Secondary motor integration as a final arbiter in sensorimotor decision-making

Balsdon, T., Verdonck, S., Loossens, T. and Philiastides, M. G. (2023) Secondary motor integration as a final arbiter in sensorimotor decision-making. PLoS Biology, (doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002200) (PMID:37459392) (Early Online Publication)

Abstract

Sensorimotor decision-making is believed to involve a process of accumulating sensory evidence over time. While current theories posit a single accumulation process prior to planning an overt motor response, here, we propose an active role of motor processes in decision formation via a secondary leaky motor accumulation stage. The motor leak adapts the “memory” with which this secondary accumulator reintegrates the primary accumulated sensory evidence, thus adjusting the temporal smoothing in the motor evidence and, correspondingly, the lag between the primary and motor accumulators. We compare this framework against different single accumulator variants using formal model comparison, fitting choice, and response times in a task where human observers made categorical decisions about a noisy sequence of images, under different speed–accuracy trade-off instructions. We show that, rather than boundary adjustments (controlling the amount of evidence accumulated for decision commitment), adjustment of the leak in the secondary motor accumulator provides the better description of behavior across conditions. Importantly, we derive neural correlates of these 2 integration processes from electroencephalography data recorded during the same task and show that these neural correlates adhere to the neural response profiles predicted by the model. This framework thus provides a neurobiologically plausible description of sensorimotor decision-making that captures emerging evidence of the active role of motor processes in choice behavior.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Early Online Publication
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Philiastides, Professor Marios and Balsdon, Dr Tarryn

Creator Roles

Balsdon, T.: Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing – review and editing
Philiastides, M. G.: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review and editing

• Authors: Balsdon, T., Verdonck, S., Loossens, T., and Philiastides, M. G.
• College/School: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Psychology & Neuroscience
• Journal Name: PLoS Biology
• Publisher: Public Library of Science
• ISSN: 1544-9173
• ISSN (Online): 1545-7885
• Published Online: 17 July 2023
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2023 Balsdon et al.
• First Published: First published in PLoS Biology 21(7): e3002200
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License

Related URLs

• Research Data
• Research Data

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
170631		Neural correlates of learning and confidence during decision making and their utility in developing "intelligent technologies".	Marios Philiastides	Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)	ES/L012995/1	Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging