The EEG signature of sensory evidence accumulation during decision formation closely tracks subjective perceptual experience

Tagliabue, Chiara F.; Veniero, Domenica; Benwell, Christopher S. Y.; Cecere, Roberto; Savazzi, Silvia; Thut, Gregor

Abstract

How neural representations of low-level visual information are accessed by higher-order processes to inform decisions and give rise to conscious experience is a longstanding question. Research on perceptual decision making has revealed a late event-related EEG potential (the Centro-Parietal Positivity, CPP) to be a correlate of the accumulation of sensory evidence. We tested how this evidence accumulation signal relates to externally presented (physical) and internally experienced (subjective) sensory evidence. Our results show that the known relationship between the physical strength of the external evidence and the evidence accumulation signal (reflected in the CPP amplitude) is mediated by the level of subjective experience of stimulus strength. This shows that the CPP closely tracks the subjective perceptual evidence, over and above the physically presented evidence. We conclude that a remarkably close relationship exists between the evidence accumulation process (i.e. CPP) and subjective perceptual experience, suggesting that neural decision processes and components of conscious experience are tightly linked.

Citation

Tagliabue, C. F., Veniero, D., Benwell, C. S. Y., Cecere, R., Savazzi, S., & Thut, G. (2019). The EEG signature of sensory evidence accumulation during decision formation closely tracks subjective perceptual experience. Scientific Reports, 9, Article 4949. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-41024-4

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 26, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Mar 20, 2019
• Publication Date: 2019-12
• Deposit Date: Jan 24, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 24, 2020
• Journal: Scientific Reports
• Electronic ISSN: 2045-2322
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 9
• Article Number: 4949
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-41024-4
• Keywords: Multidisciplinary
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3793214
• Publisher URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41024-4
• Additional Information: Received: 10 August 2018; Accepted: 26 February 2019; First Online: 20 March 2019; : The authors declare no competing interests.