TY - JOUR
T1 - Rats and humans can optimally accumulate evidence for decision-making
AU - Brunton, Bingni W.
AU - Botvinick, Matthew M.
AU - Brody, Carlos D.
PY - 2013/4/5
Y1 - 2013/4/5
N2 - The gradual and noisy accumulation of evidence is a fundamental component of decision-making, with noise playing a key role as the source of variability and errors. However, the origins of this noise have never been determined. We developed decision-making tasks in which sensory evidence is delivered in randomly timed pulses, and analyzed the resulting data with models that use the richly detailed information of each trial 's pulse timing to distinguish between different decision-making mechanisms. This analysis allowed measurement of the magnitude of noise in the accumulator 's memory, separately from noise associated with incoming sensory evidence. In our tasks, the accumulator's memory was noiseless, for both rats and humans. In contrast, the addition of new sensory evidence was the primary source of variability. We suggest our task and modeling approach as a powerful method for revealing internal properties of decision-making processes.
AB - The gradual and noisy accumulation of evidence is a fundamental component of decision-making, with noise playing a key role as the source of variability and errors. However, the origins of this noise have never been determined. We developed decision-making tasks in which sensory evidence is delivered in randomly timed pulses, and analyzed the resulting data with models that use the richly detailed information of each trial 's pulse timing to distinguish between different decision-making mechanisms. This analysis allowed measurement of the magnitude of noise in the accumulator 's memory, separately from noise associated with incoming sensory evidence. In our tasks, the accumulator's memory was noiseless, for both rats and humans. In contrast, the addition of new sensory evidence was the primary source of variability. We suggest our task and modeling approach as a powerful method for revealing internal properties of decision-making processes.
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U2 - 10.1126/science.1233912
DO - 10.1126/science.1233912
M3 - Article
C2 - 23559254
AN - SCOPUS:84876231469
SN - 0036-8075
VL - 340
SP - 95
EP - 98
JO - Science
JF - Science
IS - 6128
ER -