Prefrontal cortex represents heuristics that shape choice bias and its integration into future behavior.

ABSTRACT: Goal-directed behavior requires integrating sensory information with prior knowledge about the environment. Behavioral biases that arise from these priors could increase positive outcomes when the priors match the true structure of the environment, but mismatches also happen frequently and could cause unfavorable outcomes. Biases that reduce gains and fail to vanish with training indicate fundamental suboptimalities arising from ingrained heuristics of the brain. Here, we report systematic, gain-reducing choice biases in highly trained monkeys performing a motion direction discrimination task where only the current stimulus is behaviorally relevant. The monkey's bias fluctuated at two distinct time scales: slow, spanning tens to hundreds of trials, and fast, arising from choices and outcom

SUBMITTER: Mochol G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8095400 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature