Skip to main content
European Commission logo print header

A neurally-informed behavioural modeling framework for examining individual and group difference in perceptual decision making

Project description

New way to detect age-related brain pathologies

One of the goals of modern psychology is to explain the inter-individual differentiation of mechanistic causes in decision making. However, it is a complicated task as even our simplest perceptual choice depends on numerous processes. Mathematical 'sequential sampling' models are meant to analyse these processes differentiating the behaviour of choice making, but they still aren’t precise due to their methodological limitations. The EU-funded IndDecision project aims to overcome this issue by applying an innovative, ground-breaking method that enables the use of decision process models based on observed, compared and measured behavioural results thanks to non-invasive electrophysiology. The project will help detect age-related brain pathologies at an early stage enabling better treatment effects.

Objective

Pinpointing the mechanistic origins of inter-individual differences in decision making is a central goal of modern psychology and a considerable challenge because even elementary perceptual choices rely on a multitude of sensory, cognitive, motivational and motoric processes. For this reason, researchers have relied heavily on a set of mathematical ‘sequential sampling’ models that are designed to parse the latent psychological processes driving variations in choice behaviour. Although these models have been fruitfully employed in thousands of theoretical and neurophysiological investigations, they suffer from several limitations that particularly undermine their utility in inter-individual or -group comparisons including: A) parameter values are estimated on a relative, within-subject scale; B) the models come in many forms that can make identical behavioural predictions despite invoking fundamentally different mechanisms (‘model mimicry’); and C) they deal in abstract psychological constructs that are themselves dependent on multiple neural processes. The objective of this proposal is to address each of these issues by pioneering a ground-breaking decision modelling framework in which models are constructed and evaluated based on their ability to explain key observable aspects of the neural implementation of the human decision process in addition to its behavioural output. This ambitious goal is made possible by recent advances in non-invasive electrophysiology which enable direct observation, measurement and manipulation of the decision process as it unfolds in the human brain. Across a series of empirical investigations that will use adult aging as a test-bed for studying inter-individual and -group differences, this research will yield new methods for directly comparing model parameter values across subjects, resolve prominent theoretical debates regarding decision making algorithms and gain important new insights into their susceptibility to cognitive aging.

Fields of science

Host institution

THE PROVOST, FELLOWS, FOUNDATION SCHOLARS & THE OTHER MEMBERS OF BOARD, OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY & UNDIVIDED TRINITY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH NEAR DUBLIN
Net EU contribution
€ 1 996 310,00
Address
COLLEGE GREEN TRINITY COLLEGE
D02 CX56 DUBLIN 2
Ireland

See on map

Region
Ireland Eastern and Midland Dublin
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost
€ 1 996 310,00

Beneficiaries (1)