Evidence accumulation relates to perceptual consciousness and monitoring

Michael Pereira, Pierre Megevand, Mi Xue Tan, Wenwen Chang, Shuo Wang, Ali Rezai, Margitta Seeck, Marco Corniola, Shahan Momjian, Fosco Bernasconi, Olaf Blanke and Nathan Faivre ()
Additional contact information
Michael Pereira: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)
Pierre Megevand: Geneva University Hospitals
Mi Xue Tan: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)
Wenwen Chang: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)
Shuo Wang: West Virginia University
Ali Rezai: West Virginia University
Margitta Seeck: Geneva University Hospitals
Marco Corniola: University of Geneva University Hospitals
Shahan Momjian: University of Geneva University Hospitals
Fosco Bernasconi: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)
Olaf Blanke: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)
Nathan Faivre: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract A fundamental scientific question concerns the neural basis of perceptual consciousness and perceptual monitoring resulting from the processing of sensory events. Although recent studies identified neurons reflecting stimulus visibility, their functional role remains unknown. Here, we show that perceptual consciousness and monitoring involve evidence accumulation. We recorded single-neuron activity in a participant with a microelectrode in the posterior parietal cortex, while they detected vibrotactile stimuli around detection threshold and provided confidence estimates. We find that detected stimuli elicited neuronal responses resembling evidence accumulation during decision-making, irrespective of motor confounds or task demands. We generalize these findings in healthy volunteers using electroencephalography. Behavioral and neural responses are reproduced with a computational model considering a stimulus as detected if accumulated evidence reaches a bound, and confidence as the distance between maximal evidence and that bound. We conclude that gradual changes in neuronal dynamics during evidence accumulation relates to perceptual consciousness and perceptual monitoring in humans.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-23540-y Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-23540-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-23540-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().