title: Dynamic weighting of multisensory stimuli shapes decision-making in rats and humans.
abstract: Stimuli that animals encounter in the natural world are frequently time-varying and activate multiple sensory systems together. Such stimuli pose a major challenge for the brain: Successful multisensory integration requires subjects to estimate the reliability of each modality and use these estimates to weight each signal appropriately. Here, we examined whether humans and rats can estimate the reliability of time-varying multisensory stimuli when stimulus reliability changes unpredictably from trial to trial. Using an existing multisensory decision task that features time-varying audiovisual stimuli, we independently manipulated the signal-to-noise ratios of each modality and measured subjects' decisions on single- and multi-sensory trials. We report three main findings: (a) Sensory reliability influences how subjects weight multisensory evidence even for time-varying, stochastic stimuli. (b) The ability to exploit sensory reliability extends beyond human and nonhuman primates: Rodents and humans both weight incoming sensory information in a reliability-dependent manner. (c) Regardless of sensory reliability, most subjects are disinclined to make "snap judgments" and instead base decisions on evidence presented over the majority of the trial duration. Rare departures from this trend highlight the importance of using time-varying stimuli that permit this analysis. Taken together, these results suggest that the brain's ability to use stimulus reliability to guide decision-making likely relies on computations that are conserved across species and operate over a wide range of stimulus conditions.
authors: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Watson School of Biological Sciences, Cold Spring Harbor, NY, USA. sheppard@cshl.edu
authors: John P
authors: JP
authors: Sheppard
authors: David
authors: D
authors: Raposo
authors: Anne K
authors: AK
authors: Churchland
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D004285:Dogs; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011594:Psychometrics; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: cue weighting; decision-making; multisensory integration; psychophysics; rodent; sensory reliability
references: J Neurosci. 2008 Mar 19;28(12):3017-29
references: 18354005
references: Front Integr Neurosci. 2012 Oct 10;6:86
references: 23087623
references: J Neurosci. 2006 Oct 25;26(43):11138-47
references: 17065454
references: Vision Res. 2000;40(16):2201-9
references: 10878281
references: Vision Res. 2003 Nov;43(24):2539-58
references: 13129541
references: Neuron. 2008 Dec 26;60(6):1142-52
references: 19109917
references: Curr Biol. 2008 Jul 8;18(13):963-8
references: 18585039
references: Neuroscience. 2008 Jun 2;153(4):1402-17
references: 18440715
references: J Neurophysiol. 2001 Feb;85(2):506-22
references: 11160489
references: Spat Vis. 1997;10(4):437-42
references: 9176953
references: J Vis. 2004 Dec 01;4(12):967-92
references: 15669906
references: Nature. 2000 Dec 14;408(6814):788
references: 11130706
references: J Neurosci. 2009 Sep 16;29(37):11560-71
references: 19759303
references: Spat Vis. 2007;20(1-2):107-38
references: 17357718
references: J Opt Soc Am A Opt Image Sci Vis. 2005 May;22(5):801-9
references: 15898539
references: J Neurosci. 2009 Sep 30;29(39):12265-74
references: 19793985
references: Trends Neurosci. 2008 Aug;31(8):401-9
references: 18602171
references: PLoS One. 2011;6(9):e25283
references: 21966481
references: Science. 2002 Nov 22;298(5598):1627-30
references: 12446912
references: Nat Neurosci. 2011 Jun;14(6):775-82
references: 21552274
references: J Neurosci. 1987 Oct;7(10):3215-29
references: 3668625
references: PLoS Comput Biol. 2010 Mar 05;6(3):e1000697
references: 20221263
references: Vision Res. 1993 Dec;33(18):2685-96
references: 8296465
references: Vision Res. 1999 Oct;39(21):3621-9
references: 10746132
references: Exp Brain Res. 2011 Apr;210(1):67-80
references: 21374079
references: J Neurosci. 2009 Dec 9;29(49):15601-12
references: 20007484
references: Exp Brain Res. 2004 Dec;159(4):409-17
references: 15249987
references: Curr Biol. 2007 Mar 6;17(5):425-30
references: 17320389
references: J Vis. 2007 Apr 04;7(6):3
references: 17685786
references: J Neurosci. 2011 Aug 3;31(31):11351-61
references: 21813694
references: J Comput Neurosci. 1994 Jun;1(1-2):89-107
references: 8792227
references: Seeing Perceiving. 2010;23(1):3-38
references: 20507725
references: J Neurosci. 2007 Apr 11;27(15):4093-100
references: 17428987
references: Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 2002 Jun;14(1):147-52
references: 12063138
references: J Opt Soc Am A Opt Image Sci Vis. 2001 Sep;18(9):2307-20
references: 11551065
references: Perception. 2002;31(4):421-34
references: 12018788
references: J Neurophysiol. 1993 Nov;70(5):1885-98
references: 8294961
references: J Neurosci. 2005 Jul 13;25(28):6499-508
references: 16014711
references: Nat Neurosci. 2001 Aug;4(8):826-31
references: 11477429
references: Percept Psychophys. 2001 Nov;63(8):1293-313
references: 11800458
references: Curr Biol. 2004 Feb 3;14(3):257-62
references: 14761661
references: Exp Brain Res. 1982;46(3):457-61
references: 7095050
references: Nat Neurosci. 2011 Nov 20;15(1):146-54
references: 22101645
references: J Vis. 2010 Oct 01;10(12):14
references: 21047746
references: J Neurophysiol. 1996 Oct;76(4):2790-3
references: 8899646
references: Nat Neurosci. 2006 Nov;9(11):1432-8
references: 17057707
references: Nature. 2009 May 7;459(7243):89-92
references: 19270683
references: Annu Rev Neurosci. 2007;30:535-74
references: 17600525
references: Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 2003 Jul;17(2):447-53
references: 12880914
references: Science. 2004 Jun 18;304(5678):1782-7
references: 15205529
references: J Neurosci. 2012 Mar 14;32(11):3726-35
references: 22423093
references: J Neurosci. 1997 Nov 1;17(21):8621-44
references: 9334433
references: Nature. 2002 Jan 24;415(6870):429-33
references: 11807554
references: Nat Neurosci. 2002 Jun;5(6):598-604
references: 12021763
references: Neuroreport. 2005 Nov 28;16(17):1923-7
references: 16272880