Representation of Confidence Associated with a Decision by Neurons in the Parietal Cortex

• DOI: 10.1126/science.1169405
• Publication Date: 2009-05-07T22:48:17Z
• Authors: Roozbeh Kiani; Michael N. Shadlen
• Keywords: Neurons; Brain Mapping; Decision Making; Motion Perception; Macaca mulatta; Electrophysiological Phenomena; Judgment; 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; Reward; Parietal Lobe; Saccades; Animals

Decisive Monkeys

Decision-making is a central theme in current research in cognitive neuroscience. Behavioral protocols have provided an entry into explorations of the neural processes that underlie decision-making. Empirical studies have provided support for a diffusion model in which information accumulates over time until a threshold is reached, with noisiness in the inputs related to decision errors. Kiani and Shadlen (p. 759 ) developed a behavioral task to study choice certainty and identified the corresponding neuronal representations in monkeys. The monkeys were allowed to choose to opt out of an uncertain, higher reward choice in favor of a certain, lower payoff. The same neurons that encoded the information used to make a choice also encoded the extent of certainty, which in humans would be described as the degree of confidence in one's decision.