title: Hysteresis as an implicit prior in tactile spatial decision making.
abstract: Perceptual decisions not only depend on the incoming information from sensory systems but constitute a combination of current sensory evidence and internally accumulated information from past encounters. Although recent evidence emphasizes the fundamental role of prior knowledge for perceptual decision making, only few studies have quantified the relevance of such priors on perceptual decisions and examined their interplay with other decision-relevant factors, such as the stimulus properties. In the present study we asked whether hysteresis, describing the stability of a percept despite a change in stimulus property and known to occur at perceptual thresholds, also acts as a form of an implicit prior in tactile spatial decision making, supporting the stability of a decision across successively presented random stimuli (i.e., decision hysteresis). We applied a variant of the classical 2-point discrimination task and found that hysteresis influenced perceptual decision making: Participants were more likely to decide 'same' rather than 'different' on successively presented pin distances. In a direct comparison between the influence of applied pin distances (explicit stimulus property) and hysteresis, we found that on average, stimulus property explained significantly more variance of participants' decisions than hysteresis. However, when focusing on pin distances at threshold, we found a trend for hysteresis to explain more variance. Furthermore, the less variance was explained by the pin distance on a given decision, the more variance was explained by hysteresis, and vice versa. Our findings suggest that hysteresis acts as an implicit prior in tactile spatial decision making that becomes increasingly important when explicit stimulus properties provide decreasing evidence.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany ; Department of Psychology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences II, Humboldt-University, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Sabrina D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Thiel
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Sebastian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bitzer
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany ; Mind-Brain Institute and Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Charité - University Medicine Berlin and Humboldt-University, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Till
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nierhaus
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kalberlah
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Sven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Preusser
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany ; Leipzig University Medical Center, IFB Adiposity Diseases, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Jane
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Neumann
authors.affiliation: Neurophysics Group, Department of Neurology, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Charité - University Medicine Berlin, Berlin, Germany ; Centre for Cognition and Decision Making, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.
authors.forename: Vadim V
authors.initials: VV
authors.lastname: Nikulin
authors.affiliation: Mind-Brain Institute and Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Charité - University Medicine Berlin and Humboldt-University, Berlin, Germany ; Department of Psychology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences II, Humboldt-University, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Elke
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: van der Meer
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany ; Leipzig University Medical Center, IFB Adiposity Diseases, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Arno
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Villringer
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany ; Clinic for Cognitive Neurology, University Hospital Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany ; Leipzig University Medical Center, IFB Adiposity Diseases, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Burkhard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Pleger
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011594:Psychometrics; D012684:Sensory Thresholds; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055698:Touch Perception / Q000502:physiology*