AUTHOR=Saha Roy Tiasha , Giri Bapun , Saha Chowdhury Arpita , Mazumder Satyaki , Das Koel 

TITLE=How Our Perception and Confidence Are Altered Using Decision Cues

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neuroscience

VOLUME=Volume 13 - 2019

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2019.01371

DOI=10.3389/fnins.2019.01371

ISSN=1662-453X

ABSTRACT=Understanding how individuals utilize social information while making perceptual decisions and how it affects their decision confidence is crucial in a society. Till date, very little is known about perceptual decision making in humans and the associated neural mediators under social influence. The present study provides empirical evidence of how individuals get manipulated by others' decision while performing a face/car identification task. Subjects were significantly influenced by what they perceived as decisions of other subjects while the cues in reality were manipulated independently from the stimulus. Subjects in general tend to increase their decision confidence when their individual decision and cues coincide, while their confidence decreases when cues conflict with their individual judgments often leading to reversal of decision. Using a novel statistical model, it was possible to rank subjects based on their propensity to be influenced by cues. This was subsequently corroborated by analysis of their neural data. Neural time series analysis revealed no significant difference in decision making using social cues in the early stages unlike neural expectation studies with predictive cues. Multivariate pattern analysis of neural data alludes to a potential role of frontal cortex in the later stages of visual processing which appeared to code the effect of cues on perceptual decision making. Specifically medial frontal cortex seems to play a role in facilitating perceptual decision preceded by conflicting cues.