2019 Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience

13-16 September 2019    Berlin, Germany

Technical Program

Paper Detail

Paper: GS-2.1
Session: Contributed Talks 3-4
Location: H0104
Session Time: Saturday, September 14, 11:50 - 12:30
Presentation Time:Saturday, September 14, 11:50 - 12:10
Presentation: Oral
Publication: 2019 Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience, 13-16 September 2019, Berlin, Germany
Paper Title: An Electrophysiological Signature of Dynamic Urgency in Human Perceptual Decision Making
Manuscript:  Click here to view manuscript
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License: Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32470/CCN.2019.1340-0
Authors: Ciara Devine, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland; David McGovern, Dublin City University, Ireland; Jessica Dully, Emmet McNickle, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland; Simon Kelly, University College Dublin, Ireland; Redmond O'Connell, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Abstract: In perceptual decision-making, dynamic urgency is a time-dependent, evidence-independent mechanism that imposes a gradual reduction in the amount of sensory evidence required to commit to a choice. Although the effects of urgency have been observed across the sensorimotor hierarchy during perceptual decision formation, a distinct neural signature of urgency has yet to be fully characterised in the human brain. Here we tested the hypothesis that the contingent negative variation (CNV), a frontocentral, negative-going potential that has been implicated in temporal processing, directly represents dynamic urgency in the human brain. To this end we analysed data from two experiments in which speed emphasis was manipulated while subjects performed perceptual discrimination tasks. We found that the CNV was more pronounced at baseline under speed pressure, reflecting a static urgency component and that it became more pronounced over time, reflecting a dynamic component. Moreover, we also found that the rate of build up of the CNV accelerated as time elapsed and was not driven by sensory evidence accumulation. Together these findings support the mechanistic characterisation of the CNV as a time-dependent, evidence independent urgency signal.