Auditory decision-making relies on a prefrontal sensory comparator mechanism
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1
Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Research Group "Neurocognition of Decision Making", Germany
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2
Universiteit van Amsterdam, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Netherlands
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3
Universiteit van Amsterdam, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Netherlands
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4
Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Lifespan Psychology, Germany
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5
Freie Universität Berlin, Department of Education and Psychology, Germany
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6
Freie Universität Berlin, Cluster of Excellence "Languages of Emotion", Germany
A growing number of perceptual decision-making studies suggests that during decision variables are computed in prefrontal cortex using a difference-based comparator mechanism that weighs the sensory evidence associated with different decision alternatives. It is unclear, however, whether this prefrontal decision area meets a key requirement for decision-relatedness: a functional coupling only with task-relevant sensory representations. In the present fMRI study, we addressed this issue by employing two auditory discrimination tasks (each with the same stimuli), allowing us to control task-relevance of sensory representations. During the first task subjects had to decide whether the pitch of a musical tone range went up or down (pitch discrimination task). During the other task subjects had to decide whether the range was played at the left- or right-hand side (location discrimination task). Conditions with high and low levels of sensory evidence were created by simultaneously playing stochastically pitched piano tones and by varying interaural intensity differences of the range. Within left and right auditory cortex we identified voxels that were more responsive to left- than right-hand tone ranges and vice versa. These sensory representations showed a functional coupling with a region in the left middle frontal sulcus, indicating that in this area perceptual decisions are computed by integrating sensory evidence using a difference-based comparator operation. Importantly, this functional coupling was stronger during the location task than the pitch task. This result indicates that the prefrontal area is involved in integration of task-relevant sensory evidence.
Keywords:
auditory processing,
fMRI,
perceptual decision-making
Conference:
Decision Neuroscience From Neurons to Societies, Berlin, Germany, 23 Sep - 25 Sep, 2010.
Presentation Type:
Poster
Topic:
Economic Decision Making under Risk
Citation:
Kloosterman
N,
Filimon
F,
Philiastides
M,
Zuijen
TL,
Werner
A,
Lindenberger
U and
Heekeren
HR
(2010). Auditory decision-making relies on a prefrontal sensory comparator mechanism.
Front. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
Decision Neuroscience From Neurons to Societies.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.82.00017
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Received:
16 Aug 2010;
Published Online:
07 Sep 2010.
*
Correspondence:
Mr. Niels Kloosterman, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Research Group "Neurocognition of Decision Making", Berlin, Germany, kloosterman@uva.nl