Pupil-Linked Arousal Biases Evidence Accumulation Toward Desirable Percepts During Perceptual Decision-Making.

ABSTRACT: People's perceptual reports are biased toward percepts they are motivated to see. The arousal system coordinates the body's response to motivationally significant events and is well positioned to regulate motivational effects on perceptual judgments. However, it remains unclear whether arousal would enhance or reduce motivational biases. Here, we measured pupil dilation as a measure of arousal while participants (N = 38) performed a visual categorization task. We used monetary bonuses to motivate participants to perceive one category over another. Even though the reward-maximizing strategy was to perform the task accurately, participants were more likely to report seeing the desirable category. Furthermore, higher arousal levels were associated with making motivationally biased resp

SUBMITTER: Leong YC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8726586 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature