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Neural mediators of changes of mind about perceptual decisions

Nature Neuroscience volume 21, pages 617–624 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Changing one’s mind on the basis of new evidence is a hallmark of cognitive flexibility. To revise our confidence in a previous decision, we should use new evidence to update beliefs about choice accuracy. How this process unfolds in the human brain, however, remains unknown. Here we manipulated whether additional sensory evidence supports or negates a previous motion direction discrimination judgment while recording markers of neural activity in the human brain using fMRI. A signature of post-decision evidence (change in log-odds correct) was selectively observed in the activity of posterior medial frontal cortex. In contrast, distinct activity profiles in anterior prefrontal cortex mediated the impact of post-decision evidence on subjective confidence, independently of changes in decision value. Together our findings reveal candidate neural mediators of post-decisional changes of mind in the human brain and indicate possible targets for ameliorating deficits in cognitive flexibility.

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Fig. 1: Post-decision evidence task and computational framework.
Fig. 2: Behavioral results.
Fig. 3: Neural signatures of post-decision evidence.
Fig. 4: Neural signatures of final confidence in choice.
Fig. 5: Neural mediation of PDE on final confidence.

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Acknowledgements

We thank D. Bang and B. De Martino for comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. Funded by a Sir Henry Wellcome Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust (WT096185) awarded to S.M.F. N.D.D is funded by the James S. McDonnell Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. The Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging is supported by core funding from the Wellcome Trust (203147/Z/16/Z).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, London, UK

    Stephen M. Fleming

  2. Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, University College London, London, UK

    Stephen M. Fleming

  3. Amsterdam Brain and Cognition Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Elisabeth J. van der Putten

  4. Princeton Neuroscience Institute and Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Nathaniel D. Daw

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Contributions

S.M.F. designed experiments, performed experiments, analyzed behavioral and neuroimaging data, developed computational models and wrote the paper; E.J.v.d.P. performed experiments and analyzed behavioral data; N.D.D. designed experiments, developed computational models and wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Stephen M. Fleming.

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Integrated supplementary information

Supplementary Figure 1

Psychometric functions from calibration session for all participants.

Supplementary Figure 2 Group cross-correlation matrices.

Group cross-correlation matrices depicting mean correlation (r) across participants between pre-decision motion strength (PreCoh), post-decision motion strength (PostCoh), confidence, subjective value, decision response time and confidence response time. Behavioural session, N = 25 subjects; fMRI session, N = 22 subjects.

Supplementary Figure 3 Calibration curves relating objective performance to reported confidence in the main experiment.

For each subject performance (proportion correct) was calculated separately for each confidence bin [0–0.2, 0.2–0.4, 0.4–0.6, 0.6–0.8, 0.8–1.0]. Individual subjects are shown as separate data points; error bars indicate standard errors of the mean across subjects. Behavioural session, N = 25 subjects; fMRI session, N = 22 subjects.

Supplementary Figure 4 Model simulations and model comparison.

a) Illustration of effects of model parameters on relation between post-decision motion and confidence for temporal weighting, choice weighting and choice bias models. For illustration purposes w post and w incon were set to 2-w pre and 2-w post , respectively, but were free to vary independently in model fits. In all simulations pre- and post-decision coherence were crossed in a fully factorial design and drawn from the set 0%, 25% or 50% with k = 4 and m = 0. Blue lines indicate correct trials; orange lines indicate error trials. b) Mean cross-validated log-likelihood of each candidate model relative to a random-choice model.

Supplementary Figure 5 Observed and predicted confidence rating distributions.

Left panels: empirical probability distributions of confidence ratings aggregated across subjects for each of the 9 experimental conditions (3 pre-decision coherence levels × 3 post-decision coherence levels). Blue bars – correct trials; orange bars – error trials. Right panels: probability distributions of confidence ratings simulated from the best-fitting Bayesian+RT model parameters.

Supplementary Figure 6 aPFC ROI analyses.

Single-trial activity estimates as a function of post-decision motion strength and decision accuracy in aPFC regions of interest. Data are plotted as boxplots for each condition in which horizontal lines indicate median values, boxes indicate 25-75% interquartile range and whiskers indicate minimum and maximum values; data points outside of 1.5 × the interquartile range are shown separately as circles. Solid lines show the mean of subject-level linear fits. Blue bars/lines show correct trials; orange bars/lines show error trials. N = 22 subjects.

Supplementary Figure 7 Activity profiles in ventral striatum (top) and vmPFC (bottom) ROIs.

a) Single-trial activity estimates as a function of post-decision motion strength and choice accuracy. Data are plotted as boxplots for each condition in which horizontal lines indicate median values, boxes indicate 25-75% interquartile range and whiskers indicate minimum and maximum values; data points outside of 1.5 × the interquartile range are shown separately as circles. Solid lines show the mean of subject-level linear fits. Blue bars/lines show correct trials; orange bars/lines show error trials. b) Split-regression coefficients relating activity to confidence; error bars indicate standard errors of coefficient means. *** P < 0.001, * P < 0.05, two-tailed Type III Wald χ2 test; see Supplementary Table 7. c) Timecourse of regression coefficients for confidence and value. Points below timecourses indicate significant excursions of T-statistics assessed using two-tailed permutation tests. Error bars indicate standard errors of the coefficient mean. In all panels N = 22 subjects.

Supplementary Figure 8 Whole-brain multilevel mediation model analysis.

The model used in Fig. 5a was fit to each voxel independently to create a map of P-values for the mediation (a × b) effect. Thresholded at P < 0.05 FWE corrected at the cluster level using Monte Carlo simulation, cluster-defining threshold P < 0.001.

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Fleming, S.M., van der Putten, E.J. & Daw, N.D. Neural mediators of changes of mind about perceptual decisions. Nat Neurosci 21, 617–624 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-018-0104-6

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