Normative evidence weighing and accumulation in correlated environments
The brain forms certain deliberative decisions following normative principles related to how sensory observations are weighed and accumulated over time. Previously we showed that these principles can account for how people adapt their decisions to the temporal dynamics of the observations (Glaze et...
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| Format: | Article |
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eLife Sciences Publications Ltd
2025-07-01
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| Series: | eLife |
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| Online Access: | https://elifesciences.org/articles/100258 |
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| _version_ | 1849319373579223040 |
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| author | Nathan Tardiff Jiwon Kang Joshua I Gold |
| author_facet | Nathan Tardiff Jiwon Kang Joshua I Gold |
| author_sort | Nathan Tardiff |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The brain forms certain deliberative decisions following normative principles related to how sensory observations are weighed and accumulated over time. Previously we showed that these principles can account for how people adapt their decisions to the temporal dynamics of the observations (Glaze et al., 2015). Here, we show that this adaptability extends to accounting for correlations in the observations, which can have a dramatic impact on the weight of evidence provided by those observations. We tested online human participants on a novel visual-discrimination task with pairwise-correlated observations. With minimal training, the participants adapted to uncued, trial-by-trial changes in the correlations and produced decisions based on an approximately normative weighing and accumulation of evidence. The results highlight the robustness of our brain’s ability to process sensory observations with respect to not just their physical features but also the weight of evidence they provide for a given decision. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-e4812c69c3a343709a91acbd9b8337b9 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2050-084X |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-07-01 |
| publisher | eLife Sciences Publications Ltd |
| record_format | Article |
| series | eLife |
| spelling | doaj-art-e4812c69c3a343709a91acbd9b8337b92025-08-20T03:50:31ZengeLife Sciences Publications LtdeLife2050-084X2025-07-011310.7554/eLife.100258Normative evidence weighing and accumulation in correlated environmentsNathan Tardiff0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0233-8529Jiwon Kang1https://orcid.org/0009-0006-7857-3134Joshua I Gold2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6018-0483Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States; Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, United States; Department of Neuroscience, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United StatesDepartment of Neuroscience, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United StatesDepartment of Neuroscience, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United StatesThe brain forms certain deliberative decisions following normative principles related to how sensory observations are weighed and accumulated over time. Previously we showed that these principles can account for how people adapt their decisions to the temporal dynamics of the observations (Glaze et al., 2015). Here, we show that this adaptability extends to accounting for correlations in the observations, which can have a dramatic impact on the weight of evidence provided by those observations. We tested online human participants on a novel visual-discrimination task with pairwise-correlated observations. With minimal training, the participants adapted to uncued, trial-by-trial changes in the correlations and produced decisions based on an approximately normative weighing and accumulation of evidence. The results highlight the robustness of our brain’s ability to process sensory observations with respect to not just their physical features but also the weight of evidence they provide for a given decision.https://elifesciences.org/articles/100258decision-makingdrift-diffusion modelnoise correlationevidence accumulation |
| spellingShingle | Nathan Tardiff Jiwon Kang Joshua I Gold Normative evidence weighing and accumulation in correlated environments eLife decision-making drift-diffusion model noise correlation evidence accumulation |
| title | Normative evidence weighing and accumulation in correlated environments |
| title_full | Normative evidence weighing and accumulation in correlated environments |
| title_fullStr | Normative evidence weighing and accumulation in correlated environments |
| title_full_unstemmed | Normative evidence weighing and accumulation in correlated environments |
| title_short | Normative evidence weighing and accumulation in correlated environments |
| title_sort | normative evidence weighing and accumulation in correlated environments |
| topic | decision-making drift-diffusion model noise correlation evidence accumulation |
| url | https://elifesciences.org/articles/100258 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT nathantardiff normativeevidenceweighingandaccumulationincorrelatedenvironments AT jiwonkang normativeevidenceweighingandaccumulationincorrelatedenvironments AT joshuaigold normativeevidenceweighingandaccumulationincorrelatedenvironments |