Choice history biases subsequent evidence accumulation

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Decision Science
• Perception

Background:

• Perceptual choices are influenced by both current sensory input and behavioral context, particularly past choices.
• The precise mechanism by which choice history shapes decision dynamics remains poorly understood.
• Existing models often assume choice history shifts the starting point of evidence accumulation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how choice history signals dynamically influence decision formation processes.
• To challenge the prevailing assumption that choice history solely affects the starting point of evidence accumulation.
• To elucidate the underlying neural and cognitive mechanisms of history-dependent decision-making.

Main Methods:

• Fitting bounded-accumulation decision models to human perceptual choice data across various tasks and sensory modalities.
• Estimating bias parameters that quantify the influence of previous choices on current decision-making.
• Analyzing behavioral data to differentiate between changes in evidence accumulation versus starting points.

Main Results:

• History-dependent biases in overt behavior were consistently explained by changes in evidence accumulation.
• The starting point of evidence accumulation did not appear to be significantly modulated by prior choices.
• These findings held true across different task protocols and sensory modalities, indicating a generalizable effect.

Conclusions:

• Choice history signals appear to bias the interpretation of current sensory input, rather than altering the initial state of decision-making.
• This bias resembles a shift in endogenous attention towards or away from previously favored interpretations.
• The study reframes our understanding of how past experiences shape ongoing perceptual decision-making.