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Majority of choice-related variability in perceptual decisions is present in early sensory cortex

Michael J. Morais, Charles D. Michelson, Yuzhi Chen, View ORCID ProfileJonathan W. Pillow, View ORCID ProfileEyal Seidemann
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/207357
Michael J. Morais
1Princeton Neuroscience Institute
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Charles D. Michelson
3Institute for Neuroscience, Center for Perceptual Systems, Departments of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Texas at Austin
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Yuzhi Chen
3Institute for Neuroscience, Center for Perceptual Systems, Departments of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Texas at Austin
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Jonathan W. Pillow
1Princeton Neuroscience Institute
2Department of Psychology, Princeton University
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  • For correspondence: pillow@princeton.edu eyal@austin.utexas.edu
Eyal Seidemann
3Institute for Neuroscience, Center for Perceptual Systems, Departments of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Texas at Austin
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  • ORCID record for Eyal Seidemann
  • For correspondence: pillow@princeton.edu eyal@austin.utexas.edu
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Abstract

While performing challenging perceptual tasks such as detecting a barely visible target, our perceptual reports vary across presentations of identical stimuli. This perceptual variability is presumably caused by neural variability in our brains. How much of the neural variability that correlates with the perceptual variability is present in the primary visual cortex (V1), the first cortical processing stage of visual information? To address this question, we recorded neural population responses from V1 using voltage-sensitive dye imaging while monkeys performed a challenging reaction-time visual detection task. We found that V1 population responses in the period leading to the decision correspond more closely to the monkey’s report than to the visual stimulus. These results, together with a simple computational model that allows one to quantify the captured choice-related variability, suggest that most of this variability is present in V1 as additive noise, and that areas downstream to V1 contain relatively little independent choice-related variability.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
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Posted March 01, 2022.
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Majority of choice-related variability in perceptual decisions is present in early sensory cortex
Michael J. Morais, Charles D. Michelson, Yuzhi Chen, Jonathan W. Pillow, Eyal Seidemann
bioRxiv 207357; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/207357
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Majority of choice-related variability in perceptual decisions is present in early sensory cortex
Michael J. Morais, Charles D. Michelson, Yuzhi Chen, Jonathan W. Pillow, Eyal Seidemann
bioRxiv 207357; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/207357

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