultaneously. We show that both stimulus dimensions are acquired in parallel for the initial ∼0.1 s but are then incorporated serially in time-multiplexed bouts. Thus there is a bottleneck that precludes updating more than one decision at a time, and a buffer that stores samples of evidence while access to the decision is blocked. We suggest that this bottleneck is responsible for the long timescales of many cognitive operations framed as decisions.
Data availability
The data is on figshare at: https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13607255The code is available at the following repository: https://github.com/yulkang/2D_DecisionThe figshare (allows deposition of big data) and github (suitable for maintenance of code) repositories refer to each other.
-
Data for "Multiple decisions about one object involve parallel sensory acquisition but time-multiplexed evidence incorporation"Figshare, doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.13607255.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Eye Institute (T32EY01393)
- Yul HR Kang
Simons Foundation (414196)
- Danique Jeurissen
Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (28476)
- Danique Jeurissen
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Michael N Shadlen
National Eye Institute (R01EY11378)
- Michael N Shadlen
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01NS113113)
- Michael N Shadlen
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Kristine Krug, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Ethics
Human subjects: The study was approved by the local ethics committee (Institutional Review Board of Columbia University Medical Center IRB-AAAL0658 & IRB-AAAR9148 ). Thirteen participants (5 male and 8 female, age 23-40, median = 26, IQR = 25-32, mean = 28.3, SD = 5.74) provided written informed consent and took part in the study
Version history
- Received: October 4, 2020
- Accepted: March 6, 2021
- Accepted Manuscript published: March 10, 2021 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: May 11, 2021 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2021, Kang 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
-
- 3,112
- views
-
- 429
- downloads
-
- 28
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
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)
Further reading
-
- Cell Biology
- Neuroscience
Mutations in Drosophila Swiss cheese (SWS) gene or its vertebrate orthologue neuropathy target esterase (NTE) lead to progressive neuronal degeneration in flies and humans. Despite its enzymatic function as a phospholipase is well established, the molecular mechanism responsible for maintaining nervous system integrity remains unclear. In this study, we found that NTE/SWS is present in surface glia that forms the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and that NTE/SWS is important to maintain its structure and permeability. Importantly, BBB glia-specific expression of Drosophila NTE/SWS or human NTE in the sws mutant background fully rescues surface glial organization and partially restores BBB integrity, suggesting a conserved function of NTE/SWS. Interestingly, sws mutant glia showed abnormal organization of plasma membrane domains and tight junction rafts accompanied by the accumulation of lipid droplets, lysosomes, and multilamellar bodies. Since the observed cellular phenotypes closely resemble the characteristics described in a group of metabolic disorders known as lysosomal storage diseases (LSDs), our data established a novel connection between NTE/SWS and these conditions. We found that mutants with defective BBB exhibit elevated levels of fatty acids, which are precursors of eicosanoids and are involved in the inflammatory response. Also, as a consequence of a permeable BBB, several innate immunity factors are upregulated in an age-dependent manner, while BBB glia-specific expression of NTE/SWS normalizes inflammatory response. Treatment with anti-inflammatory agents prevents the abnormal architecture of the BBB, suggesting that inflammation contributes to the maintenance of a healthy brain barrier. Considering the link between a malfunctioning BBB and various neurodegenerative diseases, gaining a deeper understanding of the molecular mechanisms causing inflammation due to a defective BBB could help to promote the use of anti-inflammatory therapies for age-related neurodegeneration.
-
- Neuroscience
Natural behaviors have redundancy, which implies that humans and animals can achieve their goals with different strategies. Given only observations of behavior, is it possible to infer the control objective that the subject is employing? This challenge is particularly acute in animal behavior because we cannot ask or instruct the subject to use a particular strategy. This study presents a three-pronged approach to infer an animal’s control objective from behavior. First, both humans and monkeys performed a virtual balancing task for which different control strategies could be utilized. Under matched experimental conditions, corresponding behaviors were observed in humans and monkeys. Second, a generative model was developed that represented two main control objectives to achieve the task goal. Model simulations were used to identify aspects of behavior that could distinguish which control objective was being used. Third, these behavioral signatures allowed us to infer the control objective used by human subjects who had been instructed to use one control objective or the other. Based on this validation, we could then infer objectives from animal subjects. Being able to positively identify a subject’s control objective from observed behavior can provide a powerful tool to neurophysiologists as they seek the neural mechanisms of sensorimotor coordination.