Performance Monitoring in Monkey Frontal Eye Field

Abstract

The frontal eye fields (FEF) are thought to mediate response selection during oculomotor decision tasks. In addition, many FEF neurons have robust postsaccadic responses, but their role in postchoice evaluative processes (online performance monitoring) is only beginning to become apparent. Here we report error-related neural activity in FEF while monkeys performed a biased speed-categorization task that enticed the animals to make impulsive errors. Twenty-three percent of cells in macaque FEF coded an internally generated error-related signal, and many of the same cells also coded task difficulty. The observed responses are primarily consistent with three related concepts that have been associated with performance monitoring: (1) response conflict; (2) uncertainty; and (3) reward prediction. Overall, our findings suggest a novel role for the FEF as part of the neural network that evaluates the preceding choice to optimize behavior in the future.