title: Basing perceptual decisions on the most informative sensory neurons.
abstract: Single unit recording studies show that perceptual decisions are often based on the output of sensory neurons that are maximally responsive (or "tuned") to relevant stimulus features. However, when performing a difficult discrimination between two highly similar stimuli, perceptual decisions should instead be based on the activity of neurons tuned away from the relevant feature (off-channel neurons) as these neurons undergo a larger firing rate change and are thus more informative. To test this hypothesis, we measured feature-selective responses in human primary visual cortex (V1) using functional magnetic resonance imaging and show that the degree of off-channel activation predicts performance on a difficult visual discrimination task. Moreover, this predictive relationship between off-channel activation and perceptual acuity is not simply the result of extensive practice with a specific stimulus feature (as in studies of perceptual learning). Instead, relying on the output of the most informative sensory neurons may represent a general, and optimal, strategy for efficiently computing perceptual decisions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, 9500 Gilman Dr. #0109, La Jolla, CA 92093-0109, USA. mscolari@ucsd.edu
authors.forename: Miranda
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Scolari
authors.forename: John T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Serences
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011984:Sensory Receptor Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult