Psychophysical reverse correlation reflects both sensory and decision-making processes

Goal-directed behavior depends on both sensory mechanisms that gather information from the outside world and decision-making mechanisms that select appropriate behavior based on that sensory information. Psychophysical reverse correlation is commonly used to quantify how fluctuations of sensory stim...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2018-08, Vol.9 (1), p.3479-16, Article 3479
Main Authors: Okazawa, Gouki, Sha, Long, Purcell, Braden A., Kiani, Roozbeh
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/378/116
631/378/2629
631/378/2649
631/378/3917
Auditory Perception - physiology
Cognition - physiology
Correlation
Decision Making
Humanities and Social Sciences
Humans
Models, Neurological
multidisciplinary
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Psychophysics
Psychophysics - methods
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Sensory integration
Sensory stimuli
Variation
Weighting functions
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Summary:Goal-directed behavior depends on both sensory mechanisms that gather information from the outside world and decision-making mechanisms that select appropriate behavior based on that sensory information. Psychophysical reverse correlation is commonly used to quantify how fluctuations of sensory stimuli influence behavior and is generally believed to uncover the spatiotemporal weighting functions of sensory processes. Here we show that reverse correlations also reflect decision-making processes and can deviate significantly from the true sensory filters. Specifically, changes of decision bound and mechanisms of evidence integration systematically alter psychophysical reverse correlations. Similarly, trial-to-trial variability of sensory and motor delays and decision times causes systematic distortions in psychophysical kernels that should not be attributed to sensory mechanisms. We show that ignoring details of the decision-making process results in misinterpretation of reverse correlations, but proper use of these details turns reverse correlation into a powerful method for studying both sensory and decision-making mechanisms. Reverse correlation is a psychophysics technique used to infer sensory filter properties by measuring how changes in stimuli influence behavior. Here, the authors show that reverse correlation is shaped by both sensory and decision-making processes, and validate a method to partition their contributions.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-018-05797-y