Abstract
Many decisions are thought to arise via the accumulation of noisy evidence to a threshold or bound. In perceptual decision-making, the bounded evidence accumulation framework explains the effect of stimulus strength, characterized by signal-to-noise ratio, on decision speed, accuracy and confidence. This framework also makes intriguing predictions about the behavioral influence of the noise itself. An increase in noise should lead to faster decisions, reduced accuracy and, paradoxically, higher confidence. To test these predictions, we introduce a novel sensory manipulation that mimics the addition of unbiased noise to motion-selective regions of visual cortex. We verified the effect of this manipulation with neuronal recordings from macaque areas MT/MST. For both humans and monkeys, increasing the noise induced faster decisions and greater confidence over a range of stimuli for which accuracy was minimally impaired. The magnitude of the effects was in agreement with predictions of a bounded evidence accumulation model.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2017