'If you are good, I get better': the role of social hierarchy in perceptual decision-making.
So far, it was unclear if social hierarchy could influence sensory or perceptual cognitive processes. We evaluated the effects of social hierarchy on these processes using a basic visual perceptual decision task. We constructed a social hierarchy where participants performed the perceptual task separately with two covertly simulated players (superior, inferior). Participants were faster (better) when performing the discrimination task with the superior player. We studied the time course when social hierarchy was processed using event-related potentials and observed hierarchical effects even in early stages of sensory-perceptual processing, suggesting early top-down modulation by social hierarchy. Moreover, in a parallel analysis, we fitted a drift-diffusion model (DDM) to the results to evaluate the decision making process of this perceptual task in the context of a social hierarchy. Consistently, the DDM pointed to nondecision time (probably perceptual encoding) as the principal period influenced by social hierarchy.
Department of Technology, Center for Brain and Cognition, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Roc Boronat 138, 08018 and Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, ICREA, Passeig Lluís Companys 23, 08010 Barcelona, Spain hernando.santamaria@upf.edu.
Hernando
H
Santamaría-García
Department of Technology, Center for Brain and Cognition, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Roc Boronat 138, 08018 and Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, ICREA, Passeig Lluís Companys 23, 08010 Barcelona, Spain.
Mario
M
Pannunzi
Department of Technology, Center for Brain and Cognition, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Roc Boronat 138, 08018 and Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, ICREA, Passeig Lluís Companys 23, 08010 Barcelona, Spain.
Alba
A
Ayneto
Department of Technology, Center for Brain and Cognition, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Roc Boronat 138, 08018 and Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, ICREA, Passeig Lluís Companys 23, 08010 Barcelona, Spain Department of Technology, Center for Brain and Cognition, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Roc Boronat 138, 08018 and Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, ICREA, Passeig Lluís Companys 23, 08010 Barcelona, Spain.
Gustavo
G
Deco
Department of Technology, Center for Brain and Cognition, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Roc Boronat 138, 08018 and Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, ICREA, Passeig Lluís Companys 23, 08010 Barcelona, Spain.
Nuria
N
Sebastián-Gallés
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003657:Decision Making; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006608:Hierarchy, Social; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D055815:Young Adult
decision-making; perceptual process; social hierarchy