Neurophysiological correlates of collective perceptual decision-making

Humans frequently coordinate with others in daily life. A recent study on perceptual decision-making showed that dyad members with similar individual performances attain a higher joint performance than the better dyad member (i.e., a collective benefit). However, little is known about the physiological basis of these results. Here, we replicate this earlier work and also investigate the neurophysiological correlates of decision-making using EEG. In a two interval forced choice task, co-actors individually indicated presence of a target stimulus with a higher contrast and then indicated their confidence on a rating scale. Viewing the individual ratings, dyads made a joint decision. Replicating earlier work, we found a positive correlation between the similarity of individual performances and collective benefit. We analyzed event related potentials (ERPs) in three phases (i.e., stimulus onset, response, and feedback) using explorative cluster mass permutation tests. At stimulus onset, ERPs were significantly linearly related to our manipulation of contrast differences, validating our manipulation of task difficulty. For individual and joint responses, we found a significant centro-parietal error-related positivity for correct versus incorrect responses, which suggests that accuracy is already evaluated at the response level. At feedback presentation, we found a significant late positive fronto-central potential elicited by incorrect joint responses, suggesting a stronger emotional response to negative as compared to positive feedback. In sum, these results demonstrate that response- and feedback-related components elicited by an error-monitoring system differentially integrate conflicting information exchanged during the joint decision-making process.