Ultrafast initiation of a neural race by impending errors

The brain makes decisions by means of races between neural units representing alternative choices. In the present study, we record the eyemovements made in the Wheeless task, when a visual stimulus is followed after a short delay by another stimulus demanding a different response. The behaviour can be very precisely described as a race between three independent decision processes: one Go process for each of the responses, and a Stop process that tries to cancel the first, now erroneous, response. To explain the high success rate for cancellation that we observe, the onset time for the Stop process must be some 10–20 ms shorter than for Go. As well as extending our understanding of the dynamics of complex decision‐making, this task provides a rapid, non‐invasive method for quantifying disorders of higher neural function.

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