Limitation of switching sensory information flow in flexible perceptual decision making

Tianlin Luo, Mengya Xu, Zhihao Zheng and Gouki Okazawa ()
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Tianlin Luo: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Mengya Xu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zhihao Zheng: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Gouki Okazawa: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Abstract Humans can flexibly change rules to categorize sensory stimuli, but their performance degrades immediately after a task switch. This switch cost is believed to reflect a limitation in cognitive control, although the bottlenecks remain controversial. Here, we show that humans exhibit a brief reduction in the efficiency of using sensory inputs to form a decision after a rule change. Participants classified face stimuli based on one of two rules, switching every few trials. Psychophysical reverse correlation and computational modeling reveal a reduction in sensory weighting, which recovers within a few hundred milliseconds after stimulus presentation. This reduction depends on the sensory features being switched, suggesting a constraint in routing the sensory information flow. We propose that decision-making circuits cannot fully adjust their sensory readout based on a context cue alone, but require the presence of an actual stimulus to tune it, leading to a limitation in flexible perceptual decision making.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-55686-w

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