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A general mechanism for perceptual decision-making in the human brain

Nature volume 431, pages 859–862 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

Findings from single-cell recording studies suggest that a comparison of the outputs of different pools of selectively tuned lower-level sensory neurons may be a general mechanism by which higher-level brain regions compute perceptual decisions. For example, when monkeys must decide whether a noisy field of dots is moving upward or downward, a decision can be formed by computing the difference in responses between lower-level neurons sensitive to upward motion and those sensitive to downward motion1,2,3,4. Here we use functional magnetic resonance imaging and a categorization task in which subjects decide whether an image presented is a face or a house to test whether a similar mechanism is also at work for more complex decisions in the human brain and, if so, where in the brain this computation might be performed. Activity within the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is greater during easy decisions than during difficult decisions, covaries with the difference signal between face- and house-selective regions in the ventral temporal cortex, and predicts behavioural performance in the categorization task. These findings show that even for complex object categories, the comparison of the outputs of different pools of selectively tuned neurons could be a general mechanism by which the human brain computes perceptual decisions.

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Figure 1: Experimental task.
Figure 2: FMRI data illustrating representation of sensory evidence in maximally face- and house-responsive voxels.
Figure 3: Brain regions showing a main effect of task difficulty: orange: easier (low noise proportion) > harder (high noise proportion); blue: harder > easier.
Figure 4: Perceptual decision-making in posterior DLPFC.

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Acknowledgements

We thank D. Ruff and I. Wartenburger for technical help and manuscript preparation, and M. Beauchamp, R. Desimone, A. Ishai and A. Martin for comments on the manuscript. This study was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Intramural Research Program, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, Emmy Noether Programme) and the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF, Berlin NeuroImaging Center).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, NIMH, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, 20892-1148, USA

    H. R. Heekeren, P. A. Bandettini & L. G. Ungerleider

  2. Functional MRI Facility, NIMH, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, 20892-1148, USA

    S. Marrett & P. A. Bandettini

Authors
  1. H. R. Heekeren
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  2. S. Marrett
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  3. P. A. Bandettini
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  4. L. G. Ungerleider
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to H. R. Heekeren.

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The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Data

Behavioral data (percent correct, response time) during fMRI experiment. Description and results of control analyses. (PDF 21 kb)

Supplementary Tables

Three tables summarizing the brain regions 1) showing a greater response to suprathreshold than to perithreshold stimuli, 2) showing a greater response to perithreshold than to suprathreshold stimuli, and 3) showing significant correlation with absolute difference between signals in FACE and HOUSE (|FACE(t) – HOUSE(t)|). (PDF 178 kb)

Supplementary Figures

Three figures illustrating 1) time course data for a representative subject and the group, 2) statistical maps of main effect of task difficulty in 3 subjects, and 3) correlation between changes in activity in DLPFC with changes in activity in face- and house-responsive regions as well as the difference signal. (PDF 996 kb)

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Heekeren, H., Marrett, S., Bandettini, P. et al. A general mechanism for perceptual decision-making in the human brain. Nature 431, 859–862 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02966

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