Sensorimotor Learning Biases Choice Behavior: A Learning Neural Field Model for Decision Making
Abstract
According to a prominent view of sensorimotor processing in primates, selection and specification of possible actions are not sequential operations. Rather, a decision for an action emerges from competition between different movement plans, which are specified and selected in parallel. For action choices which are based on ambiguous sensory input, the frontoparietal sensorimotor areas are considered part of the common underlying neural substrate for selection and specification of action. These areas have been shown capable of encoding alternative spatial motor goals in parallel during movement planning, and show signatures of competitive value-based selection among these goals. Since the same network is also involved in learning sensorimotor associations, competitive action selection (decision making) should not only be driven by the sensory evidence and expected reward in favor of either action, but also by the subject's learning history of different sensorimotor associations. Previous computational models of competitive neural decision making used predefined associations between sensory input and corresponding motor output. Such hard-wiring does not allow modeling of how decisions are influenced by sensorimotor learning or by changing reward contingencies. We present a dynamic neural field model which learns arbitrary sensorimotor associations with a reward-driven Hebbian learning algorithm. We show that the model accurately simulates the dynamics of action selection with different reward contingencies, as observed in monkey cortical recordings, and that it correctly predicted the pattern of choice errors in a control experiment. With our adaptive model we demonstrate how network plasticity, which is required for association learning and adaptation to new reward contingencies, can influence choice behavior. The field model provides an integrated and dynamic account for the operations of sensorimotor integration, working memory and action selection required for decision making in ambiguous choice situations.
Additional Information
© 2012 Klaes et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Received June 7, 2012; Accepted September 24, 2012; Published November 15, 2012. Funding: This work was supported by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF, Germany, grants 01GQ0814 and 01GQ1005C to A.G., grant 01GQ0951 to G.S.), and the German Research Foundation (DFG, grant SFB-889 to A.G.). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Author Contributions: Conceived and designed the experiments: CK SS AG. Performed the experiments: CK SS. Analyzed the data: CK SS GS AG. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: CK SS. Wrote the paper: CK SS GS AG. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.Attached Files
Published - journal.pcbi.1002774.pdf
Supplemental Material - TableS1.pdf
Supplemental Material - TableS2.pdf
Supplemental Material - TextS1.pdf
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Additional details
- PMCID
- PMC3499253
- Eprint ID
- 37215
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20130228-151320998
- 01GQ0814
- Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)
- 01GQ1005C
- Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)
- 01GQ0951
- Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)
- SFB-889
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
- Created
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2013-03-01Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field