Serial, parallel and hierarchical decision making in primates

The study of decision-making has mainly focused on isolated decisions where choices are associated with motor actions. However, problem-solving often involves considering a hierarchy of sub-decisions. In a recent study (Lorteije et al. 2015), we reported behavioral and neuronal evidence for hierarch...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Zylberberg, Ariel Dario, Lorteije, Jeannette AM, Ouellette, Brian G., De Zeeuw, Chris I., Sigman, Mariano, Roelfsema, Pieter
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2017
País:Argentina
Institución:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repositorio:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/76857
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/76857
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Decision-making
Hierarchical model
Decision tree
Visual cortex
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1.6
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1
Descripción
Sumario:The study of decision-making has mainly focused on isolated decisions where choices are associated with motor actions. However, problem-solving often involves considering a hierarchy of sub-decisions. In a recent study (Lorteije et al. 2015), we reported behavioral and neuronal evidence for hierarchical decision making in a task with a small decision tree. We observed a first phase of parallel evidence integration for multiple sub-decisions, followed by a phase in which the overall strategy formed. It has been suggested that a ’flat’ competition between the ultimate motor actions might also explain these results. A reanalysis of the data does not support the critical predictions of flat models. We also examined the time-course of decision making in other, related tasks and report conditions where evidence integration for successive decisions is decoupled, which excludes flat models. We conclude that the flexibility of decision-making implies that the strategies are genuinely hierarchical.