TY - JOUR

T1 - Effects of category-specific costs on neural systems for perceptual decision-making

AU - Fleming, Stephen M

AU - Whiteley, Louise Emma

AU - Hulme, Oliver James

AU - Sahani, Maneesh

AU - Dolan, Raymond J

PY - 2010

Y1 - 2010

N2 - Perceptual judgments are often biased by prospective losses, leading to changes in decision criteria. Little is known about how and where sensory evidence and cost information interact in the brain to influence perceptual categorization. Here we show that prospective losses systematically bias the perception of noisy face-house images. Asymmetries in category-specific cost were associated with enhanced blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal in a frontoparietal network. We observed selective activation of parahippocampal gyrus for changes in category-specific cost in keeping with the hypothesis that loss functions enact a particular task set that is communicated to visual regions. Across subjects, greater shifts in decision criteria were associated with greater activation of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Our results support a hypothesis that costs bias an intermediate representation between perception and action, expressed via general effects on frontal cortex, and selective effects on extrastriate cortex. These findings indicate that asymmetric costs may affect a neural implementation of perceptual decision making in a similar manner to changes in category expectation, constituting a step toward accounting for how prospective losses are flexibly integrated with sensory evidence in the brain.

AB - Perceptual judgments are often biased by prospective losses, leading to changes in decision criteria. Little is known about how and where sensory evidence and cost information interact in the brain to influence perceptual categorization. Here we show that prospective losses systematically bias the perception of noisy face-house images. Asymmetries in category-specific cost were associated with enhanced blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal in a frontoparietal network. We observed selective activation of parahippocampal gyrus for changes in category-specific cost in keeping with the hypothesis that loss functions enact a particular task set that is communicated to visual regions. Across subjects, greater shifts in decision criteria were associated with greater activation of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Our results support a hypothesis that costs bias an intermediate representation between perception and action, expressed via general effects on frontal cortex, and selective effects on extrastriate cortex. These findings indicate that asymmetric costs may affect a neural implementation of perceptual decision making in a similar manner to changes in category expectation, constituting a step toward accounting for how prospective losses are flexibly integrated with sensory evidence in the brain.

KW - Adult

KW - Bayes Theorem

KW - Brain Mapping

KW - Cerebral Cortex

KW - Decision Making

KW - Face

KW - Female

KW - Humans

KW - Image Processing, Computer-Assisted

KW - Judgment

KW - Magnetic Resonance Imaging

KW - Male

KW - Oxygen

KW - Pattern Recognition, Visual

KW - Perception

KW - Photic Stimulation

KW - Psychophysics

KW - Reaction Time

KW - Young Adult

U2 - 10.1152/jn.01084.2009

DO - 10.1152/jn.01084.2009

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 20357071

VL - 103

SP - 3238

EP - 3247

JO - Journal of Neurology & Neurophysiology

JF - Journal of Neurology & Neurophysiology

SN - 2155-9562

IS - 6

ER -