Abstract
Trial by trial covariations between neural activity and perceptual decisions (quantified by choice Probability, CP) have been used to probe the contribution of sensory neurons to perceptual decisions. CPs are thought to be determined by both selective decoding of neural activity and by the structure of correlated noise among neurons, but the respective roles of these factors in creating CPs have been controversial. We used biologically-constrained simulations to explore this issue, taking advantage of a peculiar pattern of CPs exhibited by multisensory neurons in area MSTd that represent self-motion. Although models that relied on correlated noise or selective decoding could both account for the peculiar pattern of CPs, predictions of the selective decoding model were substantially more consistent with various features of the neural and behavioral data. While correlated noise is essential to observe CPs, our findings suggest that selective decoding of neuronal signals also plays important roles.
Highlights
In most sensory systems, neurons encode sensory stimuli by responding selectively to a particular range of stimulus parameters, as typically characterized by tuning curves (Dayan and Abbott, 2001)
We explored the relative roles of correlated noise and selective decoding in generating the pattern of choice probability (CP) observed across a population of multisensory neurons
While it is well accepted that correlated noise is necessary to observe CPs in large populations of cortical neurons (Nienborg and Cumming, 2010; Cohen and Kohn, 2011; Nienborg et al, 2012), a critical question is whether CPs can reflect selective decoding of neural responses
Summary
Neurons encode sensory stimuli by responding selectively to a particular range of stimulus parameters, as typically characterized by tuning curves (Dayan and Abbott, 2001). When a sensory neuron shows a significant CP, there is a stereotypical relationship between response, tuning, and choice: neurons tend to respond more strongly when the subject reports perceiving the stimulus as having a value that is more preferred by the neuron. Tested properly, such effects are typically found to be independent of the stimulus value itself (Britten et al, 1996; Uka and DeAngelis, 2004).
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