Decision-making processes in perceptual learning depend on effectors

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 14; no. 1; p. 5644
• Main Authors: Ivanov, Vladyslav, Manenti, Giorgio L., Plewe, Sandrin S., Kagan, Igor, Schwiedrzik, Caspar M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 07.03.2024; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/378/1595/2618; 631/378/2649/1723; 631/477/2811; Decision making; Effector specificity; Eye Movements; Generalization, Psychological; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Information processing; Mapping; multidisciplinary; Orientation; Orientation behavior; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Sensorimotor integration; Sensorimotor mapping; Somatosensory cortex; Spatial Learning; Visual cortex; Visual Cortex - physiology; Visual discrimination; Visual discrimination learning; Visual Perception - physiology; Visual perceptual learning; Effector specificity; Visual perceptual learning; Sensorimotor mapping; Orientation
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-55508-5

Visual perceptual learning is traditionally thought to arise in visual cortex. However, typical perceptual learning tasks also involve systematic mapping of visual information onto motor actions. Because the motor system contains both effector-specific and effector-unspecific representations, the question arises whether visual perceptual learning is effector-specific itself, or not. Here, we study this question in an orientation discrimination task. Subjects learn to indicate their choices either with joystick movements or with manual reaches. After training, we challenge them to perform the same task with eye movements. We dissect the decision-making process using the drift diffusion model. We find that learning effects on the rate of evidence accumulation depend on effectors, albeit not fully. This suggests that during perceptual learning, visual information is mapped onto effector-specific integrators. Overlap of the populations of neurons encoding motor plans for these effectors may explain partial generalization. Taken together, visual perceptual learning is not limited to visual cortex, but also affects sensorimotor mapping at the interface of visual processing and decision making.