Attractive serial dependence overcomes repulsive neuronal adaptation.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Science
• Computational Neuroscience

Background:

• Stimulus history significantly influences sensory perception and behavior.
• Serial dependence, a bias toward previously encountered stimuli, has observed behavioral effects.
• Limited neural data exists to explain the origins of these historical biases.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the neural basis of serial dependence using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
• To reconcile opposing biases observed in behavioral reports and neural responses.
• To model how stimulus history shapes both sensory encoding and readout.

Main Methods:

• Recorded fMRI responses in human participants during a delayed orientation discrimination task.
• Analyzed neural activity patterns in response to sequential stimuli.
• Developed computational models to explain the interplay between neural adaptation and behavioral biases.

Main Results:

• Behavioral reports showed attraction toward the previous stimulus (serial dependence).
• Neural responses in the visual cortex exhibited repulsion from the previous stimulus.
• A model successfully reconciled these opposing biases by incorporating adaptation at encoding and history-dependent readout.

Conclusions:

• Neural adaptation in the visual cortex leads to repulsive biases during sensory encoding.
• Serial dependence in behavior arises from readout mechanisms that account for adaptation.
• The visual system balances efficiency through adaptation with behavioral optimization based on temporal regularities.