Neural evidence for decision-making underlying attractive serial dependence.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Neuroscience
• Psychology

Background:

• Stimulus history influences recall via attractive or repulsive biases (serial dependence).
• A proposed model suggests attractive bias arises from a repulsive encoding bias counteracted by a later attractive decision bias.
• Neural evidence for repulsive encoding bias exists, but attractive bias during response remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate the neural mechanisms and timing of attractive versus repulsive serial biases during working memory recall.
• Determine if the discrepancy between neural and behavioral biases is resolved during decision-making.
• Clarify the role of neural representations in attractive and repulsive serial dependence.

Main Methods:

• Utilized multivariate decoding of magnetoencephalography (MEG) data.
• Analyzed neural activity during working memory recall.
• Examined behavioral reports for attractive and repulsive serial biases.

Main Results:

• Attractive neural bias emerged late in the recall phase.
• Repulsive behavioral biases correlated with early repulsive neural biases during recall.
• Neural and behavioral effects showed distinct temporal profiles for attractive and repulsive biases.

Conclusions:

• Attractive serial dependence appears to originate during the decision-making stage.
• Repulsive serial dependence is likely incorporated earlier, potentially during encoding.
• Post-perceptual decision-making priors are updated by the previous trial's target, not other stimuli.