Abstract
A fruitful quantitative approach to understanding how the brain makes decisions has been to look at the time needed to make a decision, and how it is affected by factors such as the supply of information, or an individual's expectations. This approach has led to a model of decision-making, consistent with recent neurophysiological data, that explains the observed variability of reaction times and correctly predicts the effects of altered expectations. Can it also predict what happens when the urgency of making the response changes? We asked subjects to make eye movements to low-visibility targets either as fast or as accurately as possible, and found that the model does indeed predict the timing of their responses: the degree of urgency seems to influence the criterion level at which a decision signal triggers a response.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Rent or buy this article
Prices vary by article type
from$1.95
to$39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Carpenter, R. H. S. in Eye Movements (ed. Carpenter, R. H. S.) 1– 10 (MacMillan, London, 1992).
Wurtz, R. H. & Goldberg, M. E. The Neurobiology of Saccadic Eye Movements (Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1989).
Guitton, D. in Eye Movements (ed. Carpenter, R. H. S.) 244–276 (MacMillan, London, 1992).
Sparks, D. L. Translation of sensory signals into commands for control of saccadic eye movements: role of the primate superior colliculus. Physiol. Rev. 66, 118–171 (1986).
Carpenter, R. H. S. in Eye Movements: Cognition and Visual Perception (eds. Fisher, D. F., Monty, R. A. & Senders, J. W.) 237–246 (Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, New Jersey, 1981).
Carpenter, R. H. S. A neural mechanism that randomises behaviour. J. Consc. Studies 6, 13–22 (1999 ).
Carpenter, R. H. S. & Williams, M. L. L. Neural computation of log likelihood in the control of saccadic eye movements. Nature 377, 59–62 ( 1995).
Hanes, D. P. & Schall, J. D. Neural control of voluntary movement initiation. Science 274, 427– 430 (1996).
Schall, J. D. & Hanes, D. P. Neural mechanisms of selection and control of visually guided eye movements. Neural Networks 11, 1241–1251 (1998).
Schall, J. D. & Bichot, N. Neural correlates of visual and motor processes. Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 8, 211 –217 (1998).
Kim, J.-N. & Shadlen, M. N. Neural correlates of a decision in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of the macaque. Nat. Neurosci. 2, 176–185 ( 1999).
Bichot, N. P. & Schall, J. D. Effects of similarity and history on neural mechanisms of visual selection. Nat. Neurosci. 2, 549–554 (1999).
Becker, W. in Eye Movements (ed. Carpenter, R. H. S.) 95–137 (MacMillan, London, 1992).
Carpenter, R. H. S. Movements of the Eyes (Pion, London, 1988).
Carpenter, R. H. S. SPIC: a PC-based system for rapid measurement of saccadic responses. J. Physiol. (Lond.) 480, 4P ( 1994).
Carpenter, R. H. S. in Contemporary Ocular Motor and Vestibular Research (ed. Fuchs, A. F., Brandt, T., Büttner, U. & Zee, D.) 185– 187 (Georg Thieme, Stuttgart, 1994).
Kolmogorov, A. Confidence limits for an unknown distribution function. Ann. Math. Stats. 23, 525–540 ( 1941).
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by a grant to RHSC from the Wellcome Foundation. We thank our subjects for their patience during these long experiments.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Reddi, B., Carpenter, R. The influence of urgency on decision time. Nat Neurosci 3, 827–830 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/77739
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/77739
This article is cited by
-
Pupil Size Variations Reveal Information About Hierarchical Decision-Making Processes
Cognitive Computation (2024)
-
Attaining the recesses of the cognitive space
Cognitive Neurodynamics (2022)
-
Proactive and reactive accumulation-to-bound processes compete during perceptual decisions
Nature Communications (2021)
-
Setting the space for deliberation in decision-making
Cognitive Neurodynamics (2021)
-
Vision as oculomotor reward: cognitive contributions to the dynamic control of saccadic eye movements
Cognitive Neurodynamics (2021)