Intraparietal stimulation disrupts negative distractor effects in human multi-alternative decision-making.

ABSTRACT: There has been debate about whether addition of an irrelevant distractor option to an otherwise binary decision influences which of the two choices is taken. We show that disparate views on this question are reconciled if distractors exert two opposing but not mutually exclusive effects. Each effect predominates in a different part of decision space: (1) a positive distractor effect predicts high-value distractors improve decision-making; (2) a negative distractor effect, of the type associated with divisive normalisation models, entails decreased accuracy with increased distractor values. Here, we demonstrate both distractor effects coexist in human decision making but in different parts of a decision space defined by the choice values. We show disruption of the medial intraparietal area

SUBMITTER: Kohl C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9946441 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature