Cortical evidence accumulation for visual perception occurs irrespective of reports
Perception is a multi-faceted, dynamical process that can be tackled empirically through measures of stimulus detectability and confidence. We recorded stereo-electroencephalographic data of 29 participants partaking in three pre-registered experiments to assess if evidence accumulation, a form of sequential sampling of sensory evidence, can explain perception. In an immediate-response experiment, high-gamma activity from individual channels and decoded multivariate latent variables in the visual, inferior frontal, and anterior insular cortices display a correlation between the slope of their increase and reaction times. In two further experiments, this signal in the ventral visual cortex differentiates between (1) stimuli reported as seen vs. unseen in delayed detection, (2) high and low intensity stimuli during passive viewing, and (3) levels of confidence when stimuli were detected. A computational model of leaky evidence accumulation can successfully reproduce both behavioral and neural data. Overall, we show that evidence accumulation explains subjective aspects of visual perception.
Authors
- Lorella Minotti (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7039-6723)
- Lenka Jurkovičová (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5042-1119)
- Róbert Román (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0689-5610)
- François Stockart (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6945-0638)
- Martin Rouy (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4280-4683)
- Alexis Robin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-4330-8148)
- Nathan Faivre (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6011-4921)
- Liad Mudrik (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3564-6445)
- D. Hoffmann
- Dorian Goueytes (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0836-5333)
- Michael Pereira (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0778-674X)
- Philippe Kahane (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1330-3281)
- Milan Brázdil (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7979-2343)
- Radek Mareček (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8399-3455)
- Ramla Msheik
Institutions
- Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CA)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Central European Institute of Technology (CZ)
- Inserm (FR)
- Tel Aviv University (IL)
- Masaryk University (CZ)
- Université de Lille (FR)
- Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Grenoble (FR)
- Yale University (US)
- St. Anne's University Hospital Brno (CZ)
- Grenoble Institute of Neurosciences (FR)
- Computer Science Laboratory of Lille (FR)
- Université Savoie Mont Blanc (FR)
- Université Grenoble Alpes (FR)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-09-26
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-63255-y
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Neural dynamics and brain function
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.86
Funders
- European Commission
- Ministerstvo Školství, Mládeže a Tělovýchovy
- Grantová Agentura České Republiky
- HORIZON EUROPE Framework Programme