How to reward animals based on their subjective percepts: A Bayesian approach to online estimation of perceptual biases.

ABSTRACT: 1.Elucidating the neural basis of perceptual biases, such as those produced by visual illusions, can provide powerful insights into the neural mechanisms of perceptual inference. However, studying the subjective percepts of animals poses a fundamental challenge: unlike human participants, animals cannot be verbally instructed to report what they see, hear, or feel. Instead, they must be trained to perform a task for reward, and researchers must infer from their responses what the animal perceived. However, animals' responses are shaped by reward feedback, thus raising the major concern that the reward regimen may alter the animal's decision strategy or even their intrinsic perceptual biases. Using simulations of a reinforcement learning agent, we demonstrate that conventional reward strate

SUBMITTER: Dong Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11291170 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature