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Neuronal correlates of a perceptual decision

Nature volume 341, pages 52–54 (1989)Cite this article

Abstract

THE relationship between neuronal activity and psychophysical judgement has long been of interest to students of sensory processing. Previous analyses of this problem have compared the performance of human or animal observers in detection or discrimination tasks with the signals carried by individual neurons, but have been hampered because neuronal and perceptual data were not obtained at the same time and under the same conditions1–4. We have now measured the performance of monkeys and of visual cortical neurons while the animals performed a psychophysical task well matched to the properties of the neurons under study. Here we report that the reliability and sensitivity of most neurons on this task equalled or exceeded that of the monkeys. We therefore suggest that under our conditions, psychophysical judgements could be based on the activity of a relatively small number of neurons.

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Author information

Author notes

  1. William T. Newsome & Kenneth H. Britten

    Present address: Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University Medical School, Stanford, California, 94305, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York, 11794, USA

    William T. Newsome & Kenneth H. Britten

  2. Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, 10003, USA

    J. Anthony Movshon

Authors
  1. William T. Newsome
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  2. Kenneth H. Britten
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  3. J. Anthony Movshon
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Newsome, W., Britten, K. & Movshon, J. Neuronal correlates of a perceptual decision. Nature 341, 52–54 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1038/341052a0

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