@article{ref1,
title="Global gain modulation generates time-dependent urgency during perceptual choice in humans",
journal="Nature communications",
year="2016",
author="Murphy, Peter R. and Boonstra, Evert and Nieuwenhuis, Sander",
volume="7",
number="",
pages="e13526-e13526",
abstract="Decision-makers must often balance the desire to accumulate information with the costs of protracted deliberation. Optimal, reward-maximizing decision-making can require dynamic adjustment of this speed/accuracy trade-off over the course of a single decision. However, it is unclear whether humans are capable of such time-dependent adjustments. Here, we identify several signatures of time-dependency in human perceptual decision-making and highlight their possible neural source. Behavioural and model-based analyses reveal that subjects respond to deadline-induced speed pressure by lowering their criterion on accumulated perceptual evidence as the deadline approaches. In the brain, this effect is reflected in evidence-independent urgency that pushes decision-related motor preparation signals closer to a fixed threshold. Moreover, we show that global modulation of neural gain, as indexed by task-related fluctuations in pupil diameter, is a plausible biophysical mechanism for the generation of this urgency. These findings establish context-sensitive time-dependency as a critical feature of human decision-making.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="2041-1723",
doi="10.1038/ncomms13526",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13526"
}